The Learning Curve...

A few weeks ago, my wireless router began acting up. During each episode, I would have to unplug it and wait a few seconds before restarting. Although the on-off procedure seemed to resolve the problem each time, I knew the router was on its last leg. About two days ago, it died. Because I had recently started with a new Internet service, I wanted to make sure it was my router before I purchased a new one. I plugged the connector cable directly into my computer, which should have supplied working service, but it didn’t. This made me suspect it wasn’t my router. Just to be sure, I decided to try tech support and see if they could talk me through it.

Now, I know profiling is not a nice thing, especially since it’s casting judgment even when there is little-to-no information available to truly judge. Nevertheless, as soon as the tech support person answered, I knew I was in trouble. The woman sounded reasonably intelligent, but I didn’t feel confident in her ability to resolve a hi-tech problem (which actually wasn’t all that hi-tech). As she began to ask questions and give answers, I immediately became convinced I was right. I have always found tech savvy people are like great films. My mom always said you can tell if a movie is going to be good in the first five minutes. The same is true when dealing with tech support. If in that first five minutes, there is not a feeling a confidence instilled, then it is probably a better idea to hang up and call back. Just like playing a slot machine, it really is the luck of the draw.

After spending roughly forty minutes on the phone with this woman, she gave up and said she would be unable to resolve my issue. She explained that a technician would have to visit the house for me to get resolution. Trying not to get too frustrated, I scheduled an appointment for the following morning. I was told the tech would arrive between 8am and noon. No sooner than I had hung up, a friend called. I explained that I had just wasted 40 minutes of my morning dealing with a tech that I had suspected couldn’t help in the first place. My friend said he had unfortunately dealt with hours of tech support and that maybe he could help with the knowledge of how his own problems had been resolved. After less than five minutes on the phone with him, I had restored my Internet service (although I still need a router to continue with wifi). And the defining moment was when my friend mentioned that Macs usually walk you through what you need to do. I launched the Mac assistant and in less than ten clicks, I was once again online.

Now, this brings me to the true purpose of today’s posting. Have we completely lost our respect for education in this country? It seems we have made education more and more expensive, but the payoff has become smaller and smaller. I was brought up to believe an education gave you an advantage over not having had one. But after graduation, I still recall recruiters having told me that people with bachelor’s degrees were getting jobs as salespeople and receptionists. It appeared many corporations regarded a four-year degree as “common.” Of course these realities make people question the value of the degree. Has America been dumbed down? My answer to that question is a resounding yes! We are a culture that rewards athletes with million dollar contracts because they can run or throw a ball. And then we have people of questionable talent, the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world, and they are placed on pedestals for what is usually unquestionably bad behavior. And while these people become icons, our teachers are left to struggle on meager salaries even though they are oftentimes the only authority figures for many of our youth.

And I won’t beat up on the tech support woman who helped me. It was clear she didn’t have training in information technologies. If that had been the case, AT&T would have had to pay a higher wage than they are probably willing to do. The woman who answered my call was given a script of scenarios and told if the customer says XYZ is the problem, take them through steps 1, 2 and 3. Probably she did exactly what she was trained to do, but without a true understanding of what I was describing, she was ultimately unable to help. It is a sad reality because what AT&T has done (as well as other corporations) is create a lose-lose situation. As a customer, I lose because I haven’t been helped and their employee was set up to fail having been placed in a position for which she is unqualified. When we, as a society, begin to value education, we will begin to re-prioritize the value of our teachers vs. how much an athlete makes for being able to throw a ball. My only question is how bad does it have to get before we do that?