806: Tech Support
explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
| Tech Support |
 Title text: I recently had someone ask me to go get a computer and turn it on so I could restart it. He refused to move further in the script until I said I had done that. |
[edit] Explanation
My thanks to Chris Gaylord for this explanation:
The word Shibboleet is formed by combining the terms shibboleth and leet. Leet is an internet/hacker/gamer term for elite or skilled. A shibboleth is a word that a person unfamiliar with the language will not pronounce correctly.
[edit] Transcript
- [Cueball is on the phone, and holding up some networking hardware.]
- Cueball: ... restart my computer? I know you have a script to follow, but the uplink light on the modem is going off every few hours. The problem is between your office and the modem.
- Cueball: My computer has nothing to do with ... okay, whatever, I "restarted my computer."
- Cueball: It's still down, and even if it comes back, it's going to die again in a few hours, because your--
- Cueball: I don't HAVE a start menu. This is a Haiku install, but that's not import--
- Cueball: Haiku? It's an experimental OS that I ... oh, never mind.
- Cueball: I'm sorry, but this won't get fixed until I talk to an engineer. Can you look around for someone wearing cargo pants, maybe a subway map on their wall?
- [The tech support person on the other end is wearing a headset, and looks around.]
- Tech: There's a chick two phones over with a stuffed penguin doll and a poster of some bearded dudes with swords.
- Cueball: Perfect. Can you put her on?
- Tech: Sure.
- [Cueball is now talking to the engineer.]
- Cueball: Hey, so sorry to bother you, but my connection--
- Engineer: Yeah, I see it. Lingering problems from a server move.
- <<type type>>
- Engineer: Should be fixed now.
- Cueball: Thank you SO MUCH.
- Engineer: No problem. Hey, in the future, if you're on any tech support call, you can say the code word "shibboleet" at any point and you'll be automatically transferred to someone who knows a minimum of two programming languages.
- Cueball: Seriously?
- Engineer: Yup. It's a backdoor put in by the geeks who built these phone support systems back in the 1990's.
- Engineer: Don't tell anyone.
- Cueball: Oh my god, this is the greatest--
- [Cueball wakes up.]
- Cueball: Wha--
- Cueball: ... DAMMIT.
add a comment!Discussion
Actually, a shibboleth's meaning is more complex. It's actually a phrase or principle that distinguishes a group of people and can be used to identify people foreign to said group. For example, in WWII, words with lots of L's were used as a shibboleth to identify Japanese spies, as many Japanese pronounce their L's as R's. 67.85.230.8 04:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)Liz
