Yesterday I was updating my wifi router encription method from WEP encryption to WPA2, since the WEP encryption is not very secure. Anyway, at some point it blew my internet connection and the router needed to be reconfigured from the ground. I was trying to get around with the options but at some point I realized that I’m gonna need help from the support hotline. I needed some of the information wich is printed on a sticker on the packaging of the router. Great idea putting it there! — Packaging long gone since I own the router for almost two years now. I hardly remembered my son used it as a swimming pool for his plastic fishes back in summer. — Are we supposed to keep all the packaging of all the products we bought ever for, lets say, 10 years? Like with all that tax related stuff?
Well, maybe it was a bit of my own fault, but what really scared me was that I had to call the customer support hotline of AT&T.

There are a lot of funny postings out there on the internet about scary experiences with customer support hotlines and not a small number of them are related to this company.

But my experience was different. Infact, I was helped quick and polite and after a little bit of back and forth they offered me a solution wich worked out perfect. And just to make it clear: this was not my first attempt to call (or chat with, like in this case) a customer support hotline and with a lot of other companies and offices I had similar horrifying experiences like the ones in all those fittingly internet postings.

Afterall I had kind of a reciprocal feeling and for a moment I was utterly confounded.

But just as to rectify my view of the world I discovered today (with my great working internet connection) this little blog and I think it is very funny. It is called theoatmeal.com and a lot of you guys might know it already. It has a story (among a lot of other brilliant and hillarious issues) wich fits perfect to my now-95%-world-view of customer support hotlines.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please click to enjoy:

((via Dangerous Minds))

Back then, when I lived in Germany, I loved to watch all those silly QVC or HOT (Home Order Television) shows late at night. The later the better. They got stranger the later in the night it was. Porcelaine puppets, digi-cam-laptop bundles, stupid beads and trinkets or cellphone contracts wich you would pay for long after you’d be dead.

But — as it strikes me so often — America does better. This is a show from a public access cable show from Oklahoma in the nineties wich just sells crap. It’s called Bargain Barn. And it’s real crap. But the guy sells this crap with the same dedication as if he’s selling pure and shiny gold. Love it or leave it. Allrighty?!! Good to go.

((thank you boingboing))