May 5th, 2017 – 12:54am PST:

I’ve sat in that seat before, and it’s maddening, to say the least. You do *want* to help the person on the other end of the line, but like battlefield triage, sometimes you gotta prioritize those with a fighting chance over those poor souls who are on their fourth password reset of the morning.

***BEGIN-RECORDING-08032007135119****

TECH: “I’m sorry, I uh, I need to call you back. Not because we’ve been on the phone for three hours or anything, but because I’m totally feeling sick *cough cough* and should probably–”

USER: “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I wrote my last password on a napkin, and then I FORGOT and USED the napkin, and THEN mistakenly threw it away, so if could just–”

TECH: “I’m going to stop you right there so that I can take a moment in private, to shoot myself. In the face. Repeatedly.

USER: “Well, before you do, could you just…”

***END—RECORDING-08032007135328****

Even better is the usual claim from on high: “This new system will be foolproof! Really! No one will struggle with it!”

False. Give a hundred monkeys hammers, and I promise you at LEAST one of them will try to eat their hammer, and then throw it back at you because it doesn’t taste that great. That’s just nature for you. There’s no winning.