I've done tech support before, so I know how tempting it is to just assume the user is a moron. But as a tech support guy, I always began from the assumption that even if the user was an idiot, solving his problem was my job.

It seems that this is a bizarre notion among tech support people.

I'm the developer for Valpac, an industrial adhesive manufacturer on the eastern shore of Maryland (and no, not the people who mail you coupons.

A few weeks ago, I redesigned the entire website in PHP (You can't see it just now, because it's still in a Seekrit Development Directory until I solve the problem I'm about to complain about). I've grown to really like PHP, and I'm rather proud of the new design.

But there's a problem: the damned thing doesn't work. More specifically, if I access any of the PHP pages, I get a 403 error. Sometimes. In my line of work, I have access to a whole heap of machines, and some of them get the page, and others get the 403. Most of them get the 403. Various proxies and other web services (Like Google's translator and W3C's validator) also get the 403. So this isn't a problem at my end. Doing a little research, I discovered that the web host has more than one servers, and you only get the 403 error when one particular server on their end tries to serve the page. If one of their other servers fields the request, it works fine. So it's not a problem at my end. In fact, it is a problem with just one of their servers.

And I say this not just because I used my deductive logic skills to deduce it. I say it because I called technical support two weeks ago, and after about an hour of haranguing the guy on the other end, he determined that it was a problem on their end with one of their servers. And he promised to fix it.

And he did. At least, the next day, every computer I tried it from could access the page.

And now, none of the computers I tried can access the page. I checked everything, and all the symptoms are the same. So, it's time to contact technical support again.

So, being tired of this, I had someone who could speak with somewhat more authority make the call. The vice president for research and development at Valpac called the web host, explained the problem in detail, and was told to clear his browser cache and try again.

So, it was time for me to actually do my job and contact them myself. I sent off an email in which I detailed exactly what was wrong, I explained that I had tried it in IE, I had tried it in Firefox, I had tried it in Opera, heck, I had even tried it in Lynx (Okay, I really hadn't, but I was hoping that the fact that I knew what Lynx was would convince them that I was technically saavy enough to actually be worth listening to). I had tried it from several computers. I had tried it from computers that weren't behind the same proxy. I had tried it from computers with different operating systems. I had uploaded the php to my own personal webserver and tried it there. The problem wasn't with my computer. It wasn't with my browser. It wasn't with my PHP. It was with their server. I explained exactly what the problem was and what they had to do to fix it.

Guess what they told me? Yep. "Try clearing your browser cache." So I responsed that I *had* cleared my browser cache, I gave them ,as they requested, the version of my browser. I told them what their own diagnostic scripts told me about the server that was giving me the problem. I even told them that the *last time* I'd had this problem, they had fixed it, and I told them how they had fixed it the last time.

They told me, "Try clearing your browser cache".

Bastards.

What bothers me isn't being treated like an idiot. I mean, I don't like being treated like an idiot, but I know full well that 99.99999% of the requests they get are stupid, nonsensical, and sent by idiots, so I am willing to concede that "treat the user like an idiot" is probably the most efficient business model for them to follow. What bothers me is that it is becoming increasingly clear that they aren't even reading my requests. When the very first line of my request is "I have ALREADY CLEARED THE BROWSER CACHE," what other possible reason could they have for saying "Clear your browser cache"?

I'm not asking for special treatment. I mean, it'd be both nice for me and useful for them if I could just, like, say a secret magic word to let them know that I'm not an idiot and they could therefore skip all the question-deflecting crap they normally have to go through, but I don't actually need it, and since I'm not the one paying the tech support guy's salary, it's no skin off my back if he wants to waste time on the bonehead stuff first. All I'm asking is for them to actually do their jobs. You know, read the freaking message.

I'm sure Alex would be proud and all [2 points], but, well, were it up to me, these folks would have already lost my business.

Now, if you don't mind, I have to go clear out my browser cache.