OMG

50% of the population are below average intelligence. Now I KNOW that it's not nice to make fun of them. However, I don't need to - they can manage that all by themselves.
Now don't get me wrong - I have been a teacher - and a successful one, having remembered what it's like not to know. But occasionally, one person stands out above the others, and you just have to wonder how it is they have the mental capacity to continue breathing.

The other day I took delivery of a new PC - or rather I had to go looking for the new PC which was delivered to the wrong address. When I found it and fired it up it had Windows 2000 on in instead of XP Pro. You'll remember Windows 2000, it's the one that 'built on Windows New Technology Technology'. Sort of like XP, but with all the bugs left in.

Anyway, I have an XP image, so, no probs, dump the cack and install the 'we're getting there' operating system - call the supplier for XP drivers for the machine. So far I'm on email number 4 to tech support. My problem is simple: I need the XP drivers for everything in the machine with serial number xxxxxx. How difficult is that? Read it again. My dog could understand it. So far I've had a pointer to a general ftp site NOT containing what I need, a suggestion that I might like to buy a backup CD (presumably to reinstall the W2K drivers!!!), and a referral to the Sales team as tech support cannot help. I've been polite. I've stated my case in simple English. In fact I cannot make the statement any simpler.

"I need the XP drivers for everything in the machine with serial number xxxxxx".

Thank god for Blogs. True, 'blog' is just newspeak for 'Diary' but hey, it's better that I vent my spleen here rather than on the phone to the cretinous. Now I just have to wait to see if the gentle reminder that we have a 2 million (?) a year contract has filtered through the cotton-wool currently in use as a frontal lobe. And yes, if you spotted it, a gentle, hinted-at reminder is almost destined to fail.....