apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

How funny! I was having trouble with my DSL line and the tech support people told me that it was moisture in the lines also -- in Miami.

The tech/IT issues of working at home have led to many hours of lost time -- so frustrating!

Don't you just hate how it's a crapshoot when you call tech support? Some days you can get an angel who is ridiculously well informed and other days you get total blockheads!

for those who work at home, consider checking out geeksquad.com They've been working with Best Buy, and their target customer is small home based businesses that aren't likely to have their own IT department. i haven't used them or talked to anyone who has...but it might be something work checking out...

Funny that this topic should come up today... Yesterday's phone service disruption: while I briefly popped into the shower, my client tried to leave me a voicemail TWICE but got cut off each time. My 2 year-old, stirred from his blocks and Elmo, found a cordless receiver and thwarted each attempt at a message. Super embarrassing.
Note to self: must take all cordless phones into bathroom with me... or skip bathing?

i don't work from home, but i used to be a computer tech.

i worked for an internet company for awhile & i was shocked at who they would hire. some people's "computer experience" was limited to typing & e-mailing. these people had no idea what they were doing. i'm sure they were messing up people's computers.

it was so sickening that i quit even after being promoted to a specialist area. lol

if you ever have more problems, try suggesting thst the tech look up your modem & see what the connections in your area are doing. it's totally easy, but so many people forget. they figure if the modem isn't connecting, if MUST BE YOU. it can be, but not always.

more than a few times, there wasn't an outage & the modem was fine. what had happened is that a tech had gone into the wrong account & change the information for the modem thinking it was who they were helping. & after realizing the mistake, they don't note it, & just leave you to a lost connection. SEVERAL TIMES

I'm a User Experience Designer and have been working at home for 7 years. I have Time Warner (Cable) for my internet connection and I rarely have trouble with it. Generally, it is very fast. If my internet connection is down, it's usually due to the fact that Time Warner is making some upgrades. Time Warner will normally record a message on their support line to let you know that this is happening and in what area. Otherwise, it's a matter of turning my modem off for a minute, then turning it back on. If it's more serious than that, I call my brother who is a system administrator.

I love that blue chair in the picture. Any info about where to get one?

Oh my - I've personally had several meltdowns/freak outs in front of the comcast repairman (who you usually can't book for 3-4 days of lost business).

Now, thanks to WiFi, I use it as an excuse to get a big old fattening drink at Starbucks.

Oh, and the phone tech rule - the third time's a charm. I always hang up mid-call with the first two idiots I get and then get some Mac-genius awesome overqualified dude on the third try!

Becky

my "office" is in home right now, and luckily i worked in computer tech support while in college. also having a Macintosh cuts down on the problems, honestly. the only tech problems i haven't been able to solve by myself have been Comcast's fault. and yeah, usually the first person you talk to won't know squat.

RE: I love that blue chair in the picture. Any info about where to get one?

Oddly enough, it's at the link provided at the bottom of the post... :P

http://www.home-office-design.co.uk/acatalog/Vision_Seating.html

I started working from home in Jan 2006. Since then, my internet goes down sporadically. Ranging from once a day to 10 times per day.

My company has 3 corporate locations and each time I would call the corporate Help Desk, I would get excuses ranging from it's your modem (never was) or it's your cable provider (ditto, never the case).

What WAS the problem was related to our company server. One in MA, one in FL. They never work properly and not a week goes by without some sort of downtime. Sometimes only the remotes
(those of us that are allowed to telecommute) are affected...sometimes it's the whole company.

One thing I do know after 15 months of continual run-around is that my modem and internet service are FINE. My company's servers? That's another issue.