Customer "Care" (and using hangups to solve hang-ups)

I scream, you scream, We've all screamed for better customer care when we finally admit (after hours of fiddling) that we might not be able to fix that faulty piece of gear. Now, we all know in our hearts that when we dial that 800 number-of-shame that we're going to have to endure a battery of choose-your-own adventure choices before a tech graces us with their know-how... and that's not a quick and painless process; god help you if you misdial. Then you sit on hold (though tonight, I actually had no queue in front of me, so boo-yah!). While they connect you, even before getting the actual help you called for, the most important part of the process begins.

I don't know how it's done, but some cosmic lottery assigns you either 1.) the guy who takes his help-manuals home with him, and reads them to his children at night, or 2.) a total douchebag. There really is no grey area here, because when you've fiddled for hours, battled with a voice recording that asks you to input the binary equivalent of what your problem is, and waited on hold, if that person isn't so excited about solving your problem they can barely contain themselves, you kinda want to punch them in the kidneys.

I upgraded to Windows 7 (it's awesome), but I've had some compatibility issues that I've tried to solve on my own for the last couple of weeks. Finally I gave in, called Lenovo, suffered through the shenanigans mentioned above, and finally got Frank on the line. Frank... is a douchebag. Now, if I was still new at the "getting help" game, this story would go a lot further, but I'm a little older, a little wiser, so *click*.

Trust me folks, it's easier to wait on hold for another 45 min than deal with Frank the douchebag. Needless to say Matt was a lot more helpful, my new drivers are downloaded, my problems are solved, and I have time to go grab that Choco Taco I've been thinking about since noon.