To the MagiNet hotel Internet help desk people...

...I'm sorry I snapped at you today. I am the worst customer of Internet connection help desks. I know too much about this stuff, and so my patience quickly goes to zero when we're obviously barking up the wrong tree.

Background: I had trouble with the 'net connection in the Courtyard Parramatta hotel today. Worked fine yesterday, no luck today. Tried all the usual reboot, reseat cables, etc. with no luck, so I was forced to call the support line. (Yeah, I said cables - no wireless except in the lobby.)

First up was a guy who ran me through the support script. Is the computer on? Is your network cable plugged in? Are you using DHCP? Blah, blah, blah. I darn near told him that my cupholder was broken, just to see what his reaction would be, but I resisted since I really wanted this to be over with as soon as possible.

Finally he got around to asking me to reboot the modem in the room, which I hadn't thought of myself. I'm spoiled by wireless these days, forgot about the hardware that goes along with the cords. Bingo, the data light is blinking instead of steady green. Ah, I've seen this before - means the modem's not getting a data signal. Someone probably kicked the cord in the switch room. Problem found, right?

Uh, no. Apparently they don't teach first-level support about the modem lights. Despite my explanations, he drops off the phone to call the manager at the hotel. (Actually he may very well have done that just to get away from my explanations, since obviously he had no clue what I was talking about. ) The manager comes up to my room with a new modem. Fail. The manager calls back...and of course we get someone completely different since the first guy never told us who he was.

Now we're talking to a nice lady with an Indian accent (as best I could tell - I'm no expert). She starts talking to the manager, obviously walking through the support script again, while he tried to use my laptop to go through it. He's completely lost, not able to find anything she's telling him to do, while all the time the real problem is sitting under the desk happily blinking its little green failure light. I finally lost patience and took the phone over, determining that the lady on the phone was reading a Vista support script while my laptop has XP, so of course the manager wasn't seeing the stuff she was asking for. I again explain about the modem lights, and again there's no recognition on the other end. "The lights are on, it must be working!" Bah.

At this point I've realized we're going to get nowhere, so I ask the manager if any other rooms have working Internet. Apparently yes, if you go down to the 5th floor (I was on the 6th). One room switch later, everything's working fine. I don't envy the next person who tries to use the Internet connection in room 622, though.

So to the unknown guy and nice Indian lady who attempted to help today, I'm sorry about being short with you on the phone. And to whoever wrote the MagiNet support scripts...dig a little deeper into what the modem lights mean, it'll save us all some frustration.