Saving People’s Sanity, One Basic Query at a Time

Earlier this week, not for the first time, I attempted to work out how to make certain edits on my blog site; also not unusually, within probably no more than ten minutes I had reached exasperation point and furiously typed about five questions at once into the support chat line. On this particular morning, I was in such a mood that my frustration had me literally in tears. The support person kept me waiting just long enough for me to recover my senses somewhat – but thankfully no longer, because no matter how cross-eyed I feel trying to understand the nuts and bolts of block editing, the support crew is predictably superb at responding to queries within minutes, and always in a friendly way. I went from tears of frustration to tears of relief. Just another mid-week mini-rollercoaster.

I’m admittedly not very patient with technology and user interfaces that don’t practically reach out and hold your hand while they guide you step by step. But some days, everything just seems set to blow up in your hands – editing software, dishwasher doors, overfull coffee cups. I am always effusively grateful to the online support guys, so I know it probably would have been unnecessary, but this morning I almost wanted to apologise for any additional sense of blind rage, as well as blind stupidity, I may have been conveying in the chat. I also wanted to add that my questions were probably extremely basic, that I was probably being one of those people who simply cannot muster the patience to properly read even one of their many very detailed how-to guides, and most importantly that I was having a very bad day and thank you and God bless you for being there and making me feel better.

I later vented about my useless mood and desktop battles to a good friend, who said that she had just hired a graphic designer to help her set up some of her artwork for printing, because she didn’t know how to convert it into the right format for the printers to work with. She basically described it as a choice between paying a professional to do a job that would take them probably less time than the half-hour they charged for, or arguing with her husband to do it.

I know that the stereotype of the IT team spending most of their time answering the phone with “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” must be based at least loosely on reality (and of course I know they made a series around it). I know it must also be a genuine pain when responding to the same basic and often dumbfounding queries takes up most of one’s working life. But for what it’s worth, I would like to point out that, besides helping people fix problems that they might often be able to sort out themselves, support staff are adding potentially much more value to their clients’ lives. Apart from, for example, helping people get on with their business, they are easing marital tension. Preventing family blow-ups. Making people feel better on mornings when they can’t even pour their coffee straight.

I once had a physiotherapist who not-so-subtly pointed out that my constant questioning about the prognosis of my tight Achilles was basically a form of anxiety-driven malingering, and joked that he had become a psychologist on the side through no choice of his own (I forgave him for implying but stopping short of saying: “It’s all in your head.”). I have a physio friend who has similarly agreed that a lot of the time, you’re not just treating patient’s ITB problems but also, frankly, their mental wellbeing. After all, if we’re honest, nobody brings just their legs to the clinic.

But my point is that helping people feel and therefore cope better goes beyond all forms of therapy or personal services (like grooming – as just one example, who can deny the value that hairdressers contribute to society?). It’s not just those in counselling and other “helping” professions who are maintaining people’s sanity; it’s also those who step in when a degreed professional is at risk of breaking household objects because they think they just broke their blog’s homepage. 

You never know whose sanity you might be saving.