A local high-tech company is scoring poorly in the low-tech department of telephone answering. Joe Reporter phoned 'em up the other day, and boy, did he have tales to tell! The first time he called he asked for whomever is in charge of media relations. This mystified the phone answerer, so he rephrased the request: "May I speak to someone who handles media questions?" to which the savvy receptionist replied, "We've got everything we need. Thank you." Hunh? Joe Reporter chewed on that about a half-hour, then, doggedly, tried again.This time the reporter identified himself and his mission, and the secretary said, "My manager handles that and she's busy right now. Can you call back later?" Not "May I take a message?" Hey, if they handle media like this, how do they treat customers? Suggestion to company: Get automated voicemail. Next Secretaries' Day we know an office that should NOT be filled with flowers, cards, candy and balloons.

OK, here's the thing. Your computer doesn't work. It keeps crashing and, although not an earth-shattering or data destroying problem, it is extremely time consuming and annoying. So you call the Computer Guy. And he comes in to fix your computer. Well, you're savvy enough to be able to tick off the symptoms ("It doesn't print." "It won't open any files that contain Java script."). Then comes the hard part. He starts asking questions. This, friends, is where your brain starts to atrophy. "You have three network protocols loaded in here. You don't need all of them! Which one do you use? I'll dump the rest and it'll free up space on your hard drive which, by the way, needs more RAM." Well, well, well. Which thingamabob is driving the whatchamacallit? If you knew that, you could probably fix the computer by yourself. It'd be easier to determine the temperature of the moon's core than answer some of these questions. You feel like shouting, but you have to be nice, because your hard drive is in his hands. Finally, after a half hour of grilling you, he figures out the answers himself, fixes the computer and leaves. Whew.