Mac Support
A few years ago I worked for a Mac support company whose name sounded very much like it should be an opticians.

My job was sales, a task the company claimed never to have had a problem with as the product "sells itself". They were mac-focussed but claimed to also support PCs (even though the MD had never, ever, ever touched a Windows box in his whole entire life) and had "many technicians across the country".

These technicians consisted, in fact, of one part-timer, one pre-op transsexual and one sixth-former; as well as the (admittedly competent) efforts of the MD.

Soon after arriving I discovered the product was in fact almost unsellable. Why? Well, how much time have Apple spent recently telling us that Macs "just work"? This campaign has apparently been a little too effective, as no-one seemed to think support was needed, in spite of our conviction that without pre-paid support, fixing your Mac if it was borked would cost "hundreds". But that didn't matter, because of course I was taken off selling at every opportunity.

Need to develop a new DVD telling everyone how great we are? Need to go to Lincoln for three weeks to do some cabling for one of our few clients? Yep, that was me. Eventually, after three months of late and missed pay cheques, I was "made redundant" and told that it was because I was "not selling enough".

Really? Well it's hard to sell support contracts when you've spent the last month in a false ceiling re-running cables that the supposedly professional cabler fucked up!

The company recently went bust and re-opened the next day under a slightly different name (change the "UK Ltd" to "GB Ltd", you get the idea) - a tactic they have successfully used three or four times before. And always blaming someone else. Face it guys, you can;t sell Mac support - it just doesn't work.
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:54, 7 replies)

Hmm...
From the X5 I know you're from Cambs.

The guy's name wasn't Martin was it? surname began with a 'P'?
( snee held his breath since, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:00, closed)

I couldn't
possibly say yes. But yes.

So you've encountered them how?
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:46, closed)

I used to work for a company
That used him for their Mac support...think he still works out of a house opposite the Texaco garage in St Neots.
( snee held his breath since, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:08, closed)

Opposite
Total, actually; which is where I worked for them.

On the plus side, we got free lunch every day.
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:25, closed)

Total yes...
Dunno why I said Texaco
( snee held his breath since, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:29, closed)

I may have met one of your colleagues.
The pre-op. Did her name begin with an A? Did she wind up driving HGVs in Canada?
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 21:35, closed)

Well,
when I worked there her name began with a B, but she hadn't actually officially changed it yet and occasionally decided upon a new, better name.
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 8:44, closed)