Lies defeat truth?

A few hours ago, i received a call that reminded me of Alfred Nobel and his wit. Today, the first of a series of Nobel prizes for 2009 was announced and it is little wonder that i related the call to Nobel.

The caller wanted me to help them fix their office Internet connection. I asked what happened to their tech support guy and the caller says: "He is here. He has failed. He has been trying to contact you but you did not help".

Well, i told my caller that i was on the road driving and i could not talk on my phone for longer than 20 seconds for fear of being seen by traffic police. The tech guy had called me earlier and i told him that much.

Problem? Yes. The techie had changed a Linksys SOHO wireless router's settings, knocked everything and thus everybody off the network and failed to connect them to another network as he had intended. Worse still when the users got desperate, they asked the tech guy to put them back on the older settings and let them continue with their work as he figured out how to fix it.

The guy just could not do it.

And i bet the reason they called me is that the tech guy told them some lie about me and the Linksys. They believed it. They called. Huh!

Now what kind of tech support or tech advice would that fella give to his clients? Linksys devices are made and designed to be used by "dummies". Dummies willing to spend a few minutes tinkering with the device will make it work. Somehow. And techies?

Nobel wrote: "The truthful man is usually defeated by the liar".

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