Some Kind Of Help Is What Helping's All About

Brian Watson of Microsoft called me the other day. To be more precise, one of Mister Watson's underlings called me. This associate wanted to let me know that Microsoft had been receiving "certain error messages" and they were concerned about "possible security issues" with my PC running Windows operating system. Initially, I felt grateful that I happened to be home to take this call, since most weekdays I would have been at school, in a room full of PCs running Windows operating system. As the computer teacher at an urban elementary school, I have more than just a passing familiarity with error messages and security issues working with Microsoft products. It occurred to me to ask what these folks might have to offer for my budget-strapped lab in the way of technical support, but I wasn't getting a word in edgewise.
This might also be the time to relate that the other issue I had besides the very assertive and persistent nature of the "help" I was getting from this "Microsoft" employee was the rather thick Indian accent through which I was having to decipher all of this very important technical "help." I wanted to know how this very concerned individual had discovered that I was having difficulty with my computer. I wondered if he could tell me what IP address was sending the error messages. He gave me a series of numbers that loosely fit the IP format, but were not the ones associated with my machine. Could it be that he had made a mistake?
"Do you want to talk to my direct supervisor?" asked my increasingly impatient expert.
"Sure," I said. "I'll hold."
I needn't have worried, since the supervisor seemed to be standing very close to his drone. There was no hold music, no silence, just a rustle of the phone being passed and the chatter in the background.
"Who am I speaking to?"
"This is Ben Watson."
Now we were getting somewhere. "Ben, what precisely did you want to achieve by calling me and getting me to turn on my computer?"
In a similarly thick Indian accent, Ben Watson proceeded to give me the same line about errors and security, and then implored me to go to the keyboard, "Press the control key. You know where the control key is?"
"Yes, I do, but I'm not going to push it, Ben. And just out of curiosity, where are you calling from?"
"Ah - Washington - and now if you would please start by pressing the control key..."
"Ben, I'm not going to press any key until you tell me what it is that you expect to achieve by having me do all of this."
"Now you are just messing with me," grimaced Ben. Only he didn't use the word "messing."
"That didn't sound very professional Ben, I think you owe me an apology."
But Ben didn't hear me. He had hung up in frustration. He wasn't going to help me solve my security and error issues today. He wasn't going to get me to buy a useless virus protection system or enable him and his associates to gain remote access to my computer to have their way with, then cast it aside. I'm not sure that Ben was actually a Microsoft employee. It was nice of him to try, at least.