Pinto, If you re-read my message, you'll note that I had no knowledge of Dell's Tech Support people. Indeed, to my knowledge, none of my former employer's employees are taking Dell Tech Support calls. That must be a different call center. I provided tech support for MSN, and went out of my way to be sure I had the skills to help my customers. That even included working at home, unpaid, if I felt the need for research, etc. Most of my co-workers on the MSN contract were equally dedicated. Most of them restricted their job-related pursuits to the job. But who can blame them? You might not know that many companies now hire call centers to take their calls. There might be different call centers around the country, and even in other countries. Some call centers might handle tech calls, while others handle customer service calls. Or there might be different divisions within the same call center for each purpose. The situation you described sounded like a "newbie tech." On the other hand I've seen some "official procedures" written up that made little sense. I usually found a way to change things so they made more sense, and served the customer and myself better. Ron (PS, remember that I lost my job when the MSN work died out, and never made the transition to Dell Customer Service. I think I made a better tech than I would customer service anyway.)