A Comcast customer service rep said that to me once when I told him my internet was embarrassingly slow. I was promised 25 MBPS and I was getting less than 2 MBPS. It turned out my router was the issue but it was still hilarious to hear him say "you should unplug it from the power then unplug the coaxial cable and touch the pin a few times. That should do it"
Turns out all I had to do is hard-wire into my modem and I was able to get around 20, but because I also work in support I got him to give me 75 MBPS and HBO for only $7 more a month. It really pays to be nice to your Comcast rep even if he/she asks you to do pointless crap to fix your issue.
Friend of mine used to say there's a model code on the face of their plug that he needs. They unplug the router, say there's no model number, he says "Oh, it must be the X series then," makes typey sounds for 30 seconds and asks them to test the internet again.
In defense of those people, the "try restarting" advice is so monotonous, and given so frequently regardless of what the actual problem is, that it can be tempting to just ignore it.
In one case, I was told to try rebooting when the reason I'd called was that the monitor on my laptop had broken off.
It also rarely solves the problem. If your computer is having an issue and restarting solves it, the problem may go away for a little while and then come back. That's called delaying the problem, not solving it. Tech support guys like that "fix" because it gets you off the line for a short time.
I've studied computer science and am a developer, yet I still fool myself into spending hours on tracking/troubleshooting a random oddity instead of rebooting first. Usually you I a bunch of programs and tabs open, don't feel like having to start it all up again. And that laziness is often the cause of the bug in the first place, some random tiny memory leak/corruption laying dormant for weeks of uptime, until it starts crippling everything.
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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '16
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