Someone once said, “Women. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.” I feel that way about technology. Last week I spent nearly 3 days dealing with technology – specifically VPN. I have used it for months with no issues. Suddenly, I could not access my e-mails with VPN turned on. No problem with VPN turned off. So, calls and chats with various tech reps (by the numbers)…
DAY ONE:
#1. It is your modem. It’s 5 years old. Use the new one we send.
#2. Let me uninstall and re-install VPN. (Three times without success.) I need to pass you to a Level II tech.
#3. Level II tech. Don’t use the United States as your designated country. Some e-mail providers block e-mail access when using VPN and the US. VPN is designed to mask country of origin. Select another country. (That worked for 1 day.)
DAY TWO:
#4. Sorry, the new modem we sent won’t allow VPN use. It should. We’ll send you another modem.
#5. The prior tech rep installed an outdated version of VPN. I’ll uninstall it and install the latest version. (That didn’t work either.)
#6. Don’t use VPN on your home, private, and secure network. It wasn’t designed for that. Turn it off. Only use VPN when you are using a public network such as a library, coffee shop, airport, etc.
DAY THREE:
#7. To access e-mails, you must turn VPN off. When you want to surf the web and access other websites, then remember to turn it on and select a different country than the US.
# 8. We are having technical difficulties. Eventually, VPN will work the way it should. You will just have to try it over the next few days to see if we have fixed the bugs.
DAY FOUR (a weekend later):
I’m still waiting.
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Someone once said, “Women. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.” I feel that way about technology. Last week I spent nearly 3 days dealing with technology – specifically VPN. I have used it for months with no issues. Suddenly, I could not access my e-mails with VPN turned on. No problem with VPN turned off. So, calls and chats with various tech reps (by the numbers)…
DAY ONE:
#1. It is your modem. It’s 5 years old. Use the new one we send.
#2. Let me uninstall and re-install VPN. (Three times without success.) I need to pass you to a Level II tech.
#3. Level II tech. Don’t use the United States as your designated country. Some e-mail providers block e-mail access when using VPN and the US. VPN is designed to mask country of origin. Select another country. (That worked for 1 day.)
DAY TWO:
#4. Sorry, the new modem we sent won’t allow VPN use. It should. We’ll send you another modem.
#5. The prior tech rep installed an outdated version of VPN. I’ll uninstall it and install the latest version. (That didn’t work either.)
#6. Don’t use VPN on your home, private, and secure network. It wasn’t designed for that. Turn it off. Only use VPN when you are using a public network such as a library, coffee shop, airport, etc.
DAY THREE:
#7. To access e-mails, you must turn VPN off. When you want to surf the web and access other websites, then remember to turn it on and select a different country than the US.
# 8. We are having technical difficulties. Eventually, VPN will work the way it should. You will just have to try it over the next few days to see if we have fixed the bugs.
DAY FOUR (a weekend later):
I’m still waiting.