So some of you have asked me if youtube is my only job,
Or like, what's going on with all that stuff.
And although my channel certainly has been growing a lot recently,
I do, still, actually have a regular big boy job.
Without going into too much detail,
I work in the IT department of a pretty big pharmaceutical company in Tokyo.
Now, if that sounds glamorous to you,
you would be completely wrong!
I mean, thankfully now I'm at a stage in my career
where I don't have to talk to users personally,
but as you'll hopefully come to learn from watching this video,
working entry-level IT is maybe the most soul-crushing,
"put your brain directly into a blender" thing you could do.
I mean really, the people I've met after doing this, for, I guess what, like 6 years now,
you wouldn't believe! Like, how are these people real people?
One time, I was talking to someone over the phone,
which, by the way, is the worst thing.
I mean, maybe this is just personal to me,
but like, I don't even like talking on the phone to anyone, ever, anyway,
but having to try to fix someone's computer OVER THE PHONE
is just my own personal bad place.
This user was complaining about, you know, like, this thing is slow,
or that thing won't open, or, like, whatever it was.
So I'm trying to walk him through the things he needs to check,
or turn this off, or enable this setting, or, like, whatever.
As you probably guessed, nothing is working at all,
which of course means it's my fault,
because everyone expects us to be some kind of Computer Jesus
and just wave our magic wands and *braang* Lazarus back from the dead.
So I tell him, "Okay, let's start from the beginning.
Just open the program."
And he says,
"What program?"
"Uh, the program we've been talking about for at least an hour now."
"OH! That's not on this computer."
"A wah wah whAT? The program you're having trouble with...
...isn't even installed on the computer?"
"Ahhh, no, this is someone else's computer!
I just thought, ya know, you could fix it anyway!
I mean, you're the IT guy, right?"
*silence as he ponders the idiocy*
"WHAT!?"
Yeah. So he thought I could fix any problem from any computer anywhere,
which, I mean, hey, appreciate your confidence in me and all that,
but like, sometimes I put on different colored socks by accident,
so let's dial it back a bit, okay?
Another thing that happens way more often than it should
is people will call in with an issue,
and as you're trying to tell them what they need to do,
because, ya know, chances are you've run into the same issue like, 27 bajillion times in the last week.
Anyway. So you start telling them exactly what they need to do,
and they suddenly, like, second guess everything you're saying,
like, "Okay do this." "No. That didn't work."
Now, see, this is something that should take, like, several minutes to do, you see,
but I'm like, "Uh, you're-you're done already? That was... fast."
"No, I just don't think it's gonna do anything. It doesn't sound like it'll solve my problems.
"You-you don't-think *sputters*
YOU CALLED ME!!"
And now you're trying to tech support my tech support?
Are you just bored? Do you need a friend?
But maybe, no, DEFINITELY,
the most bizarre story I have is this one lady and her email problem.
So I get a call from some manager lady somewhere, and she says,
"My email is broken!"
Now, this could mean literally anything.
One thing you learn really quickly from working with users is that
they have no idea what anything is or how to describe anything whatsoever.
'My email is broken' could be anything from
'My computer is a little bit slow' to 'I stubbed my toe this morning and now my foot hurts'.
Literally anything!
I go down to her floor to see what I could do.
She tells me, again, that her email is broken.
I go on her computer and try and open Outlook, buuuuutttt......
it's not on her computer anywhere.
I should probably clarify this point here, the company uses only Microsoft products,
so Outlook email is the company email.
Just so we're clear on things.
"Uhh, where's your email?"
"It's over there!" she says, and she points to her printer.
Now, as you might imagine, I'm a little confused on this one,
because that's a printer!
"Yah, and it won't print my emails!"
"Okay, I see, but you don't even have the company's email on your computer so what are you printing exactly?"
"UGH! Just go ask Janet!"
Fake name, by the way, because I don't really remember what their names were,
and I've been watching a lot of 'The Good Place' recently, so we're just gonna go with Janet.
So I go over to Janet and ask what's the deal with the other lady's email.
"Yeah, they won't print." she says to me.
Now, as you can imagine, I am still completely baffled by everything that's happening right now.
I asked Janet, "What the heck is even goin' on!" as she relays to me
the most amazingly, just, ridiculous story.
So apparently this manager doesn't know how to use email, or really, computers at all whatsoever.
And she wasn't even all that old, like, maybe like 40's or so? But, ANYWAY.
So this manager would ask Janet to print out every email meant for her,
and the manager lady would then hand-write her responses to each and every one,
give them back to Janet,
who would then type them into actual email and send them away.
No one seems to think that this was abnormal in any way!
Ha! Of course the manager handwrites her emails, why wouldn't she!
*confused sputtering*
Is she Amish? Does she come to work on a horse?
Does she have ten kids all named Ezekiel for some reason?
Anyway. The actual problem was that the printer was out of ink.
That's it.
So when she said, "My email is broken!", she actually meant,
"The printer is out of ink because I print out all my emails and handwrite the replies" LIKE WHAT!
So yeah. If you're thinking of maybe going into IT as a career, don't.
I mean, this is like, super-villain origin story level of like, soul sucking-ness.
I always hear people joke about losing faith in humanity, and, psh.
Dude, I am way ahead of you.
When you're working IT, or, I guess tech support, really,
it's one of those things where it's like, kinda like with retail,
or teaching of some kind, like, everyone should do it once,
because it's like, everyone's a customer, everyone goes out and buys stuff.
But being on the other side, you really get a feel for what these people go through,
like, every single day.
I worked in retail when I was in high school, I worked at a clothing store,
for, I think a few months, and boy, that was something.
And tech support's kinda the same way.
Luckily, now, I've been doing this for like 6 years or whatever,
so I'm well away from this, like, low-level tech support stuff,
but, I was in the trenches for a couple years,
and let me tell you, that, I mean, you just meet the most...amazingly interesting people.
Anyway, thanks for watching, guys, I really appreciate it.
I wanted to do a story time this week, because, ya know, I've been doing TV shows,
for several weeks in a row, and I like to do story times every once in a while
just to, kinda, you know, switch things up, keep things from getting monotonous and all that.
As you probably noticed, I've gone back and redrawn all of my old original drawings,
all my original posts, because those were things that I drew way back when I was first..
learning to do anything with drawing and animation.
You go back and you watch my first Riverdale video, or my Tinder video,
and it's like, really just the absolute worst animation, like, ever.
I mean, thanks for watching, but, like, wow.
You guys put up with a lot.
Anyway, thanks for watching, don't forget to subscribe.
Follow me on twitter, I try to reply to everything that I get,
so feel free to message me, DM me, tweet me, whatever it is. I, uh, I try to get around to it.
Follow my dog, Charlie, on Instagram, "charlie meets pumpkin"
check out some merch if you're so inclined, got t-shirts, got sweatshirts, got all kinds of stuff, pick something up if you like it.
Above all, let's have a great day everybody, and I'll see you all next time.