Episode one: Twilight
Disclaimer: Do not take this seriously...You have been warned.
Ponies...Call...Tech support!
Episode one: Twilight
Twilight sighed in frustration as she attempted to fix the contraption that had just been delivered to the library. The device itself seemed simple enough. It was a sort of conduit that would allow ponies to communicate with each other instantly. It sported a numeric keypad that one could use to “call” others. This would have been especially helpful as Spike was currently away and Twilight did not want to use her magic to send it herself. The company had (predictably enough) named the small machine a “telephone”. Alas, Twilight’s device was unable to reach anypony. She knew for a fact that all of her friends had purchased the things the day they were released. The princesses themselves had bought themselves phones so as to communicate with their subjects. She eventually decided to try dialing the number displayed on the screen of the phone labeled: “tech support”
“Hello, what seems to be the problem?” Came a voice with a heavy accent that Twilight had never heard before.
“Err...Hi, I purchased this device from your company and-”Twilight began only to be interrupted by the voice on the other end.
“Is it plugged in?” The voice asked seriously.
“What? The thing claims to be wireless.” Twilight replied, a bit irked by the interruption.
“Oh, that is not very much a problem then. Have a very nice day.” The voice said before abruptly hanging up.
Twilight sat on her haunches for a moment before dialing the number again. She didn’t know if she should be angry or confused.
“Hello, what seems to be the problem?” The voice asked in the exact tone that had started the previous conversation.
“Yes, I bought this ‘phone’ and it doesn’t seem to be able to call any number aside from this one.” Twilight said.
“Have you checked to see if it is plugged in?” The voice inquired. Twilight decided to stop this before the not so distant history repeated itself.
“Can I speak to your manager?” Twilight asked, hoping to get a more competent being to help solve her technical problem.
“Yes, I shall retrieve him for you now.” Came a brief reply, the sounds of shuffling were heard in the background followed by a very muffled conversation.
“Hello, how may I help you today?” Came a slightly deeper voice with the same slightly obnoxious accent as the previous.
“Sorry, I just need a bit of help with my ‘phone’. The only number on it that will work is this one.” Twilight said politely.
“Is it plugged in ma’am?” The voice asked eliciting a facehoof from Twilight.
“It’s wireless, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to talk to you right now.” Twilight replied with an obvious amount of frustration.
“Look, there is no reason to get an attitude with me. I am only trying to help.” The voice chastised.
“You’re right, sorry. Do you have any other bits of advice? I really need to call the princess.” Twilight said.
“Hmm...Have you tried restarting it?” The voice asked, sounding more like it was reading a manual.
“Yes, several times.” Twilight replied, to say that this was annoying was an understatement of the highest caliber.
“Well, what does the screen say when you try to type in a number?”
“It just says: Call tech support at 555-555-5555”
“Look, you are the first one to have this problem.” The voice stated, the accent was beginning to really get on Twilight’s nerves.
“Mind if I ask where your office is?” Twilight queried.
“No, not at all.”
“Well?”
“Yes?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Yes, yes you did.” At this point, Twilight was beginning to wonder if this stallion was truly this naive or if he was simply messing with her.
“Where is your office?” Twilight asked venomously.
“India.” Came the swift reply.
“India? I’ve never even heard of that place.”
“Flimflam industries prefer to outsource their tech support jobs in order to save on costs of labor.”
“Outsource? Wait...Flimflam?” Twilight asked as she recalled the last encounter with two specific stallions “You mean the Flim Flam brothers?”
“Yes, the brothers pay us a very gracious five bits a month.” The voice said proudly.
“Five bits a month? The minimum wage in Equestria is five bits an hour!” Twilight exclaimed she suddenly felt a bit sad about the terrible deal these people were getting.
“Your currency is worth very much here, my old job paid three dollars a year!” Twilight's sadness was suddenly replaced by the same annoyance as before.
“Aside from you being grossly underpaid, can you possibly help me fix this?” Twilight asked, hoping that this person had figured something out.
"Fix what?"
"I need you to help me fix my phone." Twilight repeated holding back screams of rage.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"It can't call anypony aside from this number."
"Have you tried checking to see if it's plugged in? That is a very common problem."
“Hmm, I’m not sure what the problem is. I’m very sorry sir, have a nice day.” The voice said sincerely before hanging up. Twilight visibly twitched as something inside her mind snapped.
“Sir...Sir!?! I’m going to write a letter to Princess Celestia right away!” Twilight yelled to nopony in particular. Within moments she had written up a letter filled with complaints about her encounter with the Flimflam tech support crew and questions about this 'India' place. She wondered how Flim and Flam had managed to find such a place, let alone convince the people that five bits a month was fair. Perhaps these questions will be answered in a later episode...Don't get your hopes up.
This was actually kind of fun to write. Stay tuned for a few more of these. Woo!
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If the bits were gold, and about the size of a quarter, then six bits would be one troy ounce, and thus the operators are making, as of the exchange rate on 07/15/2013, about $1,070 a month before taxes (if any). Assuming a 40 hour work week, that's an average of about $6.69 an hour (or slightly less in any month other than February). Still below minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and still underpaid, but not horribly so...
2881743 But you're forgetting that gold is worth a lot more to them because unlike with our economy, where the fed can just print money willy nilly, gold is actually a limited resource making inflation much less likely and even if it does happen it won't be nearly as extreme as it has been with us and keeping their currency at higher worth than ours.
2881743 Yes, by our standards that is much better than their current condition. To the ponies though, it's next to nothing. Hah, look at me making excuses for my lack of thought.
Yes you finally got it published ^^, Great job so far, can't wait for more chapters ^^.
2881762 But I was just going by pure metal weight, and today's standards. And let's not get into politics or the concept of Hyper-inflation, or the flooding of the gold market with Bits from Equestria...
2881780 But that isn't really a reliable way of judging the worth of gold in completely different society that uses it as a currency as using something as a currency gives it much more value than we give gold.
And it is kind of hard to talk about currency without going into politics and other such subjects.
2881780 The story doesn't really need logic. I labeled it as random and put a disclaimer at the beginning.
*Thinks back to job, back to fic, back to job, back to fic... Dies laughing. Again.*
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Not enough racism.
I don't really see how this was racist.
2881743
They're three times the thickness of a human quarter.
2883244
To the best of my knowledge, the United States of America and Canada are the only nations to currently use a quarter {insert unit of currency here}; so calling it a "human" quarter is being rather Americocentric.
(Or arrogant, if you're implying that non-North Americans are not human.
)
2883239 I do apologize for that, I plan to increase the racism twenty-fold later. Hint- it involves curry.
2883414
I was more referring to the possibility of bits not being the only currency in the MLP universe.
2883481
Oh, don't mind me - I'm just engaging in a little bit of pedantry.
To be more precise, you should have specified either "three times the thickness of a U.S. quarter" (i.e. three times 1.75 mm), or "three times the thickness of a Canadian quarter" (i.e. three times 1.58 mm). Not much, but it all adds up if we're talking gold.
2881743
Actually, if an Equestrian bit has the same dimensions as a U.S. quarter, you would only need two bits per Troy ounce; or roughly three bits per Troy ounce if we take the design and milled edges into account. Gold has a much higher density than copper and nickel.
So if we assume that a bit is thicker than a U.S. quarter and for the ease of calculation exactly equal to one Troy ounce in weight, 5 bits per month is about U.S.$6000 per month - a very good wage for a tech support phone operator.
Nice.
Ah yes. Indians. The bane of the noble cowboy.
What? No automatic voices, no tedious pre-selections, no muzak, no 15-minute waiting times, no time spent on meaningless advertisements? What kind of paradise do you live in?
Just kidding. The fic is great!
2888206 That may have actually been a good idea...Oh well, I can do that later. In all honesty I'm kind of at a loss for what to do next.
2888213
Well I guess you can have catch-22 situations (e.g. Microsoft asking you to go online to check for solutions to a problem with your internet)
You can have situations where your tech phone call is being monitored by the company/the government and all this stuff leaks out into the open after a while.
You can have a situation where the company tries to sell you new products in order to fix the old one.
Or you can have a problem where tech support merely regurgitates the fine print and refuses to help you in any way whatsoever.
Hope this helps.
I used to work in a call center. Didn't like it. :3
Insta-fave~
2888578 I can't say that I'd ever want to work in such a place. I feel as though everyone would hate you before even picking up the phone.