Tech Support

“Hello tech support?”

“Hello sir, welcome to TUUT corp. tech support. What can we do for you Mr. Shidar?”

“I need some help with my spoon”.

“With your spoon sir?”

“Yes, my spoon”.

“Very well sir, I am sure we can help you with that, would you let us check your records so we know which model you currently use?”

“There, done”.

“Thank you sir, ah, you have the Mark 5™ build 3.174X.9.2, not the latest model but it should certainly be perfectly capable”. “I see you have the L3 enhanced Ux package and you have diligently kept up with the system updates”. “Very nice”!

“You know how it is, can’t take any chances out here in the quarantine zone”.

“Are you out in the quarantine zone? Oh my! We can’t have you stuck with tech issues out in the quarantine zone”. “Let’s see if we can take care of your problem without delay”.

“Thanks”.

“You are quite welcome sir, it is our pleasure”. “We have already checked your system logs… everything seems to be in order”. “What seems to be the nature of your problem sir”?

“My spoon is not working”.

“Would you give us more details sir; this will help in identifying the problem”.

“...l my spoon is not working, what more details do you want”?

“Sir, would you tell us what task were you trying to accomplish when your spoon failed”? 

“What is the nature of the failure”?

“I was trying to eat soup, but the spoon is failing, it doesn't hold any”.

“Does not hold the soup sir”? “Is there a problem with the grip”? “Can you give more details sir”?

“Oh sorry, I should have been clearer”. “You see soup is this Earth 1.0 food that people ate”. “I read about it in a story my mom texted me, apparently you put the soup in a bowl, then you pick it up with a spoon and put it in your mouth”. “So I zapped some soup and got a spoon, but my spoon is not picking up the soup”. 

“…”

“I know, I know, you’re thinking why put it in a bowl, why not straight in your mouth”? “I just like to try out things the Earth 1.0 way for fun, you know”. "I tried changing the size and shape of the soup but nothing seems to work".

“Sorry sir, we were considering, the root cause of the problem, if it was a failure of friction or adhesion when picking up the soup…  ”?

“I don’t know… can’t you figure it out”?

“Looking up Earth 1.0 soup and spoon, this was simple 3d form, while there appear to be specialized spoons for soup, based on the physical properties of the liquid in question the purpose of these specialized spoons is not apparent, any spoon should be quite adequate for the task”.

“We will have to run tests to help identify the problem, do we have your permission to run some diagnostics on your spoon sir?”

“Go ahead”.

“You may experience glitches while diagnostics run, I must ask you to refrain from using your spoon until diagnostics are complete”.  

“Yea I know, I’ve put it down already, go ahead”.

“Thank you sir, running diagnostics now, this may take several seconds, please feel free to carry on with your work, we’ll ping you when we are done”.

“Nah, that’s ok, I’ll be right here”. “I am waiting to eat my soup”.

Shidar sat in his chair, hunched forward staring at his ‘spoon’ fascinated. As the TUUT corp tech support ran it through it diagnostics it always started by returning the TUUT mark 5 ™ to its default factory settings. It now looked like a little rod, plain and simple, a bit shiny, but he knew that shine was just the nanobots constantly, tweaking, readjusting, re-calibrating, they were never really completely idle. Then the real fun started, it went through all the basic standard shapes, cube, sphere, pyramid, donut… before starting with more complex objects and tools, knife, screwdriver, spanner, hatchet, saw, hammer... 

It never got old for Shidar, watching someone put the Tuut through its paces. It was an incredible thing, everyone had one, you couldn't get out into space without it, how would you survive without all the tools you needed all the time.

The changes happened rapidly, the nanobots moving so fast that the tool just seemed to shimmer into various shapeless forms, you could catch the glimmer of a shape only for the briefest of pauses as the diagnostics ran their course.

“Diagnostics are complete, everything seems to be in order sir”. Tech support said, “please try your spoon now.”

Shidar picked up the TUUT and intently thought spoon.  The TUUTdidn't require a lot of effort, the tuut’s sensors were very good at interpreting your meaning. But this was something that Shidar just liked to do. Liquid food that required a container AND a tool might not be practical but it was fun to recreate history. And if you are going to experience history, why not take the trouble of doing it faithfully? Shidar had carefully read the description, he had a thorough and detailed understanding of spoon. So he closed his eyes and intently thought spoon and voila there it was. "Here goes" he thought, and stuck the spoon into the soup and pulled it out.

“Still doesn’t work.” He said, disappointed.

“We are so sorry sir”, tech support said. “TUUT corp apologizes for the inconvenience. We are transferring your issue to a human to help”. “Please hold the line”.

Human!!! That sure sounded serious, he couldn’t remember the last time he had to deal with a human. What would he say? What would you call him even, ‘Human Support’? You couldn’t just call him ‘Tech Support’, that was for systems only, wasn’t it? It felt weird, talking to a human, he waited stressed and daunted but excited and intrigued at the same time.

“Hello, this is Leela from the TUUT corp tech support team.”

“Hello, hello” Shidar replied. A girl… it was a while since he had spoken with a girl, on the other hand it had been a while since he had spoken with a boy even, so… Well to be honest the only human he had spoken with in the past 15 months was his mom, so any human voice was quite alien.

“Hello, hello, hello” he said (that’s not a typo, those are the first 5 words he said to Leela). 

“Hello, I am Shidar”.

“Hello Shidar” Leela replied, “glad to connect with you, I have the details of your problem and will be trying and to be help you with the problem you are having with your TUUT mark 5 ™”.

“Yes my spoon is not working”. 

“Your spoon… oh I see” Leela said with a twinkle in her voice “I call it the screwdriver, you know, like Doctor Who." "But of course many users like to call the TUUT by the tool they are using at the time".

“Doctor Who”? asked Shidar confused, "who that?"

“Just an old Earth 1.0 literary figure, never mind” said Jane, “let’s see if we can get your spoon working. You are not able to eat soup with it, is that correct”?

“Yeah” Shidar said, “the soup just doesn’t get to my mouth”.

“I assume you do have gravity correct”? Asked Jane.

“Of course” replied Shidar, “calibrated precisely to Earth 1.0 standard for the authentic experience”. 

“Makes sense, mind if we go to video so I can observe the problem”?

Video!!! errr... talking to a human was weird enough, but video ... "hmm it would only be one way line of sight, no faces... whew!" Shidar thought. “Ok” there you go, can you see”?

“Yes” replied Jane, “I see the liquid, is that the soup”?

“Yes”.

“Is that container portable”? “Or have you tried a TUUT straw”?

“No, no, that would not be authentic, the Earth 1.0 practice was to use a spoon.”

“Ok then, let’s see you use the spoon Shidar.”

“Here goes”, carefully (and self consciously) Shidar dunked his ‘spoon’ into the soup and pulled it out, “see, I have to lick it to get anything in my mouth”, he licked the tines.

“Wait a minute, that’s not a spoon”.

“What”?

“Hang on, I am looking it up, but I think this is something different… there, it is a fork, not a spoon”.

“What do you mean a fork, I have researched my spoons ok, they have a handle and a cupped area for holding food. They are used to put food in people’s mouths and this was used to put food in people’s mouths”.

“Yes but, apparently people on Earth 1.0 had various tools to put food into their mouths, the spoon was one of them, the spoon was another. What you have is a fork, very similar, a perfectly understandable mistake, but no good for liquids”.

“But, but…”, he didn’t know what to say.

“Here, allow me” Jane connected with Shidra’s TUUT, telling the tines to flatten towards each other. The outer edges rounded going from a rectangle to an oval. As a finishing touch she deepened the bowl all the better to carry liquid. “There”!

“Really”! Shidar was skeptical, “will it work”?

“Try it, just fill up with liquid and get it carefully to your mouth”

Shidar carefully put the spoon in the soup and pulled it out.

“No you have to tilt it, you have to tilt the spoon to keep the liquid in the hollow part of the spoon and lift it out carefully”.

Still skeptical, he dipped it in again, then slowly tilted the spoon and and lifted his hand. Wonder of wonders the spoon came out of the bowl with soup. Surprised, happy & excited he almost dropped the spoon from his hand, just in time he got both hands on the handle, holding it tight, carefully not dropping it (just spilling about half the soup) and slowly got it up to his head. Lifting his head up he opened his mouth and poured the soup in.

“That was wonderful, thank you, thank you so much”. He said, “you’ve been a big help”.

“You are quite welcome, TUUT corp is happy to be of service, and I am sure you will have a very satisfying spoon experience with your Mark 5, before upgrading to the current model. I will send you a wiki with detailed instructions in spoon usage and TUUT corp will be sending you a survey where you can…” Jane noticed the video was blurry, was he crying? “Sir is everything ok”? she asked concerned.

There was no reply, Shidar was too busy with the authentic Earth 1.0 experience. The last shot as the video faded was two hands carefully raising another spoonful of soup up and slowly pouring it into the wide open mouth of another satisfied customer of TUUT corporation.

The End