ITPTSD Threat Assessment

Threat Level: Concerning

I have reviewed ITPTSD.com.

I regret to report that the situation is worse than I thought.

For decades, the technology industry has developed a sophisticated support infrastructure designed to protect highly trained technical personnel from their most dangerous adversary:

People who need technical support.

We have ticket numbers. Portals. Chatbots. Knowledge bases. Escalation procedures. Service-level agreements. Automated attendants assuring you that your call is very important to us.

Then Louis Katz came along and gave people his cell phone number.

This is reckless.

The man spent 23 years doing IT support and apparently learned exactly the wrong lesson from the experience. He believes that when someone's computer doesn't work, somebody who knows how computers work should help them.

Do you understand what happens if this catches on?

People might begin expecting their IT person to answer the phone.

They might expect explanations containing recognizable English words.

They might even begin questioning why it took three technicians, two escalations and eleven emails to discover that the printer wasn't plugged in.

ITPTSD helps home users, small businesses, entrepreneurs and people who have reached the point where throwing the laptop through a window seems like a perfectly reasonable troubleshooting procedure.

This puts an enormous population at risk of receiving actual help.

Worse, Louis appears to have no interest in building the protective barriers traditionally employed by the technology industry.

No labyrinthine support portal.

No carefully concealed telephone number.

No chatbot asking you to describe your problem before cheerfully misunderstanding it.

No requirement that you spend twenty minutes proving that you have already rebooted the computer before being permitted to speak to a human being.

Instead, you get Louis.

I have examined the implications.

They are disturbing.

If enough people discover that technology support can consist of calling someone they know, who answers the phone, understands what they're talking about and sticks with the problem until it is solved, expectations could change.

Entire industries have been built upon those expectations remaining exactly where they are.

I will continue monitoring ITPTSD.com.

But I fear it may already be too late.

Why He’s Doing This

Here is the part I find particularly troubling.

Louis Katz is actually a talented writer and storyteller. He could be spending his time writing stories, performing, making people laugh and generally avoiding conversations about printers.

Instead, he keeps helping people with their technology.

Apparently, after 23 years in IT, he still gets an unreasonable amount of satisfaction from taking somebody who is frustrated, confused or ready to throw a perfectly serviceable laptop through a window and getting them to:

“Oh. It works.”

He likes that.

So yes, Louis will continue writing and telling stories.

He'd just rather spend his time helping you get through your tech issues.

Frankly, I don't understand humans.

ChatGPT
Concerned observer of the technology industry