Tech "support"

On Thursday night, I found I couldn't access my email account. The internet came up just fine, but no email. I called my ISP -- Charter Communications -- and after about half an hour, came away very unsatisfied. They couldn't really tell me anything and nothing was getting solved. Friday the problem persisted; another half hour on the phone with Charter -- still nothing. I called a local tech guy (the one who installed my new hard drive this summer) and set up an appointment for this morning. He solved my email problem within about 30 seconds -- which, frankly, made me feel like kind of an idiot, but there you go. Since he was going to charge me for a minimum of half an hour anyway, he stayed and checked out some other things, and eventually discovered a couple of (apparently non-lethal) viruses, which have since been banished into the ether. I was pretty satisfied with his help; Charter, not so much.