Customer service provided by 24/7 laudable

My first interaction with the 24/7 Support Center was late last semester. I consulted with one of the managers and several of the employees about which computer would be best to help me accomplish my goal of going paperless in 2009. We discussed netbooks, notetaking programs, peripherals and even the best method and style of carrier for transporting my computer to and from class.

I purchased my laptop, I quickly found myself needing 24/7’s help again. A technician (technical consultant) helped me install Microsoft Office and cheerfully answered several questions I asked. “”That wasn’t such a bad experience,”” I thought to myself. Next, I purchased an external microphone from one of the big box stores and when the subsequent recordings had distracting background noise, the big box stores that I turned to offered me no help, but 24/7 did. I called the 24-hour free help line where a very helpful woman gently talked me through the steps necessary to eliminate the background noise and return clarity to the professor’s muffled voice.

An inoperative Wi-Fi brought me in for another impromptu visit. While I was there, a technician replaced my underperforming antivirus software with Sophos, an antivirus program offered free, through a licensing agreement with the university. I have downloaded software for my Smart Pen, recovered files from a damaged flash drive and used their external CD drive to download the owner’s manual to my new camera. I would not have been able to do any of these things, let alone go paperless, without the technical help of 24/7.

Its technical prowess is impressive enough, but equally impressive is its unwavering attention to customer service. As sometimes happens with a large group of professionals, the conversation can turn to shoptalk with little regard for the waiting customer, but this has not happened in any of my many visits. Each technician gives you, his or her, undivided attention until your problem is solved. The woman I talked with on the 24-hour telephone help line communicated the customer service philosophy beautifully when she said, “”You are my most important customer. Please, sir, take your time.””

I just wanted to acknowledge the great customer service provided by 24/7, say thanks to the staff and management, and let everyone know – it’s free.

Robert Harrold
family studies and human development senior

Founders would differ with writer’s definition of socialism

In his Mailbag letter “”State funding of universities leads to socialism, financial waste,”” Benjamin Eid claims that people who argue that the state should provide an affordable education are prompted to do so by a socialist ideology (Jan. 26, 2009). As Ben Kalafut points out in his op-ed piece of Jan. 23, however, the obligation to finance higher education with public money is imposed by the Arizona constitution.

Perhaps Eid is aware of this fact, but believes that the framers were themselves socialists since they wove the principle of publicly-funded education into Arizona’s political fabric. If that is indeed the case, then our state is in good company since, by Eid’s definition, the United States has been a socialist country from its inception, and the men we refer to as founders took the first steps down that political slippery slope more than 240 years ago.

In his 1765, “”A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law,”” for instance, the coauthor of the Declaration of Independence and the second president of the United States, John Adams wrote that “”wherever a general knowledge and sensibility have prevailed among the people, arbitrary government and every kind of oppression have lessened and disappeared in proportion.”” So devoted was he to the cause of public education that Adams went so far as to claim that “”the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.””

In advancing such arguments, Adams sought to refute some “”high statesman”” and their “”missionaries of ignorance”” who “”affect to censure this provision for the education of our youth as a needless expense and an imposition on the rich in favor of the poor, and as an institution of idleness and vain speculation among the people whose time and attention, it is said ought to be devoted to labor, and not to public affairs.”” Were he imprudent enough to utter these words today, Adams would undoubtedly be branded a socialist by Eid and others of his ilk.

The example of Adams, however, demonstrates that, by Eid’s absurd definition, America has been socialist all along. As a consequence, we may safely disregard his fear mongering and demand that our legislators fulfill their duties as these are defined by the constitution and not destroy our state universities out of a nihilistic devotion to cutting taxes above all else.

Michael Parker
English graduate student