Technical Competence ID

I've always felt that my life would be immeasurably easier if I could apply and qualify for a Technical Competence ID card. In this day and age, isn't this a concept that is long past due? How many times have you experienced this? You walk into Best Buy to pick up a laptop they've got on sale, and you necessarily have to engage one of their wonderfully competent salespeople (I'm sorry, I mispelled that word before "competent" please just remove the "nd" and the "r"). You tell them you'd like to buy the HP 389xII, and, of course you're presented with this question, "M-hmm, and what are you going to use the computer for?"

At this point, the first thought that pops into my head is, "If I were to try to explain to you what I'm going to use the computer for, we'd spend the whole day here while I tried to educate you up to the level where we could have an intelligent conversation." But I don't say that. Somehow, however, I need to convey to this person that I know what I'm doing, I know what I want, and please just take the key out of your pocket, open up the cage, and pull one of those shiny boxes out of it so I can pay for it, take it home and forget who you are. I don't say that either, however. Usually what I try to do is convince this person of my technical competence by using words that are bigger than he understands, which usually does the trick. Let's face it however, this is slightly demeaning and degrading for the salesperson, and as much as I resent his well-intentioned intrusion into my buying process, he's probably not really a bad guy or even stupid. He's more than likely just some guy trying to get through college and make enough money to buy his own geek toys. There's no real reason I want to make this guy feel bad about himself. I just want to buy the computer without hassle.

Here's where my fantasy life takes over. (Admittedly, my fantasy life is lame, but it works well for the moment). In my fantasy, instead of saying anything, I just pull out my Technical Competence ID card, and the sales person says, "I see Mr. French. Sorry to have bothered you. Just give me a second while I get your computer." Doesn't that sound like a better situation for everyone involved?

I would gladly take an annual certification and pay, say a $100 fee for the privilege of weilding a universally recognized card that proved I had a brain in my head and a general knowledge of technology.

Of course, the applications are near-infinite. Imagine this tech-support call:

   Tech:  Thank you for calling [ISPname], how may I help you?
   You:   My router's flaking out, I think I'm getting interference on the line.
   Tech:  Ok, let's take first things first.  Is your computer on?
   You:   Yes.  My TCID is 4475639839.
   Tech:  Ok, just ftp your router logs and I'll take a look on our end and call you back.
   You:   Thank you very much.

Please, somebody (not Microsoft), create this certification process and save the IT world millions of hours a year, which we promise to then spend on continuing to solve the worlds biggest problem such as "getting your Outlook to work."