On Call Welcome to another edition of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column that shares your stories of tech support incidents that crossed a line.
This week, we have a story from a reader we'll Regomize as "Cooper" who told us the tale of a colleague we're going to call "Octavio."
Octavio hailed from a South American nation and therefore grew up speaking Spanish. He moved to the US for college, qualified for a green card allowing permanent residence stateside, then scored a job at a US tech company in a role that included tech support duties.
As Cooper tells the tale, Octavio's employer took advantage of his excellent Spanish by often dispatching him to help clients in Latin America.
On one such trip, Octavio finished a job in Argentina and prepared to return to the US. Head office had other ideas and sent him to another customer in Mexico.
"Americans traveling to Mexico did not need a visa, but travelers from Octavio's homeland did," Cooper explained.
The very large computer company did not know this, so when Octavio arrived in Mexico City he was greeted by local authorities, who arrested him.
"Headquarters had to summon a lawyer to break him out," Cooper explained, but even that effort couldn't save Octavio from spending a few hours in detention and subsequent deportation.
Octavio made it onto US soil, where another company rep awaited carrying two things: a visa to enter Mexico and a plane ticket to send him there to finish the job.
"The next week he applied to become a US citizen," Cooper told On Call.
Has a tech support job got you in trouble at the border? If so, show your papers to On Call by clicking here to send us an email so we can clear your story to enter our pages on a future Friday. ®
Source: The register