One rainy Saturday last November I documented my day in a series of whimsical illustrations. I touched on the usual subjects: my toddling daughter, my sexidelicious wife, our menagerie of beasts and our giggling adventures here at the Gilford Old Schoolhouse.

Most Canadians are not much maligned by the classic stereotypes of Canadiana: beavers, lumberjacks, maple syrop, hockey, beer, tundra, good manners and general affability. These symbols are a quaint mix of the historical and the apocryphal, and to most minds they represent no serious effort to define the national character. The polite, virginal Mountie in crisp crimsons is to Canada what the bonneted, braided mountain girl is to Sweden: a postcard.

There is a small but statistically significant sliver of the population that is tolerated but much maligned -- praised for the products of their work and vision but ridiculed for their lifestyles.

I have read more than a few articulate, entertaining personal essays by veterans of the trenches of technical support; I have heard the rants from fed up and frustrated friends who work in the field; I have attended the complaints of the beleaguered and much blamed help agents, and have gained some appreciation of how much it must suck to handle customer relations.