Yes, there are competent techs, but they are few and far between.  Sadly, their
competence goes unrecognized by the management team, who measure employee
success with metrics only an accountant could love.  As with any business
measurement, one has to question the consequences, unintended or not, of the
statistics gathered and used to rate employees.   Tech support is a high burnout
job because companies hire on the cheap, companies train inadequately, the techs
have too little real world hands-on experience, and the techs have to put up
with rude and sometimes abusive callers.  The consequence is that techs rarely
stay on the job long enough to become competent.

Although I could do a more than competent job in vendor tech support, no company
would pay me what I am worth, and I wouldn't trade places with a tech support
person anyway.  At least in my own business as a sole proprietor of a computer
service company, I can politely decide not to deal with people when they are too
disrespectful.  These sorts of decisions hit me in the pocketbook, because I've
walked away from potentially lucrative long-term hands-on tech support work when
company executive management has crossed over the line between reasonableness
and downright abusive treatment.  I'm not rich, but I sleep at night and do not
have ulcers... Ben Myers