It's 8am...and I can now hear the muffled chaos of my children in the garage. Finally. They are out the door for the day. Which means I have 10 minutes of uninterupted down time, to blog surf, catch up on emails, and drink a diet coke. (Don't judge me.)
This weekend was a blur. I spent roughly 5 hours on the phone with Dell technical support, trying to get Greg's laptop fixed. It had a bad hard drive. No problem right? We bought the 4 year warranty on the computer, so that when things like this came up..we would be covered. We thought we were sooo smart. Turns out, Dell is getting the last laugh. The laptop might be covered, but what they don't tell you..is that the only way to have the technical nightmare serviced, is to do it yourself with the help of your "All not American" dell technician. Let's just say that in the past 4 days I have talked to more "english is clearly not my first language" technicians than one person needs to talk to in the course of the year..let alone in a weeks time. I am sure these technicians are wonderful people, one in particular in Oklahoma City, was most entertaining..and actually appeared to be a real person instead of someone who can only read from a script. His name was "Ike". Which cracks me up. I know they try and come up with names that are easy, and typical "Dick and Jane" america..but Ike? Seriously? Ike was trying to help me while watching the Colorado-Oklahoma football game on Saturday. Yeah, the one where the sooners got beat? I'll spare you the details, but let's just say..there was burping, yelling, and far too many references to him being a "technical genious". At one point I asked him if he had transfered his office calls to the local TGI Fridays and was eating a plate of chicken wings while tinkering with my insides. (of my dell that is) He never did answer that question..hmm. Needless to say, Ike was not the be all end all to my technical problems. In fact, 10 minutes after I talked to him I was back on the phone with Max, who finally...FINALLY got Greg's entire laptop back in working order, and it appears..it is totally back to normal.
The funniest name of a Dell technical support representative, however goes to my "good buddy" Willis. Yes, you heard it right his name was "willis". From the minute he told me his name I was muzzling myself from blurting out the obvious. It was painful. I was laughing so hard on the inside, waiting.....waiting....waiting for the perfect opportunity to walk into the joke. Finally, after about 10 minutes, he diagnosed what he believed was the problem, and the moment was mine:
"Willis" the Dell technical support man: (Imagine all dialog of Willis in a really heavy,HEAVY, accent)
"Now, Mrs Johnson, I am regretful to tell you that after much diagnosing and much tinkering, I have come to the most logical conclusion that your hard drive on your inspiron 9300 is indeed, no longer in working order. I see here that you have prepared for this unfortunate series of events, (no lie. He said that. Who is he Lemony Snickets?) and you have a 4 year warranty on your entire Dell system. This makes me breathe a large sigh of relief in your direction (no thank you) and I will be pleased and confident to be able to send you out a new hard drive. Now, Mrs Johnson, you will receive the hard drive and then you will call me back at your latest convenience when is a good time for you to take time to call me, (I know..what???) and I will guide you through the ins and outsides of installing the new hard drive. I will just need you to remove the old hard drive, and reinstall the new one, and then you will need to reinstall all of the programs onto your notebook. With the help of dell, you will have a working notebook in only a matter of time.
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Mrs Johnson: "what you talkin bout Willis?" (wild, tired of being on the phone with Dell laughter followed.)
Willis: big void of any noise.
Willis: stammering, looking through his script for the correct response to crazy midwestern lady.
Willis: probably on medication by now.
I finally let him off the hook, and told him..Willis, ignore me, I am just punchy, and that was a really lame joke, that I am sure probably didn't even register with you. It's silly television humor, willis. It's not you..it's me.
Willis: Oh haa haa. (scripted laughing only because I told him it was humor. I believe if I had asked him to bark like a dog, he most likely would have) Well Mrs Johnson, I will never ignore you, because I am a Dell technician, and we want to always be working to have you be a satisfied customer, and ignoring you would not take us down the road to satisfied, but would only discourage you and make you upset and have conflict with Dell........"
It was at this point I checked out. He went on and on and on about Dell, and warranties, and mailing instructions, and most likely he told me about the second coming somewhere in there, but I was done. Dell officially was dead to me at this point.
So, in summary..lol. It's been a rocky road with the good folks at Dell. I will spare you the details of how it took almost a week for me to get the hard drive that was supposed to be overnighted. That wasn't Dell's fault. That was the always on it folks at DHL, who for 2 days in a row, tried to deliver my hard drive to the wrong address. Now, I can see trying to deliver it once, and finding out that the address, is an undeveloped lot..but to go back to that lot, TWICE...is really beyond me. Oh yes, the tracking info and the tag on the box said the following:
First Attempt to deliver: undeveloped lot..no one to sign for package.
Second Attempt to deliver: still an undeveloped lot. We may have the wrong address.
I know. I know. It made me shake my head. Did the dear rocket scientest driving the DHL truck think that maybe, just maybe, if he went back the second day that magically, overnight a house would pop out of the ground and be there to receive the package?
There were no words.
Well, there WERE, but they aren't probably best repeated in blog land. Let's just say, when I finally got down to the DHL pick up location after 2 days of being told.."we tried to deliver your package today, but you weren't home" I was pretty furious. (oh yeah, they were telling me it was ALL me, that I wasn't there when they tried to deliver the package, which was ridiculous because I had been sitting at home waiting for the stupid hard drive to show up, we finally determined, that they were attempting delivery at the same street name as mine, but WAY across town..any moron who looked at zip codes would have been able to figure out, that he was at the wrong "Peach street" (which, go away stalkers..is not really my street)
So when I got to the DHL office, I was in a bit of an irritated state. First, I had to drive basically to the airport to pick up my hard drive, and the DHL people weren't even sorry. I told the manager that I was really irritated that I had to drive all the way down to their head quarters to pick up a package, because their driver was too incompetent to find an address, and if he wasn't sure..why not pick up the phone and DIAL THE PHONE NUMBER that was right on the delivery ticket. Why did they even have my phone number if they weren't going to use it in situation just like this? I told him, I can understand not finding the address the first day, but to go back TWICE to a vacant lot? Seriously?
Now I said all of this..really nicely. I did. I wasn't mean, or condecending, but I thought, you know, I should voice my complaint. So I did. Nicely. The manager then looked at me and said:
Do you feel better now that you got that out of your system? Are you done now?
In the wise words of my friend Cathy Blackstone, 'Oh HELL no." He did not just say that.
I know you are expecting a full on verbal assult, but I was calm, and I tried my best to be mature, and walk away. I did however, tell the stupid DHL man..that this is why...he wears ugly yellow shirts and shorts..and not BROWN. I know BROWN, and you sir..are NO BROWN. (I heart my man in Brown..Go UPS!)
So all that to say, that today I will finally ship Greg's laptop to him, so he can FINALLY use it at school, and most likely, in about a week or two..the dear Dell technical support team will be dealing with us again. I just have little confidence that the stupid thing is actually really fixed and back. I fear that it will forever be the albatros around my neck.
Well, my 10 minutes is up, and I have to go to UPS to ship my package. I have a feeling that it could cost me a small fortune, but ship it I must. (yoda)
As you can see...my blog banner is in much needed help. I can't figure out how to get that picture bigger. It's a fabulous photo..taken by the very talented and dear friend Becky. The old Miley blogger, would have used that as an excuse to not blog..the banners not right, so no need to blog. But no. I am committed to making this posting thing work again. So here I am, ugly banner or not.
Until tomorrow...:)