There are no bad owners, only bad dogs

2005-03-28

A Passage to a Knuckle Sandwich.

I'm typing on a Dell computer and in the next couple of days, my new Dell laptop will arrive. We use Dells at work, so we get a decent discount when we buy our own. So, dude, I got a Dell.

But I'm already regretting it, even though it hasn't been delivered yet. I'm certain it will be sleek and shiny and will almost always work right, but I am equally certain that whatever "award" Dell's "award-winning customer service" has garnered, it's not an award that any self respecting, competent, non-knuckle-dragging humanoid would actually strive to acquire. Allow me to elaborate.

After I submitted my order to Dell, I decided (after being told what to think) that I needed more RAM and more MEGs. There is a link to click on their site that says something like "Click here to change your order." When you click there, you're given the phone number of customer service or told to e-mail or to live chat about it. So I called, got into the queue, and as I listened to the melodic strains of soft jazz, I composed an e-mail as suggested on the site. I sent it off and then went onto the live chat area. The live chat was clearly not exactly "live," as I got the same response to several questions, word for word, again and again. The live chat dude (his little blurb said that his name was Ajay but that I could call him Adrian. What the fuck? I knew he was from somewhere in or near the subcontinent, so asking me to call him an Anglo name isn't really, you know, hiding that very well...) eventually told me to either send an e-mail or to call. I told him that I was in the queue and had been for over half an hour. No response. Hello? Adrian? R U there? Hellooooo? Nothing.

So I continued listening to "The Girl from Ipanema" by Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66 and checked my inbox. Nothing.

So there I sat, waiting, waiting, ever closer to the front of the queue...

I eventually gave up, hung up, and wept softly to myself. The next day, a response from my e-mail came. Can you guess what it said? Go ahead. Try.

Do you have a guess yet?


Was it: They told you to call customer service?

I can't wait until I have a real problem and all they want to know is if the fucker is plugged in. Skip to the middle of your decision tree, Ahmed!

5 comments so far

birth & death