It's officially over between Katie (my Dell representative) and I. After her consistent refusal to answer or return my calls I gave up and began harassing other Dell representatives.
First my computer came sans TV Tuner. Then the TV Tuner came and I was required to pop it in myself. (I decided to just do it because I was annoyed... it wasn't that I couldn't ... it was the PRINCIPLE OF THE THING!)
So I had about a good hour of play with my Vista machine (which, by the way, I decided to name "Fin Raziel") (Though later I smacked my head and said... "Duh... Falcor was white!" Though in the end Fin Raziel turns out to be the more appropriate name.) before I installed the tuner. I wanted to make sure everything functioned and turned on. I played with that sidebar thing and the flippy window thing and the cool bubble screensaver and attempted to learn some of the ways of the new Documents folder and what not. Then I shut'er down to do my install.
Meanwhile, ex-phone-friend Katie, e-mailed me back regarding the tuner and said "oh it's just a simple little usb thing - plug it in and enjoy!" Idiot. They are PCI cards.
It seemingly went well but I did have some difficulty loading the software because either the software didn't like Vista or vice versa.
Day 2 - the machine won't recognize anything plugged into the firewire ports... or the USB ports for that matter. Actually to be more specific it won't recognize any of my external hard drives or thumb drives.
So I called Dell tech support and reached a dude named Charles.... who sounded EXACTLY like my techy friend Charles. I was about to have "omg that's so weird!" phone reunion with Charles but when I told him my full name he had no reaction so I decided that it was not ... in fact ... my friend Charles.
Oh and by now Fin Raziel was not shutting down properly... she'd just kinda hang there.
Anyway Charles was stumped but we did some safe mode booting to try to solve problems and then I clicked restart and went to class. Six hours later I returned and the girl was still trying to restart. Poor thing.
SO I called Dell again and reached my new best friend (who we shall call "Romano") in India. At first I was like "oh god... the Indians!" but now, dear friend, I have new respect for the Indian male. (Who I had previously pretty much disliked across the board.) (Also last week I had some Indian food for the first time so I'm broadening my cultural acceptance.) Romano took over my computer remotely (after a lot of my frustrated heavy sighs and my protestations of "it won't shut down right" "it won't let me install things") and attempted some magic and then he restarted. I warned him about the long restart time but he suggested we wait... so we waited... and waited... and finally Romano got a little bored and we had a nice little chat...
Romano: So.... you ever been to India?
Me: Nope. You ever been to L.A.?
Romano: Nope... but I really want to go to Hollywood one day!
Me: Eh. It's nothing special. It's more of a concept. Burbank is where they make the movies.
Romano: Oooh but do you run into celebrities all the time?
Me: Well not ALL the time. But sometimes. You know... like when you go to red carpet openings and stuff.
Romano: Ooooh but have you ever seen Keanu Reeves?!?! I really love Keanu Reeves!!
Me: Hehe... no. I'm not sure if even lives here.
Romano: How about Triple X? I forget his name..... oooh Vin Diesel!? Have you seen Vin Diesel?? I love Vin Diesel and all of his tattoos.
Me: Nope. But when he's not in those movies he seems a lot less tough.
Romano: Is the computer starting yet?
Me: Nope.
Romano: Have you seen any of our Bollywood movies?
Me: Uhhh.... I think one. Kama Sutra?? And something about Fire... Fire and Ice... does that sound right? (I have no idea what I was talking about.)
(in my head I was thinking "that horrifying Indian thriller music video.. I wonder if that counts")
Romano: Has it started yet?
Me: Nope
Romano: Welllll.... I shouldn't be telling you this but Dell has a return policy and you should just send this computer back and ask for a new one since this doesn't work. Call them from a different phone number and DON'T tell them I told you this!
Me: Well OK!
So I learned a lesson... don't judge a book by it's Indian accent.
However this lesson was soon dashed when dealing with the Indian Dell women the next day that just do NOT listen.
And actually what my best bud Romano told me was not a secret.. it was on my paperwork. I think maybe he just gave me a shortcut phone number which in the end didn't matter because I kept getting routed through fifteen departments because of the stupid "employee purchase" thing we somehow got in the first place.
So long story short: No one really knows what my computer's problem was. I set up an exchange for the same computer - just a new one that works. THEN I went into the Dell forums and learned from some people in there that my computer never should have been built the way it was because a TV Tuner, a floppy drive and Vista were NEVER going to work together. So then I had to talk to fifteen different people at Dell to try to change the exchange but they couldn't do that so the exchange turned into a return and they picked Fin Raziel up on Monday. NOW I have to order a brand new computer as if the first didn't exist and get it with Windows XP just to be sure that all my external drives will actually function with it.
Though tech number 15 that I talked to said that he'd just gotten a memo that Microsoft was going to stop supporting XP within a year. But anyway... so no new Vista for me it seems. But at least I'll be out of the cycle of needing a computer right when the latest buggy OS comes out.
To add insult to injury the remote control for the TV Tuner arrived today.
I'm still debating whether or not to send Katie a "you stupid!" e-mail... at least filling her in on the order being a royal suckfest.
But then I NEVER have luck with internet retail orders. It's like some sort of cosmic test... learning how to handle retail conflict.
(NOTE: "Fin Raziel" (from "Willow") was a powerful witch but it took her a few tries before she could get into the swing of things.)
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