The Laptop Saga

I must say I am a bit surprised that multiple people read my inaugural post. Many of you even left comments, none of which contained any threats or name calling (other than 'blogger'), so that's a plus.

I feel that I must warn you now though. This post will test your blog endurance. As you may know, Dionna's laptop has been tweaked lately and as the husband who works for a Tech company, I am supposed to know everything about computers (not even close). Well, as is customary for my therapy, once I started to deal with Customer Service, I began a 'write-up' about my experience. Initially, I thought it would be one of my basic single page rants, not so. It's been going on for a month now and even as I type, the laptop is in HP's possession.

So, even though there is no end in sight, I figured that if I was going to post this, I had better do it now (will blogger allow a 20 page post?). I don't actually expect anybody to read the entire thing, but let me know if you do - you just may become my new best friend (but don't let that scare you off).

Without further ado (because there has already been way too much anyway); I present "The Laptop Saga".

[I typed this next paragraph in my best 'Radio Announcer Voice', so please read accordingly]

In the continuing saga of man vs computer, we revisit the age old struggle between malfunctions, lack-of-knowledge and customer service. These three ingredients make up the Bermuda triangle of technology, where people become disoriented and entire days are lost forever.

(Sorry, I added that last bit of ado, but now I'm done...)

This saga began when my wife started to inquire about backing things up on her computer because it seemed to be bogging down. Soon, it started to periodically shut itself off. That concerned me. So I said “Just put in a blank CD and copy your stuff”. The next day, as her frustration got a little more vocal, I figured it was time to take action.

My first order of business was to get a quality backup of her most needed data; Word documents and the entire ‘Emphasis’ folder that houses all of her cyber belongings. No problem, I would just dump everything to a CD (it was about 700 megabytes of stuff). Well, that’s easy enough… if you have a cooperative computer. However, her laptop kept shutting down before even really getting started. It would run just long enough to ruin the CD, then complain about an error in the program and conveniently reboot itself.

This was going to take some serious intervention. The last time I saw a computer acting this crazy was when I tried to update Norton Anti-Virus on the desktop and it crashed my entire hard drive and we almost lost everything thanks to the incompetent tech service at Best Buy, but I digress.

It was looking a lot like a virus problem so I tried to run Norton, but it would not finish. I tried to update Norton, no good. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it from the CD-ROM. This was met with sporadic results. Over the course of the next couple of evenings (using up all of my otherwise free time), I went through a vicious non-repeating cycle that just about drove me crazy. I took these steps over and over in different orders with differing levels of success each time:

Uninstall Norton 2006 using the XP uninstall wizard
Install Norton 2006
Run Norton 2006
Run Norton Autofix to catch any known problems
Download Norton 2007
Uninstall Norton 2007 using the XP uninstall wizard
Install Norton 2007
Run Norton 2007
Download and Run Norton Removal Tool to uninstall Norton

Somewhere in this madness I had relocated my recovery efforts to my office so I could reference the internet on my laptop while trying to fix hers, I got the idea to try my USB flash drive to transfer data from hers to mine because each time she passed my office door and saw my frustration and desperation, she wilted a bit, no doubt thinking of all her work being deleted. I got excited as the flash drive transfer seemed to be working, taking little chunks at a time since the flash drive was only 256M. But after transferring about 60% of her stuff, her computer stopped recognizing the flash drive all together and my brief jubilation soon faded.

Between restarting itself at the most inopportune times and freezing up, forcing me to manually restart it, I went through the reboot cycle over a hundred times. At some point in the downward spiral of trying to get a good scan and stop whatever virus was present, I had an epiphany [from Webster’s: epiphany: an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking].

This gargantuan, yet simple idea had been staring me in the face the last couple days as I struggled with trying to solve the first of two problems:

1) Backing up data
2) Finding and removing the cause of the self shut downs and other less than optimum behavior rendering this laptop useless.

The process was easy; I connected one of my external hard drives through the USB port and the laptop recognized it. I had to take small steps in the transfer of data as the spontaneous shutdowns continued, but I was able to eventually get all the data backed up. This would serve a two fold purpose, now I could connect that hard drive to my computer (after installing FrontPage) and she could do her web stuff on my computer while hers was down, if even for only a day or two, then all the updated data could be transferred back to her laptop easy enough once it was fixed.

After getting her work backed up, I took it a step further. Shortly after getting the computer, we copied all of our music onto it (all 16,000 songs or so ~ about 42gig worth). From there she had diligently, over the course of the last 4 months, continually removed the songs she didn’t like one by one as they played randomly. This may not seem like a big deal, but I knew it was something she had spent a lot of time on and I could see she had removed a couple thousand songs from her hard drive. I figured if I backed up her entire collection, it would make life that much easier when I replaced it back into its current list of songs after this nightmare was over. This took most of the third night to accomplish because, besides the shear volume of data, I had to keep track of what I had done so that when the laptop decided to reboot itself, I could pick up somewhere near where I had left off.

Now with a huge weight off my shoulders I could concentrate on the virus, or whatever, without regard to keeping her data while the computer seemed to be self destructing. I knew it was time to call in some reinforcements, so I broke down and contacted Norton’s Customer Service since I couldn’t get the software to fully load. I used the Live Chat, because there is a charge for phone help.

She had me run the Norton Removal Tool again then directed me to a folder that is not removed when Norton is uninstalled or ‘removed’. It is located here: ‘Program Files/Common Files/Symantec Shared’. I think they keep information about the previous Norton product and subscription dates et cetera in this folder but conveniently don’t remove it through the uninstall programs so they can tell if you have already loaded a Norton product in the past.

She then told me to reinstall Norton 2007 and everything would be fine. Being somewhat of a pessimist when dealing with tech support, I inquired as to what I should do if it doesn’t work. She assured me it would work and we ended our support session. I took the necessary steps and was greeted with:

ERROR: INSTALL FAILED!

Nice. OK, enough of that whole Symantec and Norton Anti-Virus crud. I began researching virus protection software and decided to download a copy of BitDefender, it had good reviews but was only available online. I had to download it to MY laptop, burn a CD, and then install it on the problem child. I was growing weary as the install had to be performed multiple times before I was able to run the scan. Even then, I had to run it on a specific subset of folders/drives to avoid the continued self shutdown. Finally, I had everything scanned and there were NO viruses, zero.

I had to come to the reality that there were no know viruses on this computer and that maybe Norton hadn’t been the problem at all. But what then? I regrouped and restored the computer to a restore point about a month previous. Same problems occurred. I restored to a few months earlier, which was soon after the laptop was put into commission. Still, I saw problems and shut downs.

I did an ‘undo’ on the last restore point. That is when things went from bad to downright nasty. The computer shutdown somewhere during the restore ‘undo’ and from that point on, Windows would not boot up correctly, but instead would leave me staring at a blank wallpaper background with no icons or toolbars.

I bit the bullet and vowed to reformat the hard drive, restoring the computer to its just-out-of-the-box state. I summoned the HP Recovery window from its own little partition of the hard drive. With a very determined ‘CLICK’ I started the wheels in motion that would wipe out any problems and return a fresh computer. Then after an hour and 15 minutes or so, just as quickly as it started, it stopped and said it could not copy certain files. I tried to salvage it but to no avail.

I had one final weapon in my arsenal, the Windows XP Operating System DVD. I had paid an extra 10 bucks for this baby when we got the computer, for just such a time as this. I loaded that up and it chugged away for quite awhile then the unthinkable (unless you have dealt with computers before).

-- ERROR: CANNOT COPY FILE blahblahblah.sys FROM DISC --

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!

Luckily I was alone in the house at the time as I’m sure I would have scared the kids. I yelled out louder than I recall doing in a very, very long time “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” as I threw down my handy dandy notebook that I use for documenting particulars in cases like this. I paced back and forth for a few minutes and took a few deep breaths.

At this point I figured that there must be a bigger issue to deal with here. I had already had way too much enjoyment messing around with this thing so I chose to spread the fun around a bit. The laptop was still under warranty and so I gathered the needed information and called the infamous HP technical support. As you can imagine, I was near the end of my rope by the time I decided to call in the HP. Basically what I needed now was someone to hold my hand, tell me it would be alright and fix things without any further delay.

Wednesday, January 10th , 2007 10am Mountain time
I was greeted by the dreaded automated phone system (APS).

APS: Welcome to the HP Support Center blah blah blah may be recorded blah blah Please tell me which product you have and your model number.

ME: Oh crud, I hate….

APS: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand which product you have. Please say some…..

ME: PAVILLION!!!

APS: OK. I understand you have a ‘Pavillion’ notebook. Is that correct?

ME: Yup.

Then I was put on hold only to be periodically informed that ‘Due to an unexpectedly high volume of calls, we are experiencing longer than anticipated wait times. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received.’ I am so tired of being on ‘hold’ because of a company’s bad planning. I very seldom call a customer support number these days without hearing something similar to “We are experiencing and unusually high volume of calls…” Here’s a little tip: Anticipate More Calls, Hire More People!

Finally, a real person came on and unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, I had a really hard time understanding his English with the Mid-Eastern accent. Couple that with a less than perfect connection and I knew I was in trouble.

I had to explain the entire situation to him and told him that my goal had been reduced to simply reformatting the hard drive. He wanted to walk me through the steps required to accomplish this with the DVD. Now this is a VERY condensed version of our conversation. The actual interaction had a lot more broken English which I followed up with everything from “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” to “You want me to what?” to “Ummm, I have no idea what you just said…”

So, it went something like this:

ME: I just tried to run the operating system DVD last night it will start out fine then run for over and hour before complaining about an error and dying. Do you really want me to do that again?

HIM: It shouldn’t take that long.

ME: It did last night. Do we have to go through it again?

HIM: Yes, please.

ME: OK, here goes.

I put the DVD in and began reformatting. It was going very slowly.

HIM: What does it say now?

ME: 1%

About 5 minutes later:
HIM: What does it say now?

ME: 5%

At that point I started making myself useful and went into the other room and stared cleaning off the desk and filing papers and dinking around the house.

HIM: What does it say now?

ME: 13% (now this was just a guess, but since it was continuing on a linear timeline, I could make a pretty close prediction).

After brushing my teeth and dinking around a little more, I went back to sit in front of the computer in question. It had been about 20 minutes from the time I started the DVD.

HIM: What does it say now?

ME: 22%

HIM: OK, something isn’t right. You can go ahead and stop it now.

Then he lead me through some steps to get into the BIOS menu.

HIM: Now, click on ‘Check Hard Drive’.

ME: Uh, I just did this last night also. It took about an hour and 10 minutes to complete. It said everything ‘passed’.

HIM: We need to run it again.

ME: You mean you want me to sit on the phone for over an hour while this thing runs even though I can tell you what the results will be?

HIM: Once you start it, I will give you a case number and you can call back after it finishes.

ME: You’ve got to be kidding…(then with a defeated sigh) fine.

HIM: Case # 7336378627

ME: So what will be the next step if the tests come back as ‘Passed’ as they did last night?

HIM: We will have to send it in for service.

ME: OK, I’ll call back.

HIM: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Why do they ask that? It really bugs me, especially when they haven’t really helped you with anything anyway. They already know what the problem is and I still have that problem. As a matter of fact, he knows I will be calling back later today anyway. What does he expect to hear? Something like this: ‘Oh, actually yes, thanks for asking, my other computer has been out of commission for a couple months, I’m glad you reminded me’.

ME: Uh, no, not at this point.

End of first call. The hard drive test finished with the same results as the night before, big surprise.

Wednesday, January 10th , 4:10pm
I called back and went through the waiting game again. Then another person takes my case number.
HIM: OK, give me a minute to review your case.

ME: OK.

HIM: So you are trying reformat you drive?

ME: Yes. I was supposed to call back after running this test.

HIM: What does the computer say?

ME: All tests show ‘Passed’.

HIM: OK I will need to get you in contact with our service department.

ME: OK.

HIM: What number can they reach you at?

ME: When are they going to call me?

HIM: Within 48 hours. When is the best time to call?

ME: (Gave phone number) What do you mean, do you want a specific time or a range of times?

HIM: OK.

ME: (Confused by his answer) OK what? Do you want a time for today or for tomorrow?

HIM: OK. (In his I-speak-some-english-but-I-don’t-really-comprehend-it-all-that-well accent)

ME: (arrgg) Huh? Can they call me tonight?

HIM: OK, so you are having trouble rebooting your laptop?

ME: Uhhh, (Did I just get thrown back 3 tests and 12 hours? I’ve been through this more than once already.) Yeah. So tell me, what are they going to do when they call me back? Why are they calling me?

HIM: To set you up to get your laptop serviced.

ME: OK and they will call me within 48 hours?

HIM: Yes, what time zone are you in?

ME: (Why does that matter, 48 hours is the same length of time no matter what time zone you are in.) Mountain Time zone.

HIM: OK they will call you.

Friday, January 12th , 5:14pm (49 hours later)
I called back.
Again with the ‘Please state your product and model number’. Can’t I bypass this or something? I have a case number so I should be able to just enter that at the very least. Eventually I get another one of HPs offshore technical support personnel.

HER: Do you have a case number?

ME: Yeah, but many more of these calls and we may have to increment it. (I gave her the number).

HER: OK give me a minute to review….

ME: Sure.

HER: So you are having trouble booting your computer?

ME: No, well yes, but here’s the deal. Your service department was supposed to call me within 48 hours and they didn’t. I simply want to get in touch with them and since they appear to have a classified phone number, I had to call you again.

HER: I will try to transfer you. So you are having trouble with booting your computer?

ME: Yes, will that get me connected to the Service Department?

HER: Can you hold for a minute please?

ME: Sure.

A few minutes later…
HER: I tried to transfer your call, but the high call volume prevents me from doing so.

ME: OK, what does that mean?

HER: I will have to have them call you back.

ME: They are already supposed to call me and they haven’t, it’s been over two days.

HER: I will have them call you tomorrow.

ME: Can’t they do it tonight?

HER: No, but I can make sure they call in the morning, can they reach you at the number we have on file?

ME: (Verified number), yes.

HER: When would be a good time for them to call you?

ME: Now.

HER: They cannot do it tonight, what time can they call tomorrow?

ME: Fine 6am.

HER: OK, what time zone are you in?

ME: Mountain, so they will call me at 6am tomorrow?

HER: Yes.

Saturday, January 13th , 7:15am
Unsurprisingly, I had not yet received a call from the Service Department so I called back.

I was once again trying to understand a dude with very broken English and things were further complicated by an intermittent clicking noise on the line, very distracting. After he ‘reviewed my case’:

HIM: So can you explain to me what happened with your computer?

ME: What? No. I have spent hours explaining it to the previous three people.

HIM: So the reformat DVD didn’t work?

ME: No it didn’t work, what I need to do is talk to Service, they were supposed to call me on two separate occasions now and they haven’t called me either time. Can you transfer me?

HIM: I will try to transfer, can you hold for not more than a minute?

ME: Sure.

I didn’t trust his ‘for not more than a minute’ (which were his exact words), so I took note of the time. A full 5 minutes later he came back on the line (maybe it had something to do with Mountain Time).

He tried to sell me an extended warranty with accidental damage protection; I let him ramble for a minute. But when it became apparent he was going to explain every little detail, I had to stop him.

ME: I understand how it works, I have that coverage on my other laptop, but I don’t need it on this one, I just need to utilize the coverage I already have on it.

HIM: OK, sir. Did you try to reformat from the partition or from the DVD?

ME: Yes, I tried them both. Nothing worked. (I didn’t know why he was still asking questions but I decided to give him a little leeway since he said he would transfer me to the Service Dept.)

So after 31 minutes, I was finally connected to the elusive Service Department where I got to talk to a guy named John who was just as hard to understand as the rest of them. He verified my serial number in this way:

HIM: Blah, blah …..6361, F as in Frank, R as in Rover, J as in Georgia…

ME: Uh, yeah, kinda but it ends with a J as in Jackass, not Georgia.

HIM: OK. I apologize for not getting back to you, we have had a huge call volume. Can you tell me what the problem is with your computer?

ME: (Thinking this is why you have such a huge call volume, because you keep asking everyone to re-explain the problem, I paraphrased it for him.) I cannot get it to reformat.

HIM: Is this a DVD that you burned or did it come with the computer?

ME: It came with the computer, I paid an extra $10 to have it just in case I needed to reformat my computer. I just broke the seal and it is not scratched and the computer is not complaining about not being able to read it.

HIM: Well maybe there is something wrong with it. I will send out a new set of DVDs specific to your computer.

ME: Specific to my computer? This is what HP sent me with my computer, shouldn’t that be specific enough? How likely is it that the DVD is bad? It seems to me that when it complains about not being able to ‘copy file from disc’, the problem is most likely with the destination not the source.

HIM: Maybe you got the wrong DVD for that computer, blah, blah, blah.

He verified all the information again and said that I would get the new DVDs by Monday at 4pm.

ME: Well what if the new ones don’t work?

HIM: They should, because the test didn’t find any problems with the hard drive.

ME: Yeah, but it also couldn’t reformat from the Partition, what does that tell you?

HIM: Give these a try, they should work. We will call you back on Monday or Tuesday to verify that everything went well.

ME: OK I’ll try them. So you will call back on Monday or Tuesday?

HIM: Yes.

On Monday morning, I tried to track the package on the FED EX site and it hadn’t even been shipped yet. It did get sent out later that day and it came on Tuesday. I had to wait until after work to try them out.

This was a two DVD set. I put the first in and followed the steps, it went fine. Then it asked me to insert the second and click OK. About 20 minutes into Disc 2, it died with a ‘cannot copy file from disc’ error. It said “Please eject and clean disc and try again”. Just for kicks I did, but, of course, I got the same error again. Time to grab the phone and hope it’s charged up…

Tuesday, January 16, 7:16pm
Got through automated portion and was on hold, then came silence, followed by a dial tone. Great, now they have caller ID and hung up on me?

Tuesday, January 16, 7:20pm
This time some lady answered and supposedly reviewed my case.
HER: Do you have the laptop now?

ME: Yes.

HER: You have the laptop?

ME: Yes, am I not supposed to?

HER: So you already have it back from service?

ME: Service never had it. They sent me some new reformat DVDs that I tried them and they didn’t work.

HER: I can help you, maybe the CD-ROM drive is not working right, I can guide you through the process of reformatting.

ME: (Getting a bit testy) No! What I need is to be transferred to the Service Department because they never call me when they say they will. I have already been through all the debugging stuff. The CD-ROM drive is fine, it reads the entire first DVD fine, the gets through some of the second one before it cannot copy a file to the hard drive.

HER: Maybe we need to get it in for service.

ME: (Duh) Yeah, what do I need to do to get that going?

HER: I will arrange for a callback…

ME: NO! That doesn’t work, can’t you just transfer me?

HER: The lines are all taken. But I can label it “High Priority” and they will get back to you. That I can do.

( I am starting to think that a “One Year Warranty” means that it takes one year to get any warranty work done and I will take a good long look at the ‘Two Day Warranty’ next time.)

ME: So when would I get a call?

HER: They will call you within the next 4 to 5 hours.

(Why don’t people just say ‘within 5 hours’ because obviously that covers ‘within 4 to 5 hours’ as well as ‘within 2 to 5 hours’ and any other combination that includes ‘5 hours’ as the longest measure of time?)

ME: OK, if that’s all you can do then I guess its fine.

HER: Can they call anytime?

ME: Yes, but they will call within 5 hours?

HER: Yes.

So she supposedly marked it as ‘High Priority’ and told them to call me immediately. I didn’t wait up.

Twenty hours later they had not returned my call as promised for the fourth straight time. So I called back.

Wednesday, January 17th , 4:10pm

Automated Voice: Please state your product and model number.
ME: (I was getting irritated by this time so I snapped my reply) “What if I don’t?”

AV: I understand that is a Pavilion, is that correct.

ME: (I was confused and trying to process how in the heck the voice recognition mistook ‘What if I don’t?’ as ‘Pavilion’. Furthermore it was correct and that was in fact the product I was calling about. I decided to just move on.) Uhh, yeeaah.

So after the obligatory waiting, some guy came on and introduced himself as something similar to ‘Moemud’. I had read that all of HPs customer service had moved over to India and everything I had experienced with technical support appeared to back this up but I was still curious.

ME: Hey, could you tell me where you are geographically located?

HIM: We are in the Southern part of India.

ME: (Notion confirmed) Oh, what’s the weather like there right now?

HIM: Too cold.

ME: Yeah, I know what you mean. It was 5 degrees here this morning.

HIM: It’s 18 degrees here.

ME: (Thinking: does India really get that cold? Then realizing that they don’t use Fahrenheit) Are you talking Celsius?

HIM: Yes

So basically he was complaining because it’s only 65 degrees out. Anyway, now that we had the small talk out of the way…

HIM: It looks like you are having trouble rebooting your laptop.

ME: I just need to get in touch with your service department. They were supposed to call me back but once again have failed to do so.

HIM: Have you done a system recovery.

ME: (Losing my patience) What do you mean? Do you mean ‘Have I done it?’ or ‘Have I tried it?’ or ‘Did it work?’ You know what, yes I have done it. I have done many system restores. I have done many system recoveries, none of which finished. I have reformatted the hard drive multiple times from different sets of system DVDs, all of which failed. I have called technical support a half dozen times, also with little success. I have waited for service to call me back on four separate occasions; they have never called me back. What I need now is for you to transfer me to the service department and I need them to set up a pick up date for this laptop to be sent in and fixed.

(I’m sure I threw in a couple of ‘dangs’ and maybe a ‘stinkin’ or two, but you get the general idea)

HIM: Don’t worry, I’m here to help. First, turn off your computer.

(Why? Are you here to pick it up already? I looked at the screen with the error message that had been up for 22 hours now according the clock that was timing the reformat progress, then I shut it down.)

HIM: OK now turn it on while pressing F10.

ME: (Hesitantly trying to figure out where he is going with this) Why do I need to do this.

HIM: To get to the BIOS so we can run a hard drive self test.

ME: NO! I’ve been to the BIOS; I’ve run the very test twice.

HIM: What were the results?

ME: You should have them there. What exactly does it say under this case number? Oh forget it; all the tests came up as ‘Passed’. I have been through the entire ‘checklist’ you guys have, I don’t need anymore diagnostics, what I need is for someone to arrange a pickup for me.

HIM: Let me make some notes then I will transfer you to the service dept. Please hold while I write this up and transfer you.

ME: OK, Thanks.

At 4:30pm I got put back on hold with some kind of banjo type music. I was on hold for 24 minutes, but I guess that’s better than waiting a week for a call back that never materializes. I was finally connected with a hardware specialist in the highly reclusive service department.

HIM: What does the error message say on the laptop?

ME: Well, I cannot tell you for sure anymore, the last guy made me turn it off, but it referred to not being able to copy a file from the disc.

Finally after 59 minutes on this call alone, the words I have been waiting for “We will be shipping you a box to send in the laptop for service”. I explained that I still had the original box, but they insisted on sending me a new one. I guess I can get rid of the old original, I had just been keeping it around in case I ever needed to send this thing in, what do I know? I specifically asked when the box would arrive and how long the service department would need to fix it. He told me that the box would be here either Thursday or Friday and that they should get it fixed within 5-7 business days.

So after 7 calls and about 4 hours spread out over 8 days, they finally did what I think they should have done on the first call (and maybe a call back if they would have actually called me back). All of the tests and procedures that they made me do, had already been done at least once before I called the initial time.

On Friday, Fed Ex delivered the promised ‘empty box’. Within 10 minutes I had slapped the laptop into it and made sure that all directions were followed to avoid problems later, taped it up and called Fed Ex for a pickup.

Thoughts of ‘here we go again’ flashed through my head as I navigated the automated phone system to a point that required an account number in order to schedule a pick-up. Luckily, the ‘zero’ connected me with a live person who, incidentally, spoke perfect English. He quickly got me set up and the package was back on its way to HP later that same day. Now that’s what I call customer service.

Jump to Monday, January 22nd
I received an email requesting me to take a survey of my recent interaction with HPs Customer Service. I filled it out as best I could even though it was focused on my "calling to request replacement Operating System CDs". I did, very, very briefly voice my dis-satisfaction with the apparent lack of caring on the HP side.

The next day, Tuesday, my wife received a call from a “Case Manager”. Apparently she had been forwarded my customer satisfaction survey and she was very apologetic and agreed that the service we had gotten thus far was unacceptable. She gave us a number where we could reach her and said that from here on out, call her and she would handle the case. She told us to call her if we had not received the laptop back by Friday or if the laptop was not “100%”.

I don’t know if she had extra pull or not, but the laptop was finished and on it’s way back to us the very next day.

That brings us to Friday (we missed the delivery on Thursday), the computer came and was waiting for me after work. The first thing I noticed was that the box had seen better days, apparently many, many better days. It was old, trashed and had a lot of crossed out markings and multiple colors of tape. I opened it and found that the foam inside was cut for a larger laptop so it had been jostled around a bit (sigh). The enclosed ‘Dear HP Valued Customer’ letter that was included stated “We identified an issue with your software as a result we restored your system to its original factory settings”. That sent up an immediate red flag because the software was not the problem. I continued…

I plugged it in and didn’t put the battery in. I turned it on. Windows came up, which was further than it had been getting, so that was good. But my excitement was very short lived when an error came up almost immediately:

“The System is shutting down...Windows must now restart because the Remote Procedure Call service terminated unexpectedly.”

This Error came complete with a self-timer counting down from 60 seconds. I panicked slightly and started scrawling down the message. I had not expected any errors (silly me), so I hadn’t set up the video camera as I had been doing so that I could catch the errors and remember the sequence of procedures and problems. I spotted the still camera across the room so I ran over, turned it on and clicked a quick photo. The flash went off which created a bright spot whiting out most of the message. I glanced at the remaining time, 15 seconds and counting. I turned the flash off and clicked another quick picture, which was out of focus. One last try, I zoomed out, got close, set the macro focus, made sure the flash was off and frantically clicked again as the screen shut down. The photo shows the remaining time as 00:00:00, but luckily, the error is readable.

Meanwhile the laptop is restarting, which gave me a few seconds to get the video camera set up again. Once again Windows started up. Once again an error appeared. This one was different, complaining about a DLL loading problem, so I snapped another photo and shut the computer down manually.

I restarted it again. Once again Windows came up. Once again a different error appeared:
“The exception unknown software exception (oxc0000409) occurred in the application at location (0x77121a24)”

What the heck does ‘The exception unknown software exception’ mean? Is that a code for ‘There is an unknown problem with the software problem that is not known’. Anyway, at that point, I unplugged the laptop and put it back into the box!

Luckily, I now had the phone number to my ‘Case Manager’. It was Friday at 4:57 pm. I went through the phone maze and entered the extension number she had given me. As near as I could tell, this was a general line to all case managers or whatever because I was on hold for awhile then I got an automated message that stated that the call center was open from 7am to 6pm Mountain time and that I would need to leave a message (and now I quote) “and a case manager will contact you within a few hours during our normal business hours or on the next business day outside of these hours, thank you.”

OK, time for a breakdown of the somewhat cryptic message above. The way I see it, I could either leave a message:

1) During normal business hours or,
2) Outside of these hours

And they would return my call either:

1) Within a few hours or,
2) The next business day

Now the quote above is perfectly accurate (I frequently record these calls for the sole purpose of writing up these excruciatingly long recaps).

The question is if I do #1, which will they do? #1 or #2?

I think it is easiest to evaluate their second option. ‘…On the next business day outside of these hours’ could only mean one thing to me; that if I call outside of their business hours, they will call me back the next business day. Because, surely they don’t mean that if I call during business hours they will either call me back 1) within a few hours or 2) OUTSIDE of their normal business hours on the next business day.

Basically it boils down to this:
If I leave a message outside of normal business hours, they will return my call the next business day (presumably during normal business hours).

If I leave a message during normal business hours (which I did at 5:08pm), they would call me back within a few hours (which they didn’t).

I count this at the fifth time I a row that HP did NOT call me back after they said they would.

I went on my way to other things in life, but left the phone free in case they did actually call, after all, they were open for another hour after I left the message and in any case, indicated they would call within a few hours.

Three hours later (which is a ‘few’ in my book) I decided to call the default HP support again to see if they could put me in touch with the service department to get another box on the way.

8:08 pm – called HP support.
8:20 pm – Some dude comes on and asks me for the case number etc. He asked what happened and I told him. He wanted to know what the error messages said, so I called the photos up on my laptop and read them to him. Then he mentioned my ‘desktop’. Uh, no, it’s still a laptop. Well, the nice phone system had put me through to the desktop division, which of course, cannot help out at all with a laptop. I would think that the case number might at the very least tell what kind of product I have. Anyway, I was transferred and put on hold again.

The next guy came on and asked me to explain the problem. I told that I had just gotten the laptop back from service and it still wasn’t working. He insisted on trying to troubleshoot it with me.

ME: NO! I don’t need to trouble shoot. I’ve been through your whole troubleshooting list. The laptop was sent in for service and was supposedly restored to its original factory settings. It doesn’t work, what I need is for you to transfer me to the service department so they can arrange for another pickup.

HIM: So you want to send it back?

ME: I want it fixed!

HIM: Can I put you on hold for a minute?

ME: Sure.
…
HIM: Did you turn the laptop on?

ME: Yes…..

HIM: Did you have it plugged in?

ME: Yes.

HIM: What about the battery?

ME: I didn’t even put the battery in.

HIM: You didn’t put the battery in?

ME: No.

HIM: Then how would you expect it to turn on?

ME: It was plugged in. Obviously it has power, how else would it show me the errors? (genius!)

HIM: What errors did you see?

ME: The ones I read you before.

HIM: Could you repeat them?

ME: (I was disgusted but I did it anyway)

HIM: And you won’t trouble shoot this with me?

ME: No, I have been on the phone for 5 or 6 hours trouble shooting this already, it needs service.

HIM: All I can do from this end is file your report with a case manager and have them call you back.

ME: Yeah, when, on Monday? Then we are behind a few more days.

HIM: They will call you back in 24 to 48 hours.

ME: I don’t want them to call me back in two days.

HIM: That is all we can do from our side.

ME: No it isn’t. You can transfer me to the service department. They can get a new box sent out to pick up the laptop that didn’t get fixed the first time and in the meantime, if a case manager wants to call me within 24 to 48 hours or even Monday (which they should already do because I left them a message) that’s fine. Either way, the laptop will need to be sent back in for service, so you may as well send a box now.

HIM: Can you hold for a few minutes?

ME: Sure.
…
HIM: (8:38) could you hold longer please? We are trying to figure out what we can do from here.

ME: Yeah.

When he came back on, he said they would transfer me to the service department, but not before I had to read the errors one more time so he could jot them down. That was a very slow and painful process (it took 7 minutes and 10 seconds to relay the 3 error messages to him, good thing I skipped some parts that I thought were unimportant).

HIM: Don’t worry about it, we will take care of it, I am transferring you to the service department.

At 9:08 (another one hour call) I am set up to get another box to return the thing for service. He told me it would be here on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised when we did indeed receive the shipping box on Monday. I was at work but was trying to decide weather we should ship the laptop back immediately or if I should call the Case Manager line again, because they still hadn't called back. I figured it would have to be sent back either way, but maybe the case manager had some secret, we-actually-know-how-to-fix-it, location to send it so I decided to call again.At 12:54pm I called and was soon left with the option of either leaving a message or hanging up. I decided to leave another message for them to call me between 4 and 6pm (when I'd be home). After the 'Please Leave Message' stuff, I was greeted with this:
'The person whom you have called does not have enough available space in his or her mailbox. We are unable to take your message at this time, good bye'.

And with a CLICK, the line went dead.So HP, one of the largest companies in the World, who just so happens to manufacture electronics, including computers, doesn't have enough memory to digitally store voice messages which take up very, very little memory anyway?

Especially on the Case Manager phone line? Don't they realize that the only people that get put into contact with the case managers are the ones that have already been through too much 'unacceptable' crud with the normal customer service channels? For them to run out of room to leave a message is unbelievable.

All I could do was laugh (out of disgust and disbelief).Somewhere around 2:30pm or so, the case manager did call and talk to Dionna. I'm not sure exactly how the conversation went, but Dionna said she expressed her displeasure and that she wanted a NEW laptop. The lady was very nice, but said that she had to give the service department another chance to fix it before she could do anything else. She did say that she would make a note so that the case would have 'Case Manager written all over it' and that she would be looking over their shoulder. She also said that I could call her a dozen times if I wanted to.What good would that do? I have never gotten connected to anyone using the number she gave me and furthermore, couldn't even leave a message.

So once again, we got the package shipped out the same day as we received the box (thanks to Fed Ex).

We have one HP desktop, two HP laptops (well, we did until this one was sent in for service), an HP printer and one HP digital camera in our house. However, their inability to listen to what I really needed and their total lack of courtesy in returning my calls in the time frame that they gave me (or ever for that matter) is really unacceptable and is the reason I will not recommend them to anybody and will seriously look around for something other than an HP product the next time I am in the market (can you say Dell?).

I am hoping that the laptop gets fixed and returned to us in a timely manner because I’d hate to have to do a follow up to this rant.

Thanks for stopping by

Just a quick thanks to everyone who left comments on my first post.

Dionna: I'm not sure I like the fact that you use "babe" and "no brain" in the same sentence.

Angela (my favorite daughter in law): Please don't call me a 'blogger', I prefer 'Online Columnist'. Also, maybe I should have stopped after that post, it seems unlikely that I will ever reach anything higher than 327/328. I may have peaked to early here.

Tamie: Hello there, if you read the Africa book, then you know what you are getting into here. In that case, I'd have to say that you are the brave one.

Jen: Shhhh!, it's not a diary. It's more like 'Letters to the Editor'. Where not only am I the Editor, but I'm also the only one who can post. Kinda like talking to myself in front of a lot of people, I guess.

Steve: Do I know you? I think your '300' is a bit high. I give myself somewhere around 200-250.

As for the 'stare down', I assume you are talking about one of the photos. There are three possibilities:

1)African Elephant:
I won the stare down, but then he got angry, trumpeted and snorted. I quickly broke eye contact and took a seat in my slightly wet pants. If you weren't talking about the elephant, please disregard the previous thought

2)Peruvian Girl:
Easy peasy, I took her down and went on to my next contest without even blinking in between.

3)Pale dude in the Louve:
It was a great contest. One for the ages. I mean, here is this guy who has stared down people for hundreds of years. In walked an unsuspecting American (me). From across the room I caught a glimpse of him and thought to myself "Hey, are you lookin' at me?". We locked eyes and the contest was on! Six hours, 32 minutes and 14 seconds later, with tears running down my cheeks and eyes burning, security carried me out and closed down for the night. I did blink as they put me in a headlock, so you might say I lost. But then again, he was kinda STONED, so his reflexes were slow anyway.

I won 2 out of 3. Any other questions?

To Blog or not to Blog?

My lovely wife has been pushing me to start a blog for a while now. I generally shy away from quirky fads and I have, until now, resisted this one. But mainly because of the `time commitment'. Not only my time - as it takes me an incredible amount of time to actually get my point across (assuming I have a point in the first place) - but I have serious questions about anybody who would come here and waste their valuable time reading my ramblings.

As you are probably aware, the term `blog' was derived from `web log'. I have never liked the term `blog'. Would `weblog' have been to terribly long to say and/or write? For centuries, people have been scrawling their inner thoughts and feelings into a `diary' with little to no resistance to the three syllable, feminine sounding, word.

There was no rush to call that `paper log' a `plog'. And make no mistake about it, as much as all the men out there would like to deny it, a blog is just a glorified diary. And why would anybody want to write in a diary that can be read by pretty much anybody in the world?

I have not yet reconciled in my own mind the pros and cons of private-blog vs. blog-to-the-nations. I have chosen to begin with a public (but not advertised) blog. If I find that my readers (both of them) begin to be heckled and ridiculed for leaving comments here, I reserve the right to go private at a later, undisclosed time.

I have no idea how often I will update my diary, er blog. But in the absence of anything substantial to say, I will most likely be `republishing' some of my backwash stories. These `stories' are actually just stuff I've typed up in the past, they were usually emailed to a handful of family/friends, some of which actually read them. Those are probably the same people who are scrolling their mouse pointer toward the `Back' button and won't even get to the end of this sentence. Some entries will be humorous (to me anyway), and some will be just dumb, but that's the beauty of it, reading this blog is totally voluntary. So basically, this is my disclaimer (which by reading my blog, you implicitly agree to):

If you don't like reading my endless ramblings, leave. Go somewhere like my wife's blog where her posts are not only readable and cohesive, but they actually have meaning and/or insight.

I had planned on being very profound in my opening monolog, but then I thought `Why try to be witty and creative here?' It would just give you, my readers, a false sense of hope that my follow up entries would contain those characteristics also. Instead, I decided to make this just as choppy and unfollowable (new word) as most subsequent posts will be.

You will also notice that I love to use parenthesis (they are kind of my way of setting apart little thoughts that I would normally just say in an actual conversation, even though they are frequently off topic), you will notice that they don't really add much to the underlying meaning of the sentence, but I love them anyway. Also, my use of the comma might leave you gasping for air and looking for the next actual breaking point; well, this ain't no grammar lesson and you will either
A) Live with it, or
B) Go away.

This blog will NOT be an accurate `Day in the Life' type of log. It will not contain all the positive day to day stuff that I have been blessed with (family, job and health). It might even seem biased toward pessimism, but this is only because most of the things I like to write about are negative experiences. I like to think of it as some sort of therapy I go through.
I figure if I can laugh at all the crud that comes my way, I will live longer (or maybe I just like ripping on people).

One last thing (as if there could be more than one `last' thing anyway): Please leave comments after reading this and/or other entries letting me know, on a scale from 1 to 328 how much you enjoyed it (or not so much), with `1' being the lowest (duh). Your feedback will help me become a better person and allow me to re-evaluate my behavior in the future, it will influence who I am. Yeah, right, -strike that last sentence-, actually I just want to know who is snooping around in my little corner of the web.

There you have it. I have officially started my very first blog.

Let the games begin.