One year ago, everything was just fine. My computer worked “just fine.” My cellphone worked “just fine.”
So I now curse the day when it occurred to me that I could do better. Television commercials convinced me that new technology would make my life better, so I decided to upgrade. I now know they lied. I first bought a Telus Treo (apparently I was in breach of some federal law that requires all journalists to have a PDA with continuous access to e-mail and the Internet). I could create and edit Word documents while driving and drinking coffee, plus call any of the thousands of contacts in my Treo database.
But, $600 later, I realized the keys were too tiny to ‘dial’ numbers and make phone calls. That’s probably why it has the added feature of an onscreen dial pad — that requires at least two free hands and a stylus to key in the number.
Not being able to actually use this ‘smartphone’ as a phone soon became a problem. That’s when I went to Bell. Two hundred dollars later, I had a simple cellphone with a key pad so big an elephant could daintily call home while simultaneously driving and snacking on peanuts.
Undeterred by this costly setback, I called Dell and put another $1,500 on my credit card to get the final piece of technology that would make my life better.
Just before hanging up, the Dell salesman said the words that have since sucked the very life out of my soul and all of the money out of my wallet. “Thank you for choosing Dell.”
When calmly spoken or printed on the pages of a Dell Customer Care Manual, these words seem entirely reasonable and incapable of inciting rage. But I will testify that they were the last words I heard before I slipped over the edge into what shall forever be known as Dell Hell.
The computer was barely out of the packaging when it crashed. Over the past eight months, I’ve spent 80 per cent of my life on hold waiting for a Dell representative who they said would be “eager” to serve me. Frankly, I don’t think the people who made this promise have met any of the Dell representatives who have ‘served’ me.
Since then, Ramesh, Riyassuddin, Dinesh and Babu have all promised the problem would be resolved. They’ve stripped it, reloaded it and reconfigured my e-mail in just such a way as to mistakenly delete all my archived e-mails. They said, “Oops,” but that doesn’t get my e-mails back.
I tried patience… and lost. I tried being firm… and lost. I tried ranting and raving… and then I burst into tears and lost it.
By Month 7, I could no longer have rational conversations with Dell (or anyone else). So I brought in a friend with a phone voice who could reach up under any plastic pen pocket protector and melt the heart of the most-hardened technical support person. In fact, she so softened their hearts that they seemed to come under the impression that Dell had done irreversible psychological damage to me and I was now bed-ridden.
More perplexing than this miscommunication (who would have guessed that a conversation between Vancouver and India could get misunderstood?) was that my friend decided to go with it. Nothing else had worked.
But after a week, even Babu had given up. I was now (for all intents and purposes related to Dell and their files) practically dead anyway. Computers can send a man to the moon. But give it a two-page Word document and suddenly failure becomes not just an option, but a certainty.
“Thank you for choosing Dell.”
It’s no wonder Dell is now closing its Ottawa ‘call centre’ (I use that term loosely). Given the high Canadian dollar, it’s too costly to employ 1,100 Canadians to be unhelpful when Dell’s already paying 57,000 employees worldwide to be unhelpful.
Then, just as I gave up my fight with Dell, my Treo stopped accepting e-mails. After two months of prolonged arguments and phone calls with Telus, e-mail was restored. But now every new e-mail automatically deletes any previous e-mails, so it really isn’t very useful.
So I didn’t even blink an eye when my Bell cell died last week. Neither did the Bell employee who couldn’t even be bothered to get up from her chair and come to the counter to serve me. She said to call Bell support. But Bell support said to take it back to the store I bought it from. It’s now under the left rear wheel of my car.
Let’s sum up: I now have a $600 PDA that can only receive one e-mail at a time and can’t make phone calls. I have a $200 cellphone that is dead. My computer crashes multiple times per day. Last week, my cat attacked my printer and removed several key pieces with his paw. My printer now consists of bits and pieces that simply won’t work together anymore . . . much like the Calgary Flames.
Contrary to claims by Telus, I now know the techno-future won’t be friendly. Because the techno-present sucks.
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