  Comedy
This week: Tech Support Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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"I had thought - I had been told - that a 'funny' thing is a thing of a goodness. It isn't. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. Like that sheriff without his pants. The goodness is in the laughing itself. I grok it is a bravery... and a sharing... against pain and sorrow and defeat."
- Valentine Michael Smith
(Robert Heinlein,
Stranger in a Strange Land) |
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Tech Support
Last month, I ordered a laptop from a major consumer electronics company, who shall remain nameless, but let's call them Hell Perdition.
Thus began a long odyssey of torture that started making Gitmo look good.
I told the guy I ordered the computer from two things: first, I had to have the thing in my hands prior to July 6, because that was the date I was going out of town for a week. Laptop. Out of town. See?
The second thing I told him was that it absolutely, positively, had to be able to run an older version of the CAD software I use for my real-life job - because after spending that much on a laptop, I had nothing left over to actually update the software for it.
"Oh, no problem. The ship date is June 27, and you can definitely run that software on this machine."
I pointed out that with a holiday weekend in there, I needed more assurance that the computer would arrive before I left, and so I ended up paying an extra hundred bucks for expedited shipping. (Business expense, you know.)
So I waited, and June 27 came along, no notification. June 28 appears and I get an email giving me 10% off anything in the store as a consolation prize because the computer wouldn't ship until... July 15.
Oh, and the coupon expires July 31. Thanks a lot. That's really useful.
So, okay, no shiny new laptop on my trip. I can adjust. Not like I was going to have a lot of time to use it. I pack up and leave early in the morning on the 6th... and find out that the computer arrived about four seconds after I left town.
Okay, at least it arrived, though the expedited shipping was useless, because it was a week before I even saw the package. I get back and set the thing up, taking a day to run all the OS updates - why they can't build the thing with all the latest updates is beyond me, really - and go to install my CAD program.
Fail.
Now I'm starting to get peeved, and I go to research WHY this program isn't loading, after they assured me I could run a 32 bit program on a 64 bit OS. Do I need to run the OS in XP mode? Adjust the RAM? Fiddle with the USB? Come up with acronyms of my own? What? I don't want to call tech support at this point, because they'll just tell me to contact the software provider, who would tell me to call the hardware provider, who would tell me to call the software provider, who...
It turns out that while the program is 32 bit and should run fine, the installer is legacy software from the dark ages of 16 bit operating systems.
(At this point, your eyes are glazed over and you're getting very sleepy. Verrrry sleepy. You will soon be under my control and will do everything I say. Now: Laugh.)
Anyway, okay, that's annoying, but I can make it work. I think.
Then the laptop screen starts showing a bunch of red pixels where no red pixels should be.
Still not willing to deal with tech support and their marginal command of English, I did web searches for that particular problem, and every one of them said, "bad video card."
Okay, time to call tech support. I tell them the problem without mentioning "bad video card," and they're like, "You did damage to the computer. This is not covered under warranty."
Now I'm starting to get angry. "What do you mean, I did damage? I've treated this thing like a Ming vase the whole time."
"Well, that kind of problem happens when you put too much processing power through the CPU and it burns out the RAM and the video card," or something like that.
I stop for a minute. Then, "Are you accusing me of overclocking the CPU?" See, I know what overclocking is. I'm not utterly stupid about computers, like tech support always assumes. But I'm not smart enough to know how to overclock the CPU, though I am smart enough to know not to overclock the CPU.
"Well, that is one way this problem could happen, yes."
Then I pointed out that I bought the extended warranty that covers even accidental damage, and besides, I'm still within the return-policy window. I might have said some words that may not translate well into Hindi. And I reiterated that I didn't jack up the CPU speed.
Anyway, I ended up packing the Ming vase into its original container (good thing I keep those things) and getting my money back. I also bought a new laptop, hopefully one without a crappy graphics card - we'll see. Estimated ship date, sometime next week - not soon enough to bring it on my next trip, of course. |
Just some items for your summer reading pleasure.
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Last time, in "Comedy Newsletter (June 29, 2011)" , I went on about weddings.
⭐Princette♥PengthuluWrites  :  Oh dear. Of course it's always the guy's fault. You're wrong even when you're right. 
So, you admit that we're sometimes right?
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  : I went to my cousin's wedding, and I had to wait for an hour for his father, the guy who planned the wedding, to even show up. He didn't even call to say "Hey son, do the wedding without me, I'm stuck in traffic." Thankfully, I had a couple of books. [Submitted item: "Triple Danger" [18+]]
Books solve anything.
LJPC - the tortoise  : Thanks for the funny (but sadly true) look at weddings. The upside is they do lead to great blooper reels on AFV, don't they? I went to a wedding once where the bride had bought a special crystal decoration for the top of the cake. At the reception, she realized it was broken. She spent the entire reception alternating between crying, ranting, and grilling everyone like a police detective to try to find the culprit. I think most of us drank ourselves into oblivion just to tune her out.
Thanks for the laughs, Robert!
-- Laura
I might have been tempted to point out that at least the cake was intact - not so with some weddings I've attended. Pro Tip: If you're going to let free-range children at your wedding, keep them AWAY from the reception area until reception time.
THANKFUL SONALI Now What?  : Wedding ceremonies in India can last up to eight hours, sometimes they go on over days - all the more room for glitches!
And there's a couple that will never forget they're hitched.
Merry Mumsy  : I got married outside at the beginning of September. Outside. With a glass of wine. Which I watched a bee float do the sidestroke in for a good 5 minutes before the Rabbi told me to take a sip. At which point I showed him the glass, he pitched the wine into the grass, and gave me back the glass to sip the bee-infused dregs. This was after the ceremony was delayed because the priest hadn't shown up. I may have mentioned that I got married outside. He finally came running up the hill to join the ceremony about 10 minutes after it started. He'd gotten lost. A priest and a rabbi walk into a wedding, and this bee says . . .
Definitely the makings of a joke there! All you're missing is a bartender's daughter.
And that's it for me for July! Maybe I'll even have a computer by the time I do my next newsletter. Until then,
LAUGH ON!!! |
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Comedy: July 27, 2011 Issue [#4522]
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