The Laptop Doctor

I didn't want to become Ireland's grumpiest woman, I really didn't.
But they're forcing me now.
I'm being coerced and tormented into losing my temper at every turn.

Last Sunday week, I was sitting at my desk, having a little rant on my laptop.  (I believe it was my moan on "Shops" - see the list on the right if you missed it.)
And suddenly my laptop got all weird.  The mouse would go left or right, but not up or down.  The laptop is less than a year old, and I immediately got all narky and wanted it repaired.

I remember buying it very clearly.  It was around this time last year, when I decided to set up a space in my house for writing ranty little diatribes.  A new desk, chair and laptop were purchased to ease my way.  I suppose poor His Nibs thought that it was worth kitting me out with this stuff if it would make me rant at the laptop, not at him.

Anyway, I've seen the IT crowd.  And I work in an office.  So I did what I'm supposed to do.  I turned it off and then back on again.
No luck.  In fact, it seemed to be getting worse.  I cursed and swore a bit, and demanded that His Nibs hand over his laptop, which in fairness to him, he did.  But it's missing the letter D.  You'd be surprised how annoying that is.

But I digress.  
The following day, I went to the laptop doctor with my precious computer.  He looked at it, made a few faces, stuck a massive sticker on the top of it - which I know, I just know, is going to leave a horrible gluey spot, and demanded the charger, which I'd forgotten. I promised to bring it the following day.

Then he demanded the original receipt, which I didn't have, obviously.
I reported that I was actually told when I asked at purchase time whether the receipt is the guarantee, that they were registering it on their system, so one way or the other they'd have a record of it, but sure, to hold onto the receipt anyway.
I asked him to look up the elusive "system" and find the receipt.  He clearly didn't want to.  I told him I thought it might have been in the last two weeks of September, 2011.  He insisted it was the 26th October - which I knew was wrong.
Five minutes later, he concluded that that purchase was actually my Kindle, which I'd managed to break in two days. I agreed that yes, I had.  I don't know why he looked at me like that.  I hope he wasn't trying to imply that I'm destructive or anything.

After that he gave up looking for the purchase completely and asked me for €65 instead.  I huffed and I puffed and he told me that he'd refund me if I found the receipt.
I need that laptop, I really do, how else can I rant and rave?  Writing with a pen doesn't work, the temper is gone off me before I have the thing half written, so I gave him the damn money.  Then I told him to try really hard to fix it, because I need it, I'm a writer.  I couldn't think of any other job, on the spot, that might hurry him up.

"Really?" he asked "would I have read anything you've written?"
I admitted it was highly unlikely.
"So what you mean is that you can write?"
I was forced to agree.
"Yes, I can write too" he told me.  "It's great, isn't it?"

Humiliation piling onto hopelessness, I left.

The following day I arrived back in, as instructed, with the receipt and the charger.
"That's fine" he told me.  "Now I can refund you the €65.  Do you have the receipt for that?"

"I have the receipt for the computer, and you know I gave you the money.  No, I don't have the receipt, I left it in my laptop case".
"I'm afraid I can't give you the refund without both receipts.  Now, let's have a look."
There was a couple of minutes pause while he tap tapped on his keyboard. 
"Oh yeah, I fixed that one."
"Really?  Great!"
"Yes, I re-set the factory settings, so I hope you backed everything up somewhere".

Silence.

Another couple of minutes of tapping.
"Oh no, that's right, I thought I had it fixed but it went wrong again.  I'm afraid it has to go to laptop hospital".
That's not a direct quote actually.  He started talking in letters, like HQ and UK, and other things I didn't want to hear.
"Right.  How long will that take?"
"If you don't get it back within 28 days we'll give you a new one."

Twenty eight days!  For God's sake.  I couldn't believe it, but what could I do?

A week passed, oh so slowly, while I tried to get used to doing without my faithful friend, the laptop.  I couldn't believe how much I missed it.

Then, this morning, my mobile rang.
"Hello, this is someone from the laptop doctor's." - Again, this is not a direct quote, he gave his actual name and the name of the pointless, useless shop.
"OK" - I held my breath - was this to be it? The one time that something in my life was sorted out quickly and efficiently?  Was I to get my beloved gadget back?
"Yes, we're sorry to tell you that we haven't been able to fix your laptop here.  It has to go to laptop hospital in the UK."
"Yes, I know.  I was told that a week ago.  Are you telling me that you haven't sent it away yet?  A week later?"
A brief pause.  Then... "Well anyway, we can't send it away until you pay us €65 repair fee."

"Is this a practical joke?  I paid that a week ago.  AND the laptop is under guarantee.  As a matter of fact, YOU owe ME €65 - is this someone I know, winding me up?"
My voice was reaching a pitch that caused my colleagues to start looking up, and looking anxiously at each other.  ("Careful everyone, she's going to blow!").

"Hmm.  Do you have the receipt for the €65?"

"Not on me.  It's at home.  I'll bring it in tomorrow. And I can only advise you not to be there when I do.  I've never heard such a pile of nonsense, you have got to be joking...."

I think he could sense that there was no good end to the conversation he found himself in. He had the sense to interupt me.
"No, no, don't come in, I'll just send it off, it'll be fine.  Goodbye."
And he hung up, just like that.

Now you tell me - is it any wonder we're all so furious walking around?

Dear “Customer Service Representatives”

I didn’t have a bad day today, you’ll be glad to hear.  I got a decent amount of work done, the traffic wasn’t too bad coming home.  All was well.

Until we got here and found the note from the postman, informing me that I hadn’t been at home today, when he called. 
Armed with the friendly little note, I went on the Internet to try to establish who on earth had sent me a parcel.  And it turned out that it was you.

You see, I’m not actually an idiot.  While I was speaking to you, two days ago, I informed you that I would not be at home to receive my new phone in the post.  I asked you, quite clearly, to have the parcel delivered to my kindly next door neighbour.  We’re lucky, His Nibs and I, to have the kind of neighbours who will take in parcels for us without  having to be asked in advance.

I was informed it would arrive three days from the conversation.  Which is tomorrow.

Despite this specific agreement, you took it upon yourself, of course, to send the phone to my house.  So now I'm faced with the extremely annoying job of getting to the sorting office to collect the parcel.

Except the sorting office is open from 8am to 2pm from Monday to Friday. 

The postman called, apparently, at 8:05 this morning.  I would have thought that if I wasn’t at home at that time of a Wednesday morning, I was probably not going to be around on weekdays between these times. 
Anyway, I decided that it was your fault, for not sending it where I asked you in the first place.

So like a fool, I decided to ring you.  I don’t know why I’d make a decision to do something so annoying, when I was already so annoyed.

You surpassed yourselves today.

I was instructed, by the infuriating recorded voice, to choose whether I wanted to pay my bill,  report a fault, make a service inquiry or whatever other nonsense they could come up with.

All I know is that the list of options was so long and boring that by the end I actually didn’t know which one I needed.  All I knew was that “speak to an actual human” wasn’t a choice.

Around and around we went, with me shouting at the recorded voice, and him ignoring me.  Eventually, on about the eighth round , I threw my head back and shouted “For God’s Sake” at the ceiling.  So he put me through to Broadband support.

No, the human I’d finally got through told me, he couldn’t put me through to the person I needed to speak to.  He could only put me back through to the damned recorded voice.

I eventually got through to another human, about ten minutes later.

I informed your “assistant” who assisted in absolutely no way, that you had sent the phone to the wrong house, and that I am not in a position to collect it. Was there any chance you could kindly send me another phone?  Since I’m not going to collect the original one, it’ll eventually be sent back to you.

No, no, she informed me, that’s not how it works.  If my phone is broken, that’s my problem.   I need to get in touch with the maker of the phone apparently.

I don’t think so. The phone was supplied by your company, and since your colleague had already sent me one phone, I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t sort it out.

Her best offer was to send me a bag, into which I am to place my broken phone.  I’m to post it back to you.  And I’m not to collect the new phone, I’m to contact the phone maker for a replacement.  They will eventually post it back to me, and I assume this whole caper will begin again.

The phone is rented, I’m so daft that I’ve been paying a couple of euro a month for the use of this five year old phone for years. 

I informed her that none of this was going to happen.  The phone doesn’t work, kindly stop charging me rent for it, I’ll just buy a phone in Argos or somewhere.

I still need to send back the old one.

I admit I started to lose my temper a bit with the nonsense she was now spouting.  What’s this foolishness about an empty bag being sent to my house?  And by the time all this sending rubbish around the place is over, I’ll have been without a phone for a fortnight.

I ended up telling her I couldn’t deal with her, and hung up.  Her last words to me were that she was sorry I was so upset, and she’d cancel the line rental.  I barely caught her words as I switched off the mobile.

Shite.  Now she was going to cancel the phone line altogether.  I need the landline.  I like talking.  And His Nibs is very fond of looking up the Internet to find the most dangerous and unlikely holidays he can suggest to me, just to torment me.

I sighed very, very deeply, and re-dialled.  After another infuriating, distressing and depressing round of stupid questions from the disembodied voice, I got through to another human at last.

I told him my tale.  I told him that I’m buying a phone tomorrow.  And that I want to just bring it home from work, plug it in, and start making calls. 

“Could you please hold” he asked me.  “It’s our distribution department that sent the phone to the wrong address, I’ll put you through to them.”

“Do NOT put me on hold” I told him, very loudly.  “I do not wish to speak to the Distribution people.  I don’t care where the phone is, or where it will be.  I’m not getting a new phone from you.  Do not cut off my line.  Do we understand each other?”

“Yes”

“So when I bring my new phone home tomorrow, I’ll just plug it in, and it’ll work?”

“Yes”.

“That’s fine.  Thank you.”

I was too exhausted to make dinner, after all that.  It may not sound like much of an ordeal, but it took a miserable forty minutes.

I can’t wait to see what on earth happens tomorrow.  I presume another phone will be sent to the neighbour, or it'll be the line all along and not the handset.  Or something else difficult and irritating.

I don’t think I have the strength to ring you two days in a row.  Just sort it out please.