CALL TO HP SUPPORT

At 8:55 a.m. I placed a call to HP Support to request warranty service on my HP Pavilion dv9000. This should have been a 5-minute conversation with someone I could understand. The call was completed at 9:30.

I mean, here I am – Ms. Consumer, having spent good dollars on this item for which I had waited for years – having an obsessive but gratifying relationship with said item – now discovering, after having spent hours in frustration setting it up (remember “the laptop from hell”), that it was probably a lemon from the beginning. I’m upset to begin with – and then I’m made to identify myself and my product with names and numbers at every level of the call.

There were three levels. It began with the automated super-cordial female voice asking certain questions so that she could properly direct my call. At least I could understand her. “Technical support,” I called into the phone, which resulted – after a brief wait – in the opportunity to speak with a live individual whose native language was obviously Spanish. She understood me just fine, but I had difficulties with her Spanish accent. No matter – we muddled through. A lot of the call was holding in silence anyway. She gave me a service number and told me she would transfer my call to the Pavilion Department. “Do not hang up from this call,” she tells me pointedly. “Oh-oh!” I think.

On to the next layer – and again I prayed that I could understand. Maybe I would get an American-speaking male. But no – another female whose American was even more clipped and accented than the previous “assistant.” Again, I had to provide all my personal info as well as the number provided to me in the previous conversation. She asked me to switch to another phone because she was “getting a lot of static on the line.” (I can barely understand her and she asks me to switch to another phone!) "What's wrong with your laptop?" she asked, and I was glad to be able to say the laptop had been diagnosed by a Staples tech who advised me my only recourse was to call HP Support. It probably saved at least 15 frustrating minutes of phone time. In the end I was provided with yet another number, instructions for returning the laptop to HP for service, website address for tracking the order, etc.

“When I finish with this call,” I announced to Mike, “I will be through for the day.” Just to reassure myself that I really can use the phone, I called my hairdresser for an appointment. It was good to talk to her. KW

BLESSINGS

I’m counting my blessings today – the way we should when we’re upset about something. Sometimes you just have to say: “For health, for food, for love and friends, for everything Thy Goodness sends, Father in Heaven we thank Thee” . . . because, of course, these are the important things in life. I have many blessings and I know it.

I’m telling you this because my laptop died Thursday night and I have been devastated. I knew it was coming. I noticed its tendency to be temperamental on October 23. Yes, I know the exact day because it was the day Spencer Hagen got married. Hallie tried to help at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. She advised me there was indeed something wrong with it. ”How can I go through all that set-up stuff again?” I asked, hardly keeping the frustration out of my voice. “Oh, they won’t give you a new one,” said my savvy daughter. “They’ll fix this one – and be prepared for it to take a long time.” So, I said I would deal with it after Christmas. Meanwhile I added more photos, more family history documents, an iPod, iTunes and music and personal spoken recordings, etc., etc. . . . The potential loss of some or all of that – which, yes, I should have backed up – is not as devastating to me as the loss of the laptop itself. In just a few month’s time it had become the center of my life. Maybe God is telling me something. . . (It was useful, even with the “God” stuff.)

So, yesterday (Friday) morning Mike and I took the laptop to Staples where the tech performed diagnostics and ascertained that the laptop is indeed dead. Only one option is available, he said, and that is to call HP and they will send me a box so that I can ship it to them for repair. No one locally can help, he said. No one can touch it. It must go back to HP.

“That was quick and painful,” said Mike as we exited the store. I guess I should add “still under warranty” to my list of things for which I am grateful. And I can also add that at least we have this big old desk model from which I can carry on, if I promise to turn off the “cap lock” key and return the printer to “photo” from “scan.” KW