mishmash

I finally decided to help my schizophrenic computer out today. Poor thing, for the last 6 months it has chosen to emulate the personality of a Commodore 64. Yes, that vaunted, much heralded system which back in its day was only good for one thing: playing the 1988 Summer Olympics game and Elevator Action. Those 2 games would occupy me for hours. Show them to a kid of the new millennium and their reactions will mirror ours the first time we saw dinosaur bones. Heck you might even be attacked. But I digress. Bemoaning the lack of speed and general operating enthusiasm, and having a year plus on my Dell warranty, I decided to call the bastards. Let's see whose laughing about the overpriced support add-on feature now you bastards!

After waiting a few minutes as the ingratiating voice tried to direct me to the website to solve my issues (nice try lady, but kindly take a step back and go fuck yourself!), I was eventually passed to Sanjeep. Now, I am generally in favour of moving call-centres to India. Most educated Indians tend to be polite and smart. This Indian might have been both, however I could never have guessed given the strength of his accent. For close to an hour he tested my hardware, which turned out to be a pointless pursuit. But I can't be sure, as I had no idea what he was saying 89% of the time, and must've responded "yes, I think so" after many periods of incomprehensible rambling. After figuring out that hardware wasn't the issue, he put me on hold and passed me to the software guys.

Twenty minutes later and I am passed to Sanjeev, software expert. Much to my disbelief, Sanjeev informed me that software help was not in my contract and there would be a fee. Though annoyed I said "Sure" expecting a $20-$40 charge. Nope. $249.

As an ex-trader pal of mine used to say: "you've got to be fist-f&*%ing me!"

So after 1.5 hrs on the phone, I am back where I started. Leisure Suit Larry 5 anyone?