Tuesday, May 12, 2009

It's lonely in the trenches of computers and such

It's going on 3 months, wait, 4 months since I last did any work in my profession (for pay). I've done my own troubleshooting for my pc when my video card started whining like a banshee, or helped family out. Luckily, I had a warranty with free everything. The hardest part was dealing with "tech support" out of India. First call resulted in proper action, but the order for the replacement card was never placed. Second call was to remedy this and it was .. stayed on phone for 20 minutes or so followed by the supervisor's survey. Two days later, got the new video card and let the service tech install it for me ... didn't cost anything extra, so why not. Three days later, the video card was "dead" so to speak (or not seeing). I opened up the pc tower, and the video card's fan was hanging off one side, no connection; ergo, no video. The third call didn't take very long, and another video card was sent. In the meantime, I figured I could "fix" the "broken" video card myself, until a new one arrived. I used a plastic tie and rigged the fan to the board and it worked fine. Two days later, I get the new card and install it myself. I turned the pc on and guess what, no video. I double-checked the seating and even re-installed the "broken/fixed" card. It worked fine. Just a DOA video card ... quality control from wherever these were made evidently has some loopholes. Another call to "tech support" in India was required. My fourth call took a while to remedy, as the "tech support" rep had to go through her outlined procedures to troubleshoot, despite the fact that I had told her what the problem was. So, with time on my hands, I pretended to go through all of the troubleshooting procedures she was reading through, to see what the outcome would be. After another 20 minutes on the phone, she concluded that I needed to send my pc to HP for servicing. What the f??k??? So, I calmly told her that all I needed was a video card to replace the broken one. That took another 10 minutes for her to place the order. Two days later the replacement video card comes in and I install it and all is well on my desktop again. Real interesting story, huh? Sorry to put you to sleep.

So, why the hell am I still looking for a freaking computer job, yet dimwits on the other side of the world have one? What is wrong with this picture? God HELP us all!!!

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