the Not so Fun Friday

Since I know that you all read this blog because you are deeply interested in the triviality of my daily existence, please allow me to assuage your suspense as to the Tale of my Laptop (heretofore known as Ruby).

Ruby is indeed the name that I have christened my laptop for she is shiny and RED and ever so sassy. She has been faithful and strong for these last few months, which is why when I awoke on Friday morning (last week, mind you) and pressed the trusty power button, I was shocked and saddened by a bleak and depressive screen.

It was not my cheery blue, yellow and orange welcome screen. There were no trusty Microsoft chimes, there was only BLACKNESS. And three lines of a message, something about reseating memory or somesuchness, and a dreaded BEEPING.

I frantically turned her off again. And sent a hurried email (from Chris' laptop) to my techie friend in Durham, it read something along the lines of:

AM PANICKING. RUBY NOT WORKING. SEND HELP!!!!

Being a good guy with the patience of Job he responded, I supplied him with specifics and decided that the calming breaths weren't working, and proceeded to look up the contact information for DELL which is where we adopted Ruby. I went to the technical support page but it all read like gibberish so I thought the only sure-fire solution would be to CALL someone and talk to them so that they could know the depth of my PANIC.

I called. I went through their awful automated menu. I was connected with a brusque man with a thick South Asian accent. I explained my problem. I explained my panic. I held the phone up to Ruby so that she could convey her own disgruntlement through her repeated beeping.

He said, "Yes, ma'am, I HEAR the beeping! Please. What is your service number?"

After repeating the service number and the situation of adopting Ruby, and the service number AGAIN, he connects me with the leader of a "Technical Team" and all I could think of was, "There is no I in TEAM!"

The Team Leader told me exactly what to do. I explained to him that I am not tech savvy. I have many friends who are tech savvy. They tell me what to do! I am a youngest child and I studied liberal arts and while I may be very intelligent, I know not what to do to help my poor, ill computer!

He chuckled softly, and patiently explained to me (in another South Asian accent--but not so brusque as the first guy) what he thought might be wrong, and what we were going to do. I was forcefully reminded of the way that 911 operators speak to people calling in an emergency. He talked me through removing the battery, draining the residual power, removing the plastic cover and popping out the memory. He calmly explained why we were doing everything that we were doing. Then he talked me through reinstalling the memory and praised me to the hilts when I powered Ruby up and saw my pretty blue, yellow and orange welcome screen. We both cheered "YAY!" when we heard the lovely Microsoft chimes. And then I was reattaching the plastic cover he says to me, "Ma'am, if you will please stay on the line, I will connect you to my manager."

I had no idea what this was about. I had no complaints. He had given me a special number to call if I ever got into this problem again--I will be automatically connected with a member of his Team. So I said, "Um. Ok."

The Manager (yet another South Asian Accent) comes on the line and says that he just wanted to thank me for being such a pleasant and polite customer. He said that the call had been monitored to assure quality and that he was impressed with how polite and pleasant (these are his adjectives people--someone on his team should get him a thesaurus) I had been. He reiterated that if the problem ever came up again I was to call the special number and they would take care of me.

I thanked him. I explained how pleased I was with my experience, that they too had been pleasant and patient and kind. How I had once worked in customer service, I understood how hard it is when people call and are angry and take out that anger on the first person on the phone. I said that I really needed to feed my son breakfast. I thanked him again and hung up the phone.

And the more I thought about it, the more depressed I became. What are their days like that they have to THANK a customer for being NICE? I know that sometimes mistakes happen. Wrong cords are sent, directions are misunderstood, people don't express their own confusion properly, no one enunciates anymore. But is it really necessary to be mean? After all, he didn't sneak into my house in the middle of the night, sabotage my computer so that I would have to call him and work on my computer for the better part of an hour on a Fun Friday morning.

What I've learned: You catch more peeps with sweet than you do with sour. If you don't understand what someone says, ask them to please repeat that. Be up front with your own limitations, people will be more patient with you. And wake up with your sense of humor--you never know what the day will bring.