The end is nigh.....Maybe

There is a light at the end of the tunnel in the ongoing saga of my dead laptop. I just thought you’d like to know.

For the last few days, I have been in regular telephone contact with Steven (or Stephen, I don’t know). He’s my “dedicated” contact in the complaints department. I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke, but he’s very hard work. VERY hard work. Steven, you see, has one of the most impenetrable accents I’ve heard for a long time. This is all the more remarkable considering I spend my every working moment with people who have accents from every corner of the globe, and Steven is a fellow countryman. He’s a Geordie, I think. Although I could be completely wrong, but if I am, then my next best guess is “Martian”. He left a message on our phone two days ago, and TH and I spent a good few minutes trying to decipher it, so it’s not just me.  It’s not every day you find yourself wishing that someone’s customer service call centre was in Mumbai, but this time I’m wondering if it mightn’t have been easier. He’s tried his best to help, and if it wasn’t for his accent, I’m sure we could have got on a lot better. Maybe he’s their secret weapon..it’s harder to be angry when your brain is still decoding the message!

As for the laptop itself, things have almost reached a satisfactory conclusion, although not quite.  The offer of a replacement for my dead machine was finally forthcoming after I’d sent off e-mails to the MD and the customer service robot.  The caveat was that all the data in my old laptop will be lost, as there’s (seemingly) no option or chance to have it transferred. So, new laptop on the way, but I’ll lose all my i-tunes library AND a brand new one-time-one user version of Office 2010 that I’d had use of for five weeks only. The computer people say I should sort that out with Microsoft, Microsoft say I should sort that out with the computer people....

And then, this morning, Steven called again. To be honest, he’d called yesterday and left a message but I couldn’t really tell what he was saying, and besides, every time I phone him back I have to use a 5p-a-minute premium rate number.  And every time I do, I have to press 3 to be transferred to the technical department, then 1 so they don’t use my 5p a minute to recite their terms of service, then tell a technical representative my reference number, then wait for them to enter it into their system, then get put on hold, then wait to be transferred, and THEN, when I get through, someone answers and says “I believe you want to speak to Steven? I’ll just put you on hold while I transfer you”. My Personal Best for getting through to him is eight minutes, which is rarely the end of the saga as we then have to have a conversation twice as long as necessary due to me saying “Pardon?” and him repeating himself so I can get a handle on what he’s saying.  So, I decided yesterday that I’d leave him to get back to me.

The reason for this morning’s call was a tad baffling. He was ringing to get my address so they can deliver my replacement laptop. Luckily, I was at home, so it was his call, but I am left wondering why he needed this information. After all, they came here to pick up the dead laptop, and I filled in their online form with all my personal details...and at some point, had they been able to fix the previous machine, they would have had to deliver it back!  

It appears he’s almost as baffled by my accent as I am with his. Of course, it doesn’t help that most customer service people are well-versed in the “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie” thingy (I could be flash at this point and bandy about words like “acrophonic”, but nobody loves a smart-arse), but I’m not. As a result of our linguistic impasse, I had to spell out my address and then painstakingly correct his mis-hearing of what I’d said for a couple of minutes. As it was his call, I took consolation from the fact that I’d saved myself a good 10p there.

He’s due to call again later with a delivery date for my new machine.  I’m fervently hoping that this will be our last conversation, and that my next blog entry will be written on a machine with a screen that I can see! WIsh me luck!