Monday, October 13, 2008

11am and my fingernails are almost gone ...

I've spent the entire morning roaming the phone halls of HP and Dell computers.

My HP laptop needs repaired because of a known design fault but they can't promise to return it before I fly out on Friday and by crikey, to get that far took quite some doing at .74euro cents per minute and a revolving linguistic greeting each time I had to call.

I'm okay in Dutch but getting enough of the German and French instruction was like trying to catch $100 bills in a tornado. My head almost broke.

Needing a replacement, and fast, I returned Martin's call and it turned out he only had good things to say about his new Dell laptop and I have to say, the price impressed me.

I phoned them.
They could only promise me I would have the new laptop within 10 days ... 10 working days actually, so that's 2 weeks.

Tearing out my hair, I phoned Martin to tell him the bad news but he pointed out that they have to cover themselves, hence the 2 weeks and his arrived within 4 or 5 days of ordering so ... I rang them back.

In the middle of all this, I received a lovely mail enquiring about me being available for a photography gig here in Belgium and was supplying the information and photographs required.

So far, nothing has borne fruit.
The HP people said someone would phone me a couple of hours ago about picking up my laptop tomorrow. I even took the phone to the bathroom, just in case they called in that minute.

The Dell guy said he would email me my order, just to check it's correct ... but okay, that was only about 15 minutes ago. I'm just praying that he got everything right, including my email address via my delicious New Zealand accent.

So yes ... that's how it is at my place this morning.
How is your day looking?

9 comments:

  1. not to be a typical annoying Mac user, but consider a Mac - they rule :)

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  2. No computer problems here, but Sunday evening I was helping my husband create his first blog and - for a few seconds there - I thought mine had been deleted. It was sheer panic and now I am sworn to figure out the best way to back up my blog! I was up all night writing. It was 5:30 a.m. the first time I looked at the clock. So now it's 8:50 a.m., I've had breakfast and I'm going to bed. That's how my day is going!
    I am SO impressed that you speak so many languages, even the ones you only speak a little! Good luck with the Dell order. :)

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  3. Hey Van, I thought Mac's were horrendously expensive? I would if I could but the inheritance fund was tiny, I'm just stretching it a million miles.

    I hope you slept well, Lydia. It sounds like we were competing in the nightmare stakes around the same time :)

    Don't be impressed by me and lanuguages, I'm appalling. French and German are next to nothing unless it's numbers or some other tiny word that I know and because of the context can guess. But truly, I am linguistically incompetent.

    The Dell order ... let's see how that goes.

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  4. As you know, I am super busy with the dissertation writing, so i could not follow the story exactly, but let me tell you that, I had great trouble with my Compaq laptop when I was in Houston and guess who bought Compaq later:)
    I have one certain principle in buying laptop. Never rely on anything related to Compaq. Compaq seems to have poisoned HP :P

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  5. But you're an Apple man now, aren't you Erkan? Good luck with the dissertation ... I'm sure it will be fabulous in the best academic way xo

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  6. oh no! i am anti-Apple guy. I use Sony Vaio!

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  7. Arrghh, I'm sorry. I'm computer illiterate. All I knew was that you had something kind of computer-sexy.

    Forgive me and work well :)

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  8. just submitted the draft. now i can have a peaceful sleep:)

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  9. I'm so pleased for you. Next time I'm in Istanbul, I'll buy you the pizza and beer to celebrate this excellent moment! Or next time you're over in Belgium, come stay and be our guest.

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