So, My CD ROM Drive Died Last Night - So I Called India

[matcom]

New Dehli to be exact.

well, what i REALLY did was call the 800 number for HP as posted on their web site.

was routed to New Dehli. as the tech and I were booting and rebooting and waiting to reboot my system to troubleshoot it, we chatted. he was EXTREMELY nice and asked how my weather was, etc... i wasn't about to get political with him, as he has nothing directly to do with any of this.

he informed me it was 4:00 am there. the one thing i DID ask him was if he liked his job and working conditions. he said the conditions were pretty good. the pay was only average and the hours were long (said he works a lot of 10+ hour days).

didn't ask him his pay (not my business) as it took him a while to warm up to me (he was nervous at first i think to tell me where he was).

i just wonder how many people take their anger out on these people vs. targeting their anger where it really belongs.

that's all

[cprise]

1. I haven't noticed any misplaced anger

I read Slashdot a lot, and the posters there don't have a problem with Indian worker's motives. There are complaints about their competency and level of experience (their avg IT worker simply hasn't been at it as long as we have), but that is changing.

It's widely recognized where the problem lies: governments bowing to corporate greed in order to make western investors mega-rich.

If all companies here wanted were qualified workers, then they wouldn't mind hiring green cards. Instead, they demand H-1Bs and L-1s because what they really want is a fundamentally degraded employer/worker relationship.

Indians taking advantage of this situtation as an opportunity is understandable; I have no 'beef' with them. But at some point their government is going to have to put the foot down and limit how companies trade in desperation; they will have to stick up for and nurture their own India-based tech entrepeneurs. They will need to imitate the Asian tigers "protectionism" to truly improve their quality of life.

[Plaid Adder]

2. Oh, I know where my anger belongs...

It belongs to Dell Corporation. And they know it, too. I have written several letters.

OK, first of all the computer they sold me is a lemon. It never really worked right, and after I had owned it 4 months it took me 10 or 12 false starts before I could get into Windows once. After a loooooooong fucking time on multiple calls to tech support, during which I spent a lot of time talking to people in India, I finally convinced someone to set up a service appointment.

I wait. Nothing happens.

Eventually I call back. Turns out the last guy I talked to was wrong about the service appointment. I'm supposed to mail it in cause I don't have that kind of warranty. Nobody was planning on telling me this, of course.

So I finally mail the thing in. It eventually comes back. Because I don't want Airborne Express leaving it on my doorstep in the rain I drive out at 8:00 am to pick up the package at their depot. I get it out of the box. There is a note in the box saying that I have an "issue with the hard drive" and will have to reload Windows.

????

I try to boot it up. Sure enough I get the Blue Screen of Death and nothing else.

So, they mailed it back to me MORE broken than when I mailed it in. That was the moment at which I wrote my first strongly worded letter to Dell.

Then I got on tech support to India again that night. That person walked me through reinstalling Windows. A few minutes into this process I got a prompt warning me that doing this would delete all my data from the hard drive. I said, "So if I do this, I'm going to lose everything?" He said, "Yep."

Good thing I took the precaution of backing up my data BEFORE I mailed it in, huh? Imagine if I hadn't, how pissed off I'd have been. Perhaps if you're not a writer, you can'd understand, but the idea of losing ALL of my documents just because it's easier for Dell's tech support people to tell you to reinstall Windows using the wipe-them-all-out-and-rebuild-from-scratch startup disk than to explain how to reinstall Windows WITHOUT deleting everything else (which can be done) really tested the limits of my commitment to nonviolence.

So I reinstall Windows. Then I find out the modem no longer functions. The modem had been working fine when I mailed it in. After another several calls to tech support, during which they instructed me to get a screwdriver and open the back and screw around with the insides (am I qualified to do this?!), they finally figured it was a bad modem and sent me a new one.


OK, so I have now invested several hours of my own time in solving two problems that did not exist before the computer was 'serviced.' Fine. We pick up the pieces and move on.

It works for a while. Then it starts locking up occasionally for no reason. Then it starts locking up fairly regularly. Then it refuses to work at all. Not even the blue screen of death. Nothing, nada, zip, black screen, hard drive doesn't even indicate signs of life. This happens, incidentally, while I'm on a professional trip to Europe for which I absolutely have to have a functional computer.

At this point the Dell service guy they had assigned to me stops returning my calls.

I finally get home. I call the @#$! helpline again and get a different service person who walks me through their bullshit troubleshooting procedure. Finally I am vouchsafed the joy of mailing my computer in for service again.

It comes back. Works OK, though it is still making weird sounds. Perhaps all is well.

Tuesday, approximately 1 week after the warranty expires, it freezes up and eats my column. Then the next time I turn it on Windows refuses to operate properly. I call Dell tech support.

They keep me on hold so long that I have resolved the problem using System Restore before anyone even picks up.

And that is why, my friends, I will never again purchase a Dell product.

None of this is the fault of poor Joe Blow in New Delhi. The responsibilities lie with Dell, which has:

1) Sold me a crappy product.
2) Created a customer service structure that makes it impossible to hold anyone accountable (you would not believe what you have to go through just to get someone's voicemail number).
3) Physically and bureaucratically separated the hardware and software servicing facilities so that if you have a problem involving both you cannot get it resolved in a single service mail-in.
4) DOES NOT HAVE A DEDICATED CUSTOMER COMPLAINT LINE. Believe me, I looked for one.
5) Makes it virtually impossible to figure out who to complain to.

So the next time my computer fucks up, I am taking it straight to the top. My father, bless his Republican heart, told me exactly what to do about this: find out who the CEO, president, and executives in charge of sales and customer growth are and write to them. You CAN find these people on the web but they don't make it easy; you'll never figure out how to get there from the customer service site.

Anyway. Am I bitter? Yeah, sort of.

The buck stops at the top, so send it there. That's what I say.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Hornito]

6. I had a similar experience with my Compaq.....

My tech support was in Bangalore. The accents were so thick, I had a very hard time understanding them, which only added to my frustration (I am also hard of hearing, which made it even worse).

Added to my fiasco, was Compaq's insistance that I had purchased my computer months before I actually had, and that my warranty was expired! I had to fax them my paper work, and jump through hoop after hoop, but still had no success resolving the matter vis-a-vis the phone. Finally, I just quit dealing with India, and took it down to Compaq's authorized service provider, CompUSA, where, after establishing I did indeed have an "in effect" warranty, they fixed the problem in 24 hours, at no charge.

The upshot was though, is that the entire experience was stressful, not one I care to ever repeat. I will never again knowingly purchase another computer from somone using outsourced (meaning, out of U.S.) tech spport. In fact, before my next purchase, I plan to investigate this, and make sure. Hear that computer makers???

BTW, my Compaq is junk, and so is my monitor (Proview). Live and learn. As I will be in the market for a new laptop soon, does anyone know a manufacturer that has U.S. based tech support? How about Gateway?

[DenverDem]

3. I was having tech problems with my CD burner

and the lady I spoke to was very helpful, and also had a distinct Indian accent. When I asked if she was in India, she got super defensive, wouldn't acknowledge being in India, and would only say she was in the "south of the country", never confirming what country but attempting to infer USA. My attempts to let her know that I didn't really feel that it was a bad thing she was in India (a lie) didn't calm her down. She seemed very nervous that I was asking. She probably has taken a full ration of manure for it from ugly Americans.

If anyone is still doing tech support in the USA, I would advise them to market the hell out of that fact. "When you need tech support from us, you talk to an American," type of thing, leveraging the angst against offshoring.

[cprise]

5. Well, you lied

But if she's an H1-B or an L-1 worker, then she is here as an indentured servant. Such a person has next to zero rights and probably strict orders not to reveal their status.

[Gman]

4. Of course he'd be leery

I'm sure he's taked to his share of nutcase RW'ers that have cussed him out for "taking American jobs". I'm sure he's got yelled out a bunch of times. I'm sure the freeper hangs up with a good feeling of "I really told him what I thought".

I don't blame the guy for taking advantage of an opportunity. Do people expect him to say? Do they expect him to say, "No, I'm not going to take that job and feed my family because that job really should be in America."? Of course not.