But your phone keeps ringing

[austin_dern]

Nope!

The bright side is they now know me so well I don't have to identify myself, I don't have to explain the situation, I don't have to do anything but show up and sit on their little irritating plastic bench, and the clerk goes to the computer and figures out why they don't have the iBook ready this time.

According to today's report, they have all the parts finally, they just haven't had the chance to assemble them. Uhhuh. But they're going to ``prioritise'' it; apparently up until this point I've just been one of those little nagging things they mean to get around to. What does prioritizing mean?

Well -- after a call to somebody -- they're going to try really hard to have it tomorrow. Can I rely on that?

Well -- after a call to somebody else -- they're going to do everything they can to get it ready as soon as possible. I'm leaving the country Thursday and cannot possibly pick it up this year if it's not done by Wednesday; will I see my iBook this year?

Well, I'm generating a lot of internal phone calls at least. It's all too late, of course; they've got me angry, and their last chance to make it better just by fixing the computer was wasted when they couldn't bother to get it done today.

Trivia: The Clink was a London debtors' prison destroyed in 1780. Source: The Map That Changed The World, Simon Winchester.

Currently Reading: In Search of Wonder, Damon Knight.

Comments

[orv.livejournal.com]

uWait.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

They might force me to wait, but they're going to learn my family has a long history of stubbornness in the pursuit of minor causes. I can beat them.

[skylerbunny.livejournal.com]

Unbelievable. This is bad even for AppleCare's hit or miss service.

I'm imagining someone with a pair of dice in the service workshop rolling to decide whose machine is done next. They're telling you that a machine that's been sitting in their depot for a week and a half still wasn't at the top of their list to fix when parts arrived?

I wonder if Apple would actually care that one of their target audience groups, an educator, is completely angry at their service, and (theoretically) their puttering delayed an academic book. Apparently, the service depot is completely unprepared for the situation when someone will call them directly asking for a machine to be repaired because it's really important.

It wouldn't take more than about an hour to do the assembly work they have to do on your machine. I know, because I've taken Titanium Powerbooks apart before. It takes me more than an hour, but I don't do it every day. The fact that the lady behind the counter had to call three people and still can't give you a firm date and time to pick the laptop up really does seem to mean they run on a system of 'priority is a dice roll', and it'll be repaired 'whenever'. That's just...poor.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Man behind the counter, actually, but the point remains. How he thought he was satisfying me by saying I'd now be a priority is beyond me, and the more I tried to pin him down to an actual date when this would be done the more uncertain he got. I don't like scaring people, but if they're going to get me angry I can't help being frightening.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

It's perhaps a bit of a long shot, and certainly unnecessary, but you could always send a level-headed report of your situation to sjobs@apple.com - it's my understanding the account is read by sentient beings.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

In fact, I just did that, although I forgot to mention in it how this has screwed up my textbook. I've sent similar letters to any Apple sites I could find that looked vaguely like they might respond to problems; my ideal is to have at least a dozen people forced to deal with this at some point in the next day.

And I will be getting up early to make phone calls.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

*HUG* Should I pray for you powerbook? I'm serious.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'll take it yet. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

*HUG* You and your powerbook have it. I was just reading your entry. You're a good coati and you fill your friends lives with happiness. Never forget that. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Thank you ... I don't doubt it, at least never seriously. I just hate being so fatigued by all this nonsense going on at such length.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

True. I'd write a very, very formal note of protest to both the local applcecenter and the powers that be!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got them in the works. I also grabbed a comment card, which I basically overflowed. I had to fold it up into an envelope shape, and glue the tabs, oddly.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

Should use 2 or 3 and have a couple translated into Chinese and Mandalay...just in case they still don't understand.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Based on where the phone people kept routing me I'd have to translate it into one of the Indian languages, and also into Australian.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

Works for me. Perhaps Chinese and Russian while yer at it.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

When I was working at Computer Renaissance, I had one customer's Compaq sitting on a repair shelf for a month, waiting for a replacement for one of Compaq's proprietary power supplies. The customer kept calling, and I finally called the main office to find out what was the holdup. It turned out not only had they never ordered the part, they weren't going to. I was told to jury rig a standard AT power supply into the case. Which I tried. Unfortunately, after giving it to the customer, the jury-rigged power switch came loose and the machine wouldn't power up anymore. Fortunately, the irate customer came back on a weekend when I wasn't there. :-)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering if something like that was going on. It's hard to account for this nonsense otherwise.