HP Customer/Technical Support

Posted by Eric

Shortly after I started my current job (March, 2005) I bought an HP L1955 LCD monitor through my employer. About a year later, it died suddenly and inconveniently. I ran out and bought a new monitor because I had to have one that same day, and put the dead one aside. And ignored it. For a long time.

On Friday evening, 12/07/2007, I dusted it off and tried testing it in a dual-monitor setup. It worked enough that my computer was able to recognize that it was connected and determine the model number, but there was no image via either VGA or DVI inputs. Dead. So I checked the warranty, and whaddyaknow, it’s 3 years parts, labor and on-site service. Since the monitor was only even manufactured in March 2005 (per the sticker on the back), it was certainly still under warranty.

So at 11:00 pm I got on the phone. Naturally the call went straight to India, where all customer support calls seem to go these days. On a whim I started keeping notes.

The first person could not find the serial number in her system. Nor the part number. Nor the model number. She decided I must have the wrong information, at which point I suggested she do a Google search and note the 15,000+ hits on L1955. At 11:15 she gave me a ticket number and transferred me to tech support (I guess ‘customer support’ is different from ‘tech support’). After a long series of beeps and tones, I reached another person, who quickly informed me they were desktop, not monitor, support, and transferred me again at 11:20. To desktop support, again – this time a guy named Jason in Ontario. Who transferred me again at 11:24. To ‘Anita’ in India. Naturally, Anita was with the desktop support group – hey, who isn’t – and transferred me yet again.

At 11:29 I reached yet another person (Malina?) who could not find my ticket number in the system and so had me go through all the questions to get a new ticket number, and told me that since there was no such thing as an L1955 in her system, she’d list it as an L1925. She also told me that the unit was no longer under warranty. I found this surprising – if she couldn’t find any information about the model at all, how did she know what the warranty was? I pointed this out, to which she suggested that perhaps I had bought an extended warranty. No, I told her, I’m looking at the complete specs of the monitor in question, L1955, on the HP web site, right now. I read her the text of the warranty, and assured her that it most certainly was still under warranty.

She got a bit huffy. Not rude, but you could tell she was exasperated. I was pretty much way ahead of her on that. At 11:53 she transferred me to someone else – ironically, back to Anita with the desktop support group. I told Anita that this was the second time I’d talked to her, and that I’d now been on the phone for 53 minutes, been transferred five times, and was starting to become annoyed.

Anita took my ticket number, model number, part number, shipping information, etc. down, and told me that a replacement unit would be shipped to me, and I should have it Monday or Tuesday next week, and to ship the dead unit back in the same box using the paid shipping label that they would provide. Total call time, 60 minutes exactly. Useful call time, 7 minutes.

It’ll be interesting to see if I actually do get the replacement.

Update 12/12/2007 – Well, it didn’t arrive on Monday, but I didn’t really expect it to. In truth, I was a little surprised to see it arrive today, but there it was. Just the monitor in a box – no cables, documentation, etc. Makes sense, as I already had those. I’m now running a dual monitor setup, which is very cool. Wanted that for a long time. So, minus points to HP customer support for an hour-long phone call, but plus points for coming through in the end. Nice to actually have a warranty work out so well for a change.

Communication in the Virtual Workplace

Posted by Eric

For the last several years I’ve been attending the University of Phoenix Online to get my BSIT degree. While I have decidedly mixed reviews of the adult education experience in general, I like the online approach because I can do the work whenever and wherever I want.

I’ve recently finished all my core classes, and have just a handful of electives to complete. So last week I’m poring over the available elective list, and comparing it to the master UoP catalog to find out what’s available online. I come across an interesting sounding elective that might be of some use in my job, “COMM 470 – Communication in the Virtual Workplace”. I grab the master catalog and look it up… it isn’t available online, and can only be taken at a physical campus.

Does that seem right to you?

A Plethora of UFO Crashes?

Posted by Eric

A CNN story on 10/22/2003 [Article Link] reports that John Podesta, one-time aide to President Clinton, is calling on the Pentagon to release classified files about incidents involving UFOs.

Now, before I go any further, let me get something straight. I believe that somewhere out there are other intelligent species – that we’re not alone. In the infinity of the universe, or even in the hugeness of the Milky Way, I can’t believe our planet is the only one where life and intelligence have arisen. I even hold out some hope for simple organisms on other planets and moons in our own solar system. To think we’re unique in all the cosmos is nothing more than foolish arrogance.

For years now I’ve seen the UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists making claims about the US government covering up any number of UFO crashes for a variety of sinister reasons. I certainly wouldn’t put such actions past the government – you don’t have to be an extremist to believe the CIA or the military are inclined towards keeping secrets from the people they theoretically work for. The part that I find so hard to swallow is how willing the enthusiasts are to believe in the crashes themselves.

Think about it. Let’s consider an intelligent alien race from some other star. They have advanced technologies which allow them to build and launch interstellar spacecraft. They’ve conquered the myriad problems of interstellar travel. They’ve discovered that our little blue planet has intelligent life and taken the enormous effort to come visit us. They’ve piloted their craft through the void between the stars, journeying perhaps tens or hundreds of years. They arrive here and… CRASH?!?. Excuse me, but is that at all reasonable? What, did they forget to practice how to land before they left? Or maybe their engineers, operating under budget constraints, opted not to build any landing gear. Or perhaps they were startled to arrive here and discover that we have gravity even on this backwater planet, which caused their spacecraft to abruptly fall out of the sky. Right.

I recently made that observation on a web site where I’m a lurker, and one of the sage readers there posted this stunning and insightful rebuttal (quoted in its entirety) “accidents happen.” Well, who wouldn’t be left speechless in the wake of such brilliant reasoning. After all, he’s quite right – accidents do happen. But how often? I mean, come on, do a search on the net for UFO crash stories. We’re not talking about a singular incident, not by a long shot.

So, let’s do some math. Obviously we don’t have any useful statistics regarding the number of interstellar space flights to Earth or how many of them have ended in tragedy, so we’re going to have to make some guesses. Let’s start by assuming that with their advanced technology our aliens have managed to achieve a safety record comparable to that of the major US air carriers (“Interstellar Flight – Still The Safest Way To Travel”). According to the National Transportation Safety Board [Web Link] in one class of flights in 2001 there were 10,099,710 scheduled departures, of which 36 resulted in accidents.

Now, let’s apply that rate to UFO crashes. We’ll err on the side of caution and consider only three of the more famous alleged crashes in the US in the last fifty-five years – Roswell NM in July 1947, Kecksburg PA in December 1965, and Carbondale PA in November 1974. Here’s the math part I warned you about… “36” is to “10,099,710” as “3” is to what? The answer is “841,642”. That is 841,642 in 55 years, or about 15,300 interstellar flights to US airspace on Earth each year since 1947. Now, don’t you think that a population of two hundred eighty million people might just notice 15,300 spacecraft whizzing around each year?

Like I say, I believe there are other intelligent species out there, and I’m even willing to believe they’ve visited Earth somewhere along the line – after all, this planet has been spinning here for a very long time. But how gullible do you have to be to believe that alien spacecraft are crashing out of the sky at all, much less with the frequency that some UFO enthusiasts claim?

C’mon folks, a little critical thinking, every once in awhile, won’t kill you.