Dell Hell

I haven't actually posted in well over a year but due to the simply appalling customer service, or total lack of service I have received over the last few days I have felt compelled to make a post.

Ordered a Dell inspiron from their UK website, a new build to replace my mum's old and rather 'retro' machine. The spec looked perfect for what she wanted and was within budget so we decided that it would be a good investment. As far as I knew Dell was a world famous company with machines in most offices, schools and homes so they must be pretty good, right? Wrong, so very, very wrong. The machine arrived as planned only upon opening the box the PC was heard to rattle. Not a good sound for any electrical device I think you'll agree, but there you go. I decided that it would be prudent to check the new rattling PC before connecting it to the mains and so I took a peek inside. Turns out whoever built the thing, probably some underpaid, under appreciated Dell minion, decided that enough was enough and rather than assemble the computer he/she was just going to arrange all the components in the bottom of the machine and send it out self-assembly style.
Well everyone at home agreed that this wasn't good enough so we packaged the comp back up and tried to call Dell, the huge, international company with products in most offices, schools etc...only it was a Saturday and of course Dell don't offer customer support during hours when people find it most convenient to sit down for a 2 hour love-in with call waiting. So I waited until Monday to try and call, and so began my own personal Dell odyssey. First off I had to neogatiate the usual maze of automated caller response messages only to reach a dead dial tone each time. Finally I found a line that worked and was connected to an enthusiastic but hopelessly incompetent fella somewhere in India. He took my Dell order number, which I will never be able to forget having repeated it several hundred times, no less than 6 times, only to tell me that no such number existed. We tried my Dell customer number and delivery number as well, all equally non-existent. So he connected me to what he described as the 'right department.' Another round of Dell order numbers and I'm shunted along to someone else, equally clueless only this time the line is so bad I have to shout down the line make myself heard. I'm reconnected and the line goes dead. And so it went on for an hour and a half. What made me truly sick was the thought that I had encouraged my mum to purchase additional customer care. How was, I wondered, was an elderly women with limited technological knowledge of anything more complicated than a carrot, supposed to be able pick her way through the morass of pointless questions and endless repetition only to be asked to describe the technical fault when I, a reasonably computer literate young adult was left gasping for breath after only an hour and a half?
So I left it for a day as I was pretty sick of Dell by now. Tried to E-mail, but no response despite a promise by Dell to respond within 24 hours. Bullshit. So called again on the Wednesday. After only 40 minutes I discoverd someone who actually sounded like they wanted to help. She apologised, asked for my Dell order number and then reconnected me. Finally, after another half an hour of life waste, I was offered a new computer, but of course, I'll have to wait a month for that.

The moral of the story is NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER purchase ANYTHING from Dell as should you ever require some customer 'support' you will have to fight to get it and will be left feeling abused. I have since checked the Net and was comforted to see that I am only one of thousands of disgruntled customers left stunned by Dell's total lack of conscience. It is a shame because I am sure that if the products delivered what they promised Dell would be a good choice. From now on I am going to locally source as much as I can as I would rather speak to Geoff at the local computer shop and pay that little bit extra than have to deal with Dell.

Visting Denmark

Arrived in Denmark yesterday on a kind of working social visit, but the highlight is spending time with my best friend and his family in the cute little island house. Since spending some time here about three or four years ago, I have always had a fond affection for this place, and it seems that the Danes share a very similar sense of humour to the British. It's a very flat little country that sticks out from the Northern point of Germany almost straining itself in its independence.

Picked up a book at the airport by Mark Curtis which looks at Britain's human rights abuses. I'm only about a hundred pages into the text, but it seems pretty solid. I am a bit of a sucker for the self-hating armchair activisit book, and I already have quite an impressive shelf at home, boasting No Logo, and Das Kapital amogst others. That said, the more of these texts you read, the more they they start read the same; they appear to work at developing a pathological rage about the many issues that plague the world as a priest emphasises sin. That is not to say that these books are a bad thing - I think they're extremely important - they're just not 'feel good' reads, that's all. Oh, and God bless Noam Chomsky, my own personal hero.

Also reading the new Harry Potter novel, and I have to say that it isn't a patch on her previous works. The Goblet of fire was my own personal fave, but even The Order of the Phoenix seemed to mark a slight decline, which is hardly surprising considering it's the fifth one she's had to write. Having said that, I am only two-thirds of the way through so anything can happen, and they are certainly getting darker, which is a good thing.

beautiful morning rise

not sure what's going on. I'm currently living a student house in the rough end of town, that usually has little to offer other than banality - however, awoke this morning to a beautiful sunrise. For the first time in 30 weeks I dared open the curtains, and instead of the usual slate-grey rooftops and magpies, there was sunshine, and blue skies...and even the sound of small children laughing. Amyway, flug the windows open, stuck some Kelly Joe on the CD player and spent the whole morning feeling good about myself.

...been thinking about how much I want to live by the sea. Days like this would be so wonberful on the English coast...fish and chips on the harbor wall, penny arcades and the deep smell of the ocean.

...might treat myself to chips tonight...

Movies Gift Certificates

Right, well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last confession...

Been reading Judith Butler..something about the performative nature of gender, since I'm supposed to writing an essay about gender roles and female body-building. Apparently, according to Butler, gender identity is a kind of cultural 'discourse' qualified by hsitory. In other words, gender is an 'idea' that became popular and consequently invested the 'idea' with authority, since more and more people adopted the now stereotypical traits that we all think are innate. All a bit confusing really. She writes about Drag Queens, and how they 'perform' feminity, using it as an example of gender in performance. The ideas of gender are so well ingrained that it seems natural and biological, but she argues that before the popularity of biological sciences, (pre-19th century) people just saw the body as a lump of flesh riddled with the marks of original sin etc. So, it turns out I'm not actually a 'man', I'm a collection of stereotypical traits invested with historical authority...I'm sure my ex-girlfriend would agree, but the trick is to relate all this to female body-builders.

Tuesday 15th

Currently reading Stiffed: The Betrayal of Modern Man by Susan Faludi. I'm hoping to write a paper about the changing face of masculinity, looking at Kerouac's On The Road and Palahniuk's Fight Club. Think I might try to incorporate the trope of the abscent father and how an impossible desire for freedom has been manifested in delusion and schizophrenia. Been reading a lot of Postmodern stuff lately and I'm not sure whether it's suffocatingly prententious or entertainingly awkward - a monkey puzzle. How these things are supposed to compete with the likes of Playstation and BigBrother I don't know. A lot of the time we are encouraged to read from a female point of view - sympathetically analystical, and seldom do we look at masculinity as something that needs to be considered as something that is as damaging to the individual as to society in general. It would appear that it has served well as a tool of survival, but as Faludi points out, it now traps those who once saw themselves as its master. I'm still very confused on the issue. It's hard to know where to stand on such matters. On the one hand you want to be openminded and considerate, but on the other hand you feel if you so much as dared to question and criticise the movement and it's philosophy, you run the risk of being labelled a mysogonist or worse. But like I said, this is only my first real venture into the issue on a critical level.