Saturday, April 12, 2008
And G Is For.......
Wayners couldn't get Turbo Tax to work on his laptop yesterday, so he called me and I went over to see if I could help. We considered getting help from tech support, but who needs it? We had Tecate. We proved that two idiots, given enough beer and allowed free reign, can fix a computer. It's now a solid corollary to the ol' If you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually turn out the works of Shakespeare.
In the process, we managed to completely erase his entire operating system. We reloaded it with a restore disc, but then we couldn't access the Internet.
OK, maybe we did need tech support.
Wayners first tried Cox Tech Support. Their tech said we were missing something called a LAN connection, but they couldn't help us with that. They could connect us to a tech who could help, but we'd have to pay for it. For free help, we'd have to call Dell. So, we called Dell. Thank God for cordless speaker phones. A solid 45 minutes and three beers later, a tech picked up. It was a dude from India speaking English, but it didn't really sound like English. Speaking louder and more slowly was not helpful. The conversation finally broke down in to phonetic spelling:
My name is William Adam Young Nora Edward Robert Sam!
Ultimately, the guy had no idea and had to get somebody else on the line. In so doing, he disconnected us. Thanks, asshat.
So it was back to Cox. They tried to help, but eventually said once again that only Dell could solve this problem. Back to Dell again. This time, it was only a two-beer wait.
When it comes to computers, I'm only about half the dumbass Wayners is, so I took over. Time to chat up the India guy who outsourced some American out of a job, to be nice, get him on our side.
So, where are you?
We Yanks say it with three syllables: In-dee-uh. They say it with two: Een-dyuh.) "I live in in Eendya."
Thanks, Captain Obvious. Yes, but where in India?
"I am from town in south of Eendya called unintelligible."
Oh! Unintelligible! I've always wanted to see the Taj Mahal.
"Dat ees een north of Eendyuh."
My bad. What's your name?
"I am Deen Cue." (I'm sounding it out here. No clue on the spelling.)
OK, Deen Cue.
"Deen Cue.".
(Thought that's what I said?) Oh, OK, sorry Deen Cue.
"No, sir, Deen Cue."
Now I'm confused. Is he saying his name, or "thank you?" So who's on first? Let it go.
He walked us patiently through a whole bunch of crap. Ultimately, between the three of us, we got the damn thing to work. But Deen Cue was not finished with us.
"We need now load sound driver."
Don't worry about it. We already did it. The sound will be fine.
So instead, he went into a ten-minute dissertation on re-installing Microsoft Word. Then he he into an endless spiel about how to contact him if we need more help. Then the phonetic spellings began again. Wayners was spelling his name phonetically for the guy:
William Adam Young Nora Edward, Mary Charles....
Just as he was about to say George, I interrupted and said Gandhi instead. Deen Cue apparently didn't hear me, but Wayners started laughing and struggled to get the last bit out. He went up side my head when he was done. What's a brother for?
So, all was well that ended well. Until this morning when Wayners called me:
Hey! The sound isn't working.
Man, that Dell guy was good, Deen Cue berry much.
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In the process, we managed to completely erase his entire operating system. We reloaded it with a restore disc, but then we couldn't access the Internet.
OK, maybe we did need tech support.
Wayners first tried Cox Tech Support. Their tech said we were missing something called a LAN connection, but they couldn't help us with that. They could connect us to a tech who could help, but we'd have to pay for it. For free help, we'd have to call Dell. So, we called Dell. Thank God for cordless speaker phones. A solid 45 minutes and three beers later, a tech picked up. It was a dude from India speaking English, but it didn't really sound like English. Speaking louder and more slowly was not helpful. The conversation finally broke down in to phonetic spelling:
My name is William Adam Young Nora Edward Robert Sam!
Ultimately, the guy had no idea and had to get somebody else on the line. In so doing, he disconnected us. Thanks, asshat.
So it was back to Cox. They tried to help, but eventually said once again that only Dell could solve this problem. Back to Dell again. This time, it was only a two-beer wait.
When it comes to computers, I'm only about half the dumbass Wayners is, so I took over. Time to chat up the India guy who outsourced some American out of a job, to be nice, get him on our side.
So, where are you?
We Yanks say it with three syllables: In-dee-uh. They say it with two: Een-dyuh.) "I live in in Eendya."
Thanks, Captain Obvious. Yes, but where in India?
"I am from town in south of Eendya called unintelligible."
Oh! Unintelligible! I've always wanted to see the Taj Mahal.
"Dat ees een north of Eendyuh."
My bad. What's your name?
"I am Deen Cue." (I'm sounding it out here. No clue on the spelling.)
OK, Deen Cue.
"Deen Cue.".
(Thought that's what I said?) Oh, OK, sorry Deen Cue.
"No, sir, Deen Cue."
Now I'm confused. Is he saying his name, or "thank you?" So who's on first? Let it go.
He walked us patiently through a whole bunch of crap. Ultimately, between the three of us, we got the damn thing to work. But Deen Cue was not finished with us.
"We need now load sound driver."
Don't worry about it. We already did it. The sound will be fine.
So instead, he went into a ten-minute dissertation on re-installing Microsoft Word. Then he he into an endless spiel about how to contact him if we need more help. Then the phonetic spellings began again. Wayners was spelling his name phonetically for the guy:
William Adam Young Nora Edward, Mary Charles....
Just as he was about to say George, I interrupted and said Gandhi instead. Deen Cue apparently didn't hear me, but Wayners started laughing and struggled to get the last bit out. He went up side my head when he was done. What's a brother for?
So, all was well that ended well. Until this morning when Wayners called me:
Hey! The sound isn't working.
Man, that Dell guy was good, Deen Cue berry much.
