My laptop, which is vital to my schoolwork, has been experiencing charging issues. It will charge to a certain percentage, then stop. This percentage has been decreasing slowly over time, and as the laptop’s maximum charge begins nearing the single digits, I start to fear the worst. I schedule an appointment to have a technician come to my campus and replace the battery. In the call, I am also pushed into replacing the motherboard. I am concerned, but cannot risk losing my laptop, so I agree.

A week later, the technician arrives. He is an older man with glasses and a generally pleasant disposition. I bring him to our school’s library, and boot the machine to demonstrate the issues I am having. He seems to follow along just fine, so I power the machine down and pass it over.

I first begin to grow concerned when, as he removes the case and components, he removes his glasses and lumps the screws haphazardly together in the same pile, making no effort to remember where each one came from. I ask him about it, and he is quick to brush me off. After finally examining the pile — without glasses — he tells me that it does not matter where they go; they are all the same. I am confused, as many of them are clearly different lengths, but I say nothing, figuring he is more of an expert than I am.

More time passes as the technician speaks to me while he works. His progress is very slow, and it takes several hours before the new components are in and the moment of truth has arrived. He presses the power button, and… nothing. The screen is dark. I am panicked, but he assures me that the new board must be bad, and he puts the old board back in. Again, he pays no mind to the screws, and at the end of it several are left over, and he cannot determine where they should go. I am a little upset by this, but at this point I no longer care so long as the machine boots again.

Still nothing. At this point, it is so late that the library is closing, and we must leave to find a new place to work. We are now outdoors, in front of a local cafe. The man, frustrated by the lack of progress, calls another tech support official to help. The next two hours are a maddening string of being put on hold and unhelpful advice intermixed with failed attempts to revive my machine. At the end of it all, the technician gives up and hands my laptop back to me — still broken — telling me that I will have to send it in to be repaired. Frantically, I tell him that I can’t; my classes demand I have access to my computer, and there is no way I can go that long without it without suffering academically. He tells me that waiting for new parts will probably take longer, anyway, and would be much more likely to fail again.

This technician’s “repair” ends with a previously perfectly operational laptop becoming totally unbootable. It no longer responds to any attempts I make to restart it. I now have to send it in and hope that it shows up in one piece. I have long given up hope that any of my data will be recoverable. And I still have a single mystery screw hiding in my pocket.

Related:
Laptop Flop, Part 22
Laptop Flop, Part 21
Laptop Flop, Part 20

(The loan officer at the branch I’m at has a bad habit of going on 30-minute “smoke breaks” and not telling anyone. It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m working with him and another teller. It’s a half-day. Due to seniority, I’m in charge, even though he is older than me. This starts before the branch opens.)

Me: “Okay, [Loan Officer], there’s only three of us today, so can you please tell me when you’re going outside to smoke? That way, I can cover your side of the lobby.”

Loan Officer: “Sure! No problem.”

(We open the branch at nine am. Not even thirty minutes later, I see him disappear out the back door. Twenty minutes later…)

Customer #1: “Hi, I’m here to see [Loan Officer], please.”

Me: “He’s not available right now. Is there something I can help you with?”

Customer #1: “No, I’ll wait for him.”

(He walks back inside five minutes later, saving me the need to go get him. However, this happens again. And again. And again. By 11:30, I’m pissed. He’s been outside four times, and I can’t even get away to use the bathroom.)

Customer #2: “Hey, is [Loan Officer] available?”

Me: “Oh, I thought he was at his desk.”

Customer #2: “Nope!”

Teller: “Guess again! He’s outside.”

Me: *in my calmest voice* “If you’d like to have a seat in the lobby, sir, I’ll get [Loan Officer] for you.”

(I have had it. I exit the teller line, walk down the back hallway, and stick my head out the door. He’s playing on his phone, with his ear-buds in.)

Me: “[Loan Officer]!”

Loan Officer: *jumps* “I was taking a smoke break!”

Me: “We only have a half-hour left to work today, so get your behind inside right now and stay there! Got it?!“

Loan Officer: *defeated* “Fine.”

I got a very nice coupon emailed to me from a beauty supply store that I like to visit. The location by my house has a salon, and I intended to get a haircut there after my next paycheck came through. Unfortunately, the email link for printing the coupon didn’t work by the time I was really ready to use it, so I called up their customer service line to see what had happened, figuring it was either my browser being buggy or the link having expired.

As protocol, I was as polite and clear about my issue as I could be with the woman I ended up talking to, and we both ended up agreeing that the link breaking was very odd. It took a couple of check-ins with a supervisor, but she managed to confirm my details and that the coupon had indeed been sent to me. For all my waiting, I got an e-gift certificate matching the dollar amount of the coupon.

It hit me afterwards that she might have thought I was lying about having gotten the coupon in the first place, but politeness seems to get you everywhere with people on the other side of the phone.

My hair thanks you, customer service lady!

(Our office sometimes allows third parties to rent one of our spare offices. In that office there’s a computer, a big screen, a mouse, a keyboard — pretty much all you need to “plug and play.” I’m the receptionist today.)

Client: “Excuse me, but I can’t find the keyboard and mouse to control the computer.”

Me: “That is odd. There should be a set there.”

Client: “I looked into the cabinets, but I couldn’t find it.”

Me: “Let’s see what I can do. *walks along* “If I can’t find anything, you can use this cable to hook things up with your own laptop.” *turns around* “Or… do you mean that keyboard, in the middle of the table? With the mouse next to it?”

Client: *falls silent for a moment* “I even put my things right next to it.”

(I wished the client good luck with his presentation and let him know where our coffee machine was, in case he couldn’t use a cup… or a mug.)

(I’ve ordered a hamburger and onion rings in a cafeteria inside a supermarket. I pay for it, the cashier writes my name on the order, and I go find a table. For the purpose of this story, let’s say my name is Sheena. After a few minutes, I see a cafeteria worker walking around the tables with a hamburger and onion rings looking for a “Shane.” No one is answering. When she reaches my area:)

Me: “Could that possibly be for Sheena?”

Worker: “No, it says, ‘Shane.’”

(She heads back to the kitchen. The guy at the next table has been watching all this, so I comment:)

Me: “I bet you that was my order.”

(Over the next ten minutes or so, I hear the workers in the kitchen occasionally saying something about “Shane,” and then an announcement over the intercom saying that if there’s a Shane in the store, could he please come to the cafeteria. A few minutes later, the cashier who originally took my order marches into the seating area, comes over to me, and asks:)

Cashier: “Are you Sheena?”

Me: “Yes.”

(She rolls her eyes, hands me my order, and stalks off back to the kitchen.)

Me: *to the guy at the next table* “Told you that was my order.”