Class Dismissed

Since September, I've been assigned to study Farsi -- the language spoken in Iran -- in preparation for my next assignment with the State Department. We don't have an embassy in Iran, and we won't anytime soon. But you know from the news that the U.S. Government is paying a lot of attention to Iran these days so it are trying build up the number Farsi speakers it has, which brings me to the point of this blog: I'm back in school, and I dread it. Not much is more frustrating or embarrassing than trying to learn a new, difficult language and being reduced to the speech capacity of a toddler.

And just as when I was in elementary school, high school and college, if there is a reason for canceling class, then I'm all for it. We haven't had any snow in Washington this year, so other than an instructors' day at a conference, we haven't missed any time until Friday, when . . .

A construction crew excavating a site for a new building on the campus found some unexploded WWII ordnance at the site. We weren't evacuated immediately, but they let some classes in rooms overlooking the site go early, and then they wouldn't let anyone on the campus. They told the rest of us to go back to our classes, which raised the question in my mind that if it wasn't safe for people on one side of the building to be there, and it wasn't safe to let others onto the campsus, then why were the rest of being kept there. But good sense prevailed, and the rest of us were sent home shortly thereafter so that the local bomb squad could remove it.

All in all, it wasn't as good as a snow day, and I even came home and studied for another two hours so that the day wasn't a total waste.

I was probably more excited about selling 34 (EDIT: 39 woohoo!) boxes of Girl Scout cookies for my daughter.

P.S. Interestingly, during the Clinton Administration, federal employees were given "liberal leave" during inclement weather. Under the Bush Administration, that practice is now known as "Unscheduled Leave."

Posted by Murid @ 10:59 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Gimme Some Sugar

Here is what a Microsoft supervisor offered as compensation for the six weeks I've been without my console:

Viva Pinata

Kameo

Project Gotham Racing 3

Xbox Live Arcade

Wow, games that I already would have bought or that I could find in the bargain bin if I wanted them. Gee, thanks. Generosity knows no bounds.

And I was told that there was no higher level supervisor that I could speak to because that was against company policy so I guess the message is clear: Take it or leave it.

Coincidentally, Wired has an article on why customer service sucks. Certainly looks like its the Microsoft model. Here's the link.

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-02/su_customer_service

Posted by Murid @ 11:11 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Beside Myself

And on the seventh day, I thought, my power supply and ac cord had finally gotten here. There was a note in my mailbox telling me I had a package at the front desk. When I got there, I noticed in the log they keep that I had not one, but two packages. Maybe, I thought, I was getting some extra compensation for my inconvenience. That would be too good to be true, and it was. The boxes they handed me were exactly the same size and weight. Maybe, I thought, they had sent a duplicate shipment. I once got two televisions that way.

But this being the ordeal that's its been, it wouldn't be that easy. Nothing has been to my advantage yet, and with the track record so far, I got very suspicious that I was on the cusp on yet another Microsoft fuck-up that was going to keep me from getting back to gaming. And sure enough, I was right.

Today, I got two power supplies, but no ac cord. Now mind you, I didn't ask the customer service rep just once to verify that I was going to get a power supply and an ac cord. I asked twice. And then I called back the next day when the calls were being routed to a call center in the U.S. to confirm that in fact a power supply and ac cord were being shipped, even going to far as to say, in a bit of foreshadowing, that one without the other wasn't going to work, and I would hate to have to call back because it had been over a month without my console. This is the point when I was transferred to a supervisor with the suggestion to ask for a little extra something for my trouble. I was put on hold, and I hung up after 15 minutes because my lunch hour was over.

I called back today as soon as I opened the boxes, and after the usual profuse apologies, was assured that my ac cord will be shipped promptly, which translates into about a week from now, even with Priority Mail. So I'm still off line unless I can find a power cord or if I just break down and buy a new console this weekend.

Trying to get my console fixed has been a process that makes government bureaucracy look cutting-edge efficient, and I can say that without any exaggeration because I am a federal employee. To recap all that's gone wrong so far, it took 10 days for my console to get to the service center (blame UPS), someone somewhere screwed around with the info in the data base, wasting about 4-5 days before a refurb console was shipped, the refurb console arrived without the power supply and ac cord, and then two power supplies but no ac cord were shipped to me, which even with Priority Mail, took one week (blame USPS).

So what's wrong here? (Multiple choice. Select all that apply.)

A) The customer service representatives handling my calls were poorly trained and did not input the information into the database correctly.

B) The database software being used is poorly designed and confusing, leading to duplicate orders and other mistakes.

C) The warehouse crew doesn't read things carefully and made mistakes in filling the orders.

D) Nobody involved in this process gives a shit.

Posted by Murid @ 10:28 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Waiting

It's been six days since Microsoft said they shipped the power supply. It's not here yet. Maybe by this weekend it will come. I'm looking at the console they sent me, sitting there useless. Man, this sucks.

Posted by Murid @ 10:52 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

The Jokes on Us

Maybe, if you think about it, the problems with the Xbox 360 and the worse problems with the repair center are Robbie Bach or J Allard's or Bill Gates himself's idea of joke. Build a faulty system and then offer to repair it using a repair process that is intended to torture the paying customer through constant delays and screw ups. At least that's how I'm coming to see this whole process because I can't come up with any other rational explanation.

I received a repaired console today from MS. I noticed as I was taking the box back to my place that it felt light, and sure enough, when I opened it, there was a console (pretty sure it's someone else's refurb) but no power supply or AC cord. I called MS customer support and proceeded to get disconnected when I got put on hold after explaining in detail while I was calling.

I called back and got a different customer service rep. He checked the file. The previous customer service rep had ientered the wrong info about what I needed so that I would have been getting a power cord for the wireless racing wheel, not one for a console. The second rep caught the error. (But just imagine the look on my face when I would have opened that box and seen the wrong cord. Hilarious!) He started to correct it and then stopped to tell me that there was good news and bad news: He could correct the info in the file and request the power supply for the console get sent out, but the system was down for maintenance and updating, so that what he was entering was not being accepted. The best I can do is call back tomorrow, re-explain everything and hope that the system is up and running. And if I do that, and the moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter is aligned with Mars, and peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars, and this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, then maybe, just maybe, I will have a working, playable Xbox sometime next week.

Oh, my! This is just rich. I'm about to piss myself from laughing so hard at how a multi-billion dollar corporation is pulling one of the all-time great practical jokes on its customers by appearing to have a repair system that defies competence and basic quality assurance procedures. My side hurts, and I can't breathe. They really got us. Too funny.

But enough's enough. The joke's over. Just let me get back to playing my games.

Posted by Murid @ 9:09 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments