postheadericon Mad as Hell Dealing With Dell and Other Rants

I know that I have not blogged in a very long time, but I have just not had the energy.  Losing one’s mate and the ensuing grief has been almost paralyzing for me.  I have also decided whatever depression I am experiencing is really exacerbated by the gloomy and almost always cloudy, snowing, or lately raining yucky and depressing Ohio weather. I have never been a sun worshiper, but now I feel so much better when there is any sun to worship.  My aches go away and my mood lifts when the temperature goes up, the rain ceases, and the sun comes out.   I am moving forward in my life and am blessed with wonderful friends, my faith, and a beautiful home and lovely Cavaliers.  I will leave catching up on my personal life until another blog, but right now just want to “bitch” about the state of affairs in our country. Let’s start with outsourcing:

When my old Dell Laptop started to begin signs of aging after six years of loyalty, I purchased a new Dell 17 inch laptop failing to remember that while the computer performed admirably with only a few beginning glitches, Dell tech support did not perform admirably.  I shuddered when I remembered the long, late nights of trying to get my computer set up without glitches that defied description at least by me.  Do you remember the line that Peter Finch yelled from the window in the movie Network?  “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  In my latest dealings with Dell outsourced technical support I found myself screaming the same line and refraining from screaming American obscenities into the ears of the tech support with varying degrees of English competence and/or intricacies of dialect or computer jargon as I can understand it. I am mad as hell to begin with with Americans in this country continuing to lose jobs to outsourcing.  It is certainly not the fault of the countries or personnel where American companies set up shop; it is the fault of our greedy profit driven at any expense companies who want cheap labor.

Why do companies outsource tech support to non Americans located in foreign lands when I barely know how to describe the problem to myself much less an outsourced “techie”.  When one does not know how to speak “Computer tech” much less explain the problem with a computer, how does one deal with a technical support person in another country..  I am afraid I fit the bill sometimes of the Ugly American when speaking with the fifth or sixth person in two different countries trying to get help.  The phone line goes dead, one must explain the problem to seven different people with no results, one’s ownership of said problematic computer is questioned when there is no record of the computer even when the receipt is in hand. Then the line goes dead.  Finally after five hours on the phone to Dell tech support located heaven knows where and four move hours the next day,  someone who knows what he is doing gets on the phone and the problem is solved in fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, I have become a babbling idiot with a bad headache, frayed nerves, lack of goodwill toward men and especially Dell. 

On another note, Exxon just posted profits last quarter of 10.2 billion.  If you did not get that here it is $10,200,000,000.  If I am wrong in the vast number of 0’s please forgive me as my head swims just visualizing that much money. Now gas has just gone up today again to $4.15 a gallon and going higher. Thank God and I mean thank God that I am blessed enough to pay for gas as long as I stay in our county! However,  I am appalled,angry, and horrified that those of us who are unemployed, making minimum wage, facing or enduring foreclosure, or homeless are hit with the greed of the oil companies.  Our government is doing nothing to help the impoverished or the struggling middle class. Gas prices are going to obscene levels and we continue to just let our elected officials go on worrying about their own good and not the good of our country7 or our citizens. When will we stand up and be counted and “throw the bums (in lieu of the word I would prefer to use to describe our politicians) out!  Now we have the horrible destruction in the South.  New Orleans has still not been rebuilt from Katrina; how will we rebuild our tornado destroyed towns when we truly are operating under a huge deficit and continue to pour money into foreign lands whether in outsourcing labor, factories, companies, or war. We rush in to help countries who have national disasters; what countries will help us. When we have been their for them, what countries have offered to help us in disasters the scope of Katrina or Tuscaloosa.

I am not finished “ranting” but will save it for the future.  I will say this however the 2012 election will be the election which sets the tone of our future.  When will politicians get out of bed with those who can feather the nests of our legislators and decide to forgo their own greed to help those most in need in our country.  Just pray for our country; prayer is needed now more than ever.  Pray also for those Americans suffering from the destruction of the tornados hitting our South and as always for our soldiers who continue to be in harm’s way. 

Until next time . . .