The UnSub

My new Dell Inspiron 530, a Quad Core, 3Gb RAM together with 3-year Plus Phone Support is less than inspiring. Less than 3 weeks old and it is failing. The phone support on the invoice states that support is available on Sat 0900-1600 but

the number to the Plus-Phone-Support is nowhere to be found. For goodness sake, just print it on my invoice or put it clearly on your support site.

Dell has done a heck of a job with their direct sales and logistics management. So far, I am very pleased with the order fulfillment and delivery process for both desktops and servers.

Unfortunately when it comes to my own machine, Dell’s support site looks like a cacophony of irrelevant information. I can’t even find a simple phone number after many clicks and searches. Yes, there are plenty of other numbers that is “manned” by pre-recorded messages but where is the Plus-support number? If a tech-savy user can’t find support number that works on Saturday, how would you expect a non-savvy user to find it? And the weird thing about their search engine is it returns some results that were seemingly relevant but are zipped up in a file.

Why put information into Zip files that contains nothing more than some HTML and images when you have a website?!?

The site has everything but the relevant telephone number that I was looking desperately for. The very idea of displaying all the troubleshooting issues and forum gives people the perception that the products are problem ridden. I have about 10 years of computing experience since the days of DOS6.22, I’d done enough of troubleshooting, nowadays I pay for someone to fix my problems.

The most annoying thing about the support systems of most businesses is the use of IVR or Interactive Voice Response system. IVR is invented for the benefit of businesses that are short of man-power to handle calls. No one, whose purchase is broken, has little if not any patience to listen to your long-winded pre-recorded message.

No matter how diplomatic the speeches in your IVR might be, all I hear is: “Sorry, we don’t work on Saturdays”.

After all a round of frustration while filling up their email support that DID NOT WORK on Firefox browser, I called the sales line and to my surprise, a human!!! Actually not a surprise considering sales-lines are “revenue” centers while support lines are cost-centric. Naturally, she has to take the first blow of my sarcasm before I got hold of the so call Plus-support extension. It’s just too bad that she was the first person who represented Dell who spoke to me after digging around their stupid website and listening to recorded messages for 10mins or so.

The next person on the line was basically Dell’s saving grace. Of course much of my lethal negative energy in me was fired at the first Dell representative, she basically did a good job of asking the right questions and making the arrangement for an on-site engineer. Before this event, i have never considered other desktop brands because they have done a good job making online configuration and purchase convenient (and of course cheap). The next buy will definitely NOT be a Dell.

Things failing within 2 weeks+ is not acceptable, regardless of how well you can sell and distribute. It’s time to look at the basics and common sense when it comes to designing portals. Dell’s search engine is basically crap compared to Google. A unhappy user needs a phone-call to a human who is trained to make arrangements to resolve the problem, not some pre-recorded message that says “we don’t work on Saturdays”, or a bunch of irrelevant information littered on your website.

With clever use of words, our dear ministers have shift the blame to Singaporeans, inanimate objects and of course, our prized foreign talents. Yes, I understand very well the verse “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…”. Still, it makes me wonder where is the line between complacency & negligence.

“If you generate the culture that nobody wants to make mistakes and (is) afraid to do something for fear of making mistakes, that - as Dr Goh Keng Swee used to say - would be the biggest mistake of all,” said Mr Lee.

This statement would depend very much on the context of the so-call mistake. Taking initiatives to improve, trying out new ideas or ways and learning from failures, I believe is the more relevant context of the so call “making mistakes”.

In this toilet break case, the mistakes are definitely not acceptable. By not following up with a miscommunicated renovation work, CCTV that were not functional and a string of stupidities. Finally, to let the detainee (now celebrity) pee in his privacy behind close doors is definitely not the type of mistakes that any sector, whether private or government would encourage. Such blunders committed is as good as leaving your service revolver or rifle at a public toilet!

The public wants a sincere apology, not some well-crafted statements and clever use of words to push the blame to complacency and in turn to Singaporeans at large. It is not surprising that many Singaporeans wants some head to roll since we are the indirect pay-masters of all these civil servants who are taking it easy.

To a large extent, it is true that we have ourselves to blame for the state we are in since we voted for the people who are in control. Who else do you want to vote during the elections? If there is anywhere to punish the prevailing party, it is at the voting box.

I think NETS is quite hard up for cash. See Mr Brown’s entry: http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2008/04/dear-nets.html

Vista’s UAC aka User Antagonizing Control was designed to make you swear even if you are a person of the purest heart & gap (I am referring the gap on yr head, not between the legs you moron!). For the lesser mortals like myself who discovered my true inner being is tightly associated with the magic F*** word,

I am certainly glad that I have Ubuntu (& time-proven XP for certain applications) . I thank the invisible Man (actually it’s my VP I should thank but heck, thanking human is not so pious) for my office machine not pre-installed with a software system designed with malice.

Word of truth for folks who are prone to hyper-tension and compulsive swearing (Truth will set u flee!):

DO NOT buy machine pre-installed with Vista! Request your vendor to “upgrade” to XP. Better still install Ubuntu yourself!

We are all living in sin by supporting pre-installed garbage! (hey, I think I can try to stand in front of the pulpit) Friends who are already sucked in by evil bundling of IT conspiracy: THERE IS STILL LIGHT AT THE END OF TUNNEL AND IT’S NOT A MRT TRAIN. No, I am not asking to kill yourself at Clementi station and cause major inconvenience to fellow citizens for whatever misery you are facing. That is equivalent to domestic terrorism. That makes you even more dangerous than Mas Selamat.

Redeem yourself by wiping your harddisk clean of sinful installations with a single 650MB Ubuntu CD! (unlike some wasteful garbage that exists in DVDs). Amen!

When you are immerse in an working environment where hostility is norm, getting back is the motivation behind doing the things we do. I’m really tired working for other people’s agenda, especially to learn that within the same building, they are so many people who want to see each other’s unit dead.

I left the first company because I no longer see myself creating solutions but fire-fighting issues created by politics. I left the 2nd company despite a nice pay check. But what’s the point of money when you have no say over your own work. I rather take less than be a rich puppet. Now, all I can see is vengeance within a bloated corporate facade and an association of seniority with mediocrity.

I do not invent or create products so that you can kill off bloated divisions. I am more concern with organizing ourselves to produce viable and sustainable solutions. I do not like to wait or listen to your reasons for things not done. Units with no skills or passion will die a natural death. I see no need to hold a meeting to discuss pointless strategies revolving around personal vendettas. I really want to excuse myself from these stupidity and pursue my own agenda…