Dell® Hell… (Part 1)

I’ve owned a computer since 1996. Actually I owned some prehistoric model of Apple® a few years before that, which was roughly the size of the front grill of Mack truck. All we did with it was to play strip-poker with some really clunky animated babes. That is a pretty weird story unto itself but we will pass it by for now.
Anyway, my first “real” computer was an IBM Aptiva™ which I bought from Radio Shack™ (“You got questions? Hey, good luck with that!”)
Right off the bat we had trouble with the modem connection. I called Radio Shack™ and talked to the manager and he said, no kidding, “Well, I’m sure we can take care of that. By the way, just what is a ‘modem’ anyhow?”


Radio Shackâ„¢. Your technology store!
The Aptiva cost as much as a good used car (over $3,000 back then, which is over a million by today’s currency) and in reality it was pretty cool because it lasted for years, IBM had left lots of ports to expand memory etc. and as a tool it served me well. We just lived and prayed that nothing went too seriously long necessitating a call to (dum-da-dum-dumm) CUSTOMER SERVICE! Brrrrrr!
Of course their “customer service” was non-existent; the classic example of an oxymoron. It could take literally hours to resolve problems and most of the conversations I had with “technicians” left me belching curry. I was on the phone once with a fellow from Bombay who literally had to repeat everything he said to me at least 4 times because I couldn’t fathom his accent.
(Another time I was on the horn with a guy in Ireland. We were together from about midnight till three thirty in the morning before he set things right. God, I miss that guy!)

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