Ever had the reverse happen to you ?
I have an HP printer, one of those new fancy ones that does photo quality printing and the like.. someone bought it for me.. and I foolishly retired my ever faithful old dot-matrix. The other day, after precisely 1 month of use it just lost its mind and started blinking the LED for 'paper jam', the fact that there was no paper within a 200 meter radius did not deter it.
I put my 3lit3 sk1llz to use and opened it up, checking the feeder alignment etc etc.. finally I decided to be a normal human being and called HP tech support...
TechSup 'Tell me what the problem is sir"
Sahir -- "Yeah my over-expensive HP printer just died, it's blinking the paper jam LED but there's no paper in it, I've cycled the power, reinstalled the printer software, tested it under both Linux and Windows, checked the paper feeder and done voodoo rituals.. it still doesnt work. I suspect the paper feeder has got misaligned, is there any way to get a replacement"
TechSup -- "Okay sir, have you tried cycling the power ?"
Sahir -- "Uhm.. yeh I said I did that already"
TechSup -- "Alright Sir is there any paper in the printer"
Sahir -- <breaks a door in frustration with a well timed taek-won-do kick> "No.. I told you theres no paper here"
TechSup -- "Thank you sir, could you please try reinstalling the printer software"
Sahir -- "I told you.. I've DONE that already"
TechSup -- "Okay, have you tried reinstalling your Windows"
Sahir -- "Its not Windows, I tried it in Linux as well"
TechSup -- <bluffing> Sir we only support Windows.. you will have to reinstall Windows.
<B.S, HP gives you a Linux driver, and whaddyaknow, they even sell PCs with Linux preinstalled in South East Asia..>
Sahir -- <lying> "Yeah I did that.. its not working"
TechSup -- "Okay sir, there must be a problem with the paper feeder, you'll have to bring it in to your nearest support center"
<I just spent 20 minutes with this guy to be told exactly what I'd told him at the start of the conversation.. at this point I gathered my collection of poisoned darts and my 15th Century Samurai sword, getting ready to visit the nearest support center>
Sahir -- "Okay, could you tell me where the nearest support center is... I'm in South Bombay"
TechSupport -- "I'm sorry sir, this call center is in Bangalore, however we have a wonderful network of 352 gazillion support centers in Mumbai, should I read them all out to you and you can pick the nearest one ?"
Sahir -- "uhhh... could you try and locate one in South Bombay"
TechSupport -- "Sorry sir, the list is arranged alphabetically.. I will read them out"
<To cut to the chase, the center I got the number for was in Lower Parel (yes that starts with an L.. we went through about 500 other locations I didn't know were in my own city before we reached it)>
To their credit the support center people were really sweet and polite, after I started throwing shurikens at the receptionist they offered to get me a replacement printer, by the time I pulled out the nan-chuks they were ready to deliver it to my house. A quick roundhouse to the manager's left cheek made sure that I didn't have to fill up their 'I'm a satisfied customer' forms.
Not that I have anything against HP, now don't get me started on D-link.. one day I will use my superior intellect to become CEO of that company just so that I can sack all their support staff.. then I'll resign..
Sahir Hidayatullah.
Firewall.cx Staff - Associate Editor & Security Advisor
tftfotw.blogspot.com
