On the continuing saga of my computer
I took my computer into UNIT on Monday morning, around 10 or 10:30 am. They guarantee service within 72 hours.
Welcome to Thursday morning. No calls, emails, or other forms of communication from my dear friends in UNIT, so I got up a whole hour early and put on my best asskicking earrings.* I've been lugging that loaner computer around for days unnecessarily, after all, since I can't get mine back without trading the loaner back in.
So I walk into Vasey hall with all my righteous curiosity - a little, um, dampened by the huge geeky backpack the school gave us to carry the technology in - and very calmly walk up to the service desk. In front of me is your token glasses-wearing, slightly pudgy, slightly short tech support work study kid. Or maybe grad student. I will call him Fred.
Fred: Yeah?
Me: Hi. I brought my computer in on Monday morning, and it's been three days and I haven't heard anything. I'm just wondering what's up with it. (Since, you know, you people erase and restore computers by the minute these days.)
Fred: Oh. Can I see your campus ID?
Me: Yep. *hands it over*
Fred: Okay. *retreats to back room into which you cannot see from service desk. Some mumbling. Fred returns*
Fred: We found out your hard drive was bad.
Me: (Oh my gosh! You're kidding! I totally didn't understand what the black screen at startup and the F5 diagnostic test AND the guy I talked to on monday were telling me! Thanks SO much for setting me straight!)
Fred: We've tried a couple things to get your data off but they haven't really worked. And, uh, there's not much else we can really do to try to save it. But if you want you can take the hard drive with you and see if you can get it off yourself.
Me: (Hot diggity. A new hard drive and the old one to take to much better tech place back home to fix) Sure.
*Fred begins to retreat and I have a bad mental flash*
Me: Uh, but it is fixed now, right? (finals week, dude, finals week. The week of finals. English major, as you can tell by my pink service slip. Papers by hand aren't the norm anymore)
Fred: Well, no, we didn't ghost (read: erase & restore) it yet. It still has the old drive in it.
Me: ...I need it to do my work. For finals. And stuff.
Fred: Oh. ...Hang on. *retreats into back room again, more mumbling, Fred returns* If we let you take the old and new hard drives you'll have to pay for the old one since we won't be able to send it back to Dell for warranty. It's $85.
Me: Sure. (I've paid far more than that for the music I have on that hard drive, after all. And would pay MUCH more in trying to buy it back. Fair deal)
Fred: *stunned* Uh...but like, data retreival? Is like...really expensive. Like hundreds. Uh.
Me: You take debit card here?
Fred: Hang on. *this time he goes into the UNIT head's office*
And this is where I get to talk to the Man In Charge. He's kinda tall and has sort of a beard and, as far as I knew, dealt with me honestly. I will call him Artie. He seemed kind of like an Artie.
Artie: You must be the woman in question.
Me: Yep.
Artie: There are a few more things we can do to try to get data off. There are programs that aren't windows but that we could hook it up to blah blah yada technobabble Iknowaboutstartusdisks. It would cost you $85 dollars to buy the drive from us if we couldn't fix it, and I could recommend you some places to take it that we work with. But I'll be honest with you. We're pretty good at what we do here and if we can't save your data, it'd cost in the area of $800 to $1000 dollars for someone else to try.
Me: (Holy hell in a handbasket.) I'd still buy it.
Artie: ...You didn't even flinch at that.
Me: (This is my computer and my paid-for merchandise and further, my tuition bill. Therefore I am in control of what you do with MY stuff. And this is also? My poker face. Read it and cough up the data.) Yeah, well. Still, if you think you have other things you can try, then go ahead and try them.
Artie: Okay, sure.
Me: The thing is, though, if you find out you can do it, I'd almost rather buy it and try to do it myself anyway, because that way I would get everything.
Artie: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I know you guys will only do word documents and stuff.
Artie: Huh?
Me: I was told that to try to save all of my data would be too much for your server to handle. (Which I know is a lie. We are the 'most wired campus' in some magazine. Your server could hold the contents of all of West Campus' beer fridges. You just won't do it for one because then you'd have to do it for all.)
Artie: I'll make you a deal. If I can get anything off of it, then I'll get everything off.
Me: Okay. That's fair. Thanks. How long do you think this will take?
Artie: I should get back to you by close of business today.
And as I leave, I hear Artie say to Fred, "Do I need to go over that with you or were you paying attention?" ...So Fred was obviously very clueless. And Artie gets ten points for not saying to me, "Your hard drive is bad."
Granted, I didn't hear from anyone down that way today. But I can always stop by again tomorrow.
But damn do I feel satisfied with myself. For some reason they really didn't want me to buy that hard drive. But I refuse to give up.
I'm also finding myself warring on whether to hope they can save it or not. Hope and be happy and let it be dashed over the cliff, potentially? Or don't hope and go around seeing the world through a shade of gray, with the potential of future elation?
The icon I want to use with this post is not in my icon set, nor is it anywhere on this fake computer. But imagine it's there.
*They're playing cards. Aces of hearts, to be exact. Next time I'm getting the royal flush pair.
Welcome to Thursday morning. No calls, emails, or other forms of communication from my dear friends in UNIT, so I got up a whole hour early and put on my best asskicking earrings.* I've been lugging that loaner computer around for days unnecessarily, after all, since I can't get mine back without trading the loaner back in.
So I walk into Vasey hall with all my righteous curiosity - a little, um, dampened by the huge geeky backpack the school gave us to carry the technology in - and very calmly walk up to the service desk. In front of me is your token glasses-wearing, slightly pudgy, slightly short tech support work study kid. Or maybe grad student. I will call him Fred.
Fred: Yeah?
Me: Hi. I brought my computer in on Monday morning, and it's been three days and I haven't heard anything. I'm just wondering what's up with it. (Since, you know, you people erase and restore computers by the minute these days.)
Fred: Oh. Can I see your campus ID?
Me: Yep. *hands it over*
Fred: Okay. *retreats to back room into which you cannot see from service desk. Some mumbling. Fred returns*
Fred: We found out your hard drive was bad.
Me: (Oh my gosh! You're kidding! I totally didn't understand what the black screen at startup and the F5 diagnostic test AND the guy I talked to on monday were telling me! Thanks SO much for setting me straight!)
Fred: We've tried a couple things to get your data off but they haven't really worked. And, uh, there's not much else we can really do to try to save it. But if you want you can take the hard drive with you and see if you can get it off yourself.
Me: (Hot diggity. A new hard drive and the old one to take to much better tech place back home to fix) Sure.
*Fred begins to retreat and I have a bad mental flash*
Me: Uh, but it is fixed now, right? (finals week, dude, finals week. The week of finals. English major, as you can tell by my pink service slip. Papers by hand aren't the norm anymore)
Fred: Well, no, we didn't ghost (read: erase & restore) it yet. It still has the old drive in it.
Me: ...I need it to do my work. For finals. And stuff.
Fred: Oh. ...Hang on. *retreats into back room again, more mumbling, Fred returns* If we let you take the old and new hard drives you'll have to pay for the old one since we won't be able to send it back to Dell for warranty. It's $85.
Me: Sure. (I've paid far more than that for the music I have on that hard drive, after all. And would pay MUCH more in trying to buy it back. Fair deal)
Fred: *stunned* Uh...but like, data retreival? Is like...really expensive. Like hundreds. Uh.
Me: You take debit card here?
Fred: Hang on. *this time he goes into the UNIT head's office*
And this is where I get to talk to the Man In Charge. He's kinda tall and has sort of a beard and, as far as I knew, dealt with me honestly. I will call him Artie. He seemed kind of like an Artie.
Artie: You must be the woman in question.
Me: Yep.
Artie: There are a few more things we can do to try to get data off. There are programs that aren't windows but that we could hook it up to blah blah yada technobabble Iknowaboutstartusdisks. It would cost you $85 dollars to buy the drive from us if we couldn't fix it, and I could recommend you some places to take it that we work with. But I'll be honest with you. We're pretty good at what we do here and if we can't save your data, it'd cost in the area of $800 to $1000 dollars for someone else to try.
Me: (Holy hell in a handbasket.) I'd still buy it.
Artie: ...You didn't even flinch at that.
Me: (This is my computer and my paid-for merchandise and further, my tuition bill. Therefore I am in control of what you do with MY stuff. And this is also? My poker face. Read it and cough up the data.) Yeah, well. Still, if you think you have other things you can try, then go ahead and try them.
Artie: Okay, sure.
Me: The thing is, though, if you find out you can do it, I'd almost rather buy it and try to do it myself anyway, because that way I would get everything.
Artie: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I know you guys will only do word documents and stuff.
Artie: Huh?
Me: I was told that to try to save all of my data would be too much for your server to handle. (Which I know is a lie. We are the 'most wired campus' in some magazine. Your server could hold the contents of all of West Campus' beer fridges. You just won't do it for one because then you'd have to do it for all.)
Artie: I'll make you a deal. If I can get anything off of it, then I'll get everything off.
Me: Okay. That's fair. Thanks. How long do you think this will take?
Artie: I should get back to you by close of business today.
And as I leave, I hear Artie say to Fred, "Do I need to go over that with you or were you paying attention?" ...So Fred was obviously very clueless. And Artie gets ten points for not saying to me, "Your hard drive is bad."
Granted, I didn't hear from anyone down that way today. But I can always stop by again tomorrow.
But damn do I feel satisfied with myself. For some reason they really didn't want me to buy that hard drive. But I refuse to give up.
I'm also finding myself warring on whether to hope they can save it or not. Hope and be happy and let it be dashed over the cliff, potentially? Or don't hope and go around seeing the world through a shade of gray, with the potential of future elation?
The icon I want to use with this post is not in my icon set, nor is it anywhere on this fake computer. But imagine it's there.
*They're playing cards. Aces of hearts, to be exact. Next time I'm getting the royal flush pair.