If I stepped back a bit and looked at things that transpired over the last week or so from someone else’s perspective then I suppose it has not been that great of a week. It all really started last week when we had some very powerful storms come through and take out our beloved spruce tree.
Though you cannot see it from this angle, it was ripped out of the ground by the roots. The bottom 2 foot or so of limbs were a little sickly so it may have just been this tree’s time to go. Given that we have lost a dozen or so trees to the State Road 26 widening project (including 2 trees that had to be 50 feet tall each), we liked this tree even more as it was the sole tree left between us and the highway. Our privacy is for the most part gone now.
Over the past weekend and the early part of this week we had even more storms and rain. Due in part to the massive amounts of precipitation we have had in April and also in part to the construction messing up our drainage system, we had a little flooding issue.
While we didn’t need to get out the canoes (we don’t have any anyway), we did have to be careful driving in and out of the driveway this week. Getting the large (full) trash bins to the end of the driveway was also an adventure (it involved carving an alternate path through our side yard and using the neighbor’s [slightly more elevated] driveway).
On top of all this, Thursday morning our home phone line quit working. When someone would call our house, the phone would ring fine however, when we tried to answer it, things got weird. First of all, there was a loud buzz on the line and you could still hear the phone ring (albeit muffled and through the receiver). Secondly, the calling party simply still heard the phone ring and if we hung up the phone it would immediately begin to ring again. Now we do not usually get that many phone calls but this week we did (more about that in a bit). Anyway, with no phone at hand (I do not own a cell phone), I had to log an eService ticket with the phone company. That was pretty easy but it ended up with a generic thank you message and a note that they would commit to fixing this sometime between “now” and “8 pm next Wednesday”. Wow, that is almost a week to fix this situation (which is still not working at the time of this blog entry). Now on to why the phone was ringing so much.
A family that attends our church asked me to look at their computer. I had worked on this computer about a year ago (it was just acting sluggish, nothing a fresh install of Windows didn’t solve) but this time things were a bit more serious as they were perpetually stuck in safe mode and a fresh install of Windows did not fix it (but it did decrease the amount of time to get to safe mode). Based on what I was seeing on the screen I knew that it had to be related to the video card. Fortunately there is an on board diagnostics program that did produce an error code that I could “…provide to tech support…” when I called them. I was able to log onto the manufacturer’s web site (using another computer of course) and determine that there was an extended warranty purchased 2 years ago that was still in effect. Now this is the part of the story where the blog title comes in.
Since this is not my computer and since I had done all that I could do really, I could have simply returned the computer to its owner with instructions on who to call and how to proceed. This would involve returning the computer to them of course but I had backed up all their data to my other computer’s hard drive before I tried the fresh installation of Windows. This means that they would need to return the computer back to me so I could put the old data back on. This whole process could take weeks in that we really only see this family on Sundays. Based on this I decided to call in and pretend to be “Mike Smith” (named changed to protect the innocent). It took about 45 minutes on the phone (this was earlier in the week when the phone here still worked) to convince the tech support person that a combination of the error code (which was SUPPOSED to help the tech support person out) and my repetition of the troubleshooting that I had done on my own should warrant them sending someone out to replace the video card. Repeatedly I was asked if the monitor might be the problem (despite telling them that I experienced the same issue on 2 monitors, both of which worked with other PCs) and even though I have never heard of a monitor putting you into safe mode. I was also repeatedly asked if it might be a software problem (even though I mentioned, more than once, that I had tried using the restored disk and formatted the hard drive, thereby wiping out all software that I may or may not have installed). I was put on hold many times and eventually they agreed to dispatch a service tech.
Now, pretending to be Mike on the phone was easy. Though tempted, I did not use an fake accent. I simply responded quickly when called Mr. Smith. I had to make up a story about why the PC was not at the address that they had on file and also explain why the phone number on file needed to be updated (but only temporarily) for this repair. At the end of the call (and after they tried to sell me, that is Mike, upgrades to the video card, hard drive, memory, and software) I was told I would be contacted when the part was available locally. No problem, that is until our home phone quit working.
I called in the morning so the part was evidently shipped that day. The next day in the late morning (after the phone had stopped working) the phone rang quite a lot. We were powerless to stop the ringing as I mentioned before so it was quite annoying. I was not able to call back into the tech support until the next day (from work). I explained my situation and they updated the ticket but suggested that I call the company that they had subcontracted the work to in order to be sure everything was updated. They provided me an 800 number and the name of the company and all was well. I immediately called the number I was given only to find out that it was no longer in service. I quick google to confirm that I had written the number down correctly helped me to discover that the number I was given had been in service, but not for 2 years. I found a number of the company’s headquarters and after navigating their phone system was put through to a live person who told me that they used to do this work but had sold that contract to another company (some company that started with a Q). I asked for their number (if they had it) and was told that their phone number would do me no good as that company (the Q company) had sold the contract to yet another company. They were able to provide that number and I soon found myself navigating another phone system. Eventually I got to a person but not the right person. I was evidently sent to the escalation desk due to the age of my dispatch ticket. Pretending to be Mike again, I explained the situation, game them my work phone and was told that the field tech would soon call me. I typically answer my work phone with the name of my company and also my name so I had to be careful answering the phone.
Less than 30 minutes later I got a call and was told that the tech could be on site within the hour so I headed home (explaining to him that if something changed, calling me at home would do no good). I had explained that it would easy to find our house as it was the one with the giant sideways tree in the yard and I also explained that the driveway (though submerged) was safe to travel on. The guy was very understanding due to all the bad luck recently (he added to my bad luck pile the fact that my computer had broke as well, something I forgot to mention as I was going through all the woes I had suffered through recently). An hour or so later, the computer was working and I was back to doing another fresh install of Windows and I could quit pretending to me Mike. I did a pretty good job of remembering my name when the tech was on site (thank you Mr. Smith, here is your receipt Mr. Smith, have a good day Mr. Smith, etc).
Well, the waters have receded on the driveway but the tree is still sideways and the phone is still not working but I am relieved that I do not have to be Mike Smith any longer. No one questioned my identity at any step of this process. I had enough information about the real Mike Smith (thanks to the printed out church directory) to answer any verification questions anyone had along the way and in the end no one was hurt and I saved Mike Smith (the real one) and his family a week or two of suffering without their main computer.
I am not sure though if I was that convincing or if the tech support people just didn’t care or perhaps the rules are just not as stringent as I had feared when I first introduced myself as Mike, the owner of the computer. I mentioned in my last blog that I was very talented when it came to convincing people that a statement was true or not so maybe this is just a natural extension of that ability. I felt uncomfortable the whole time though and am just really glad this whole event is over.
Jon
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