Tech Support

Today I got a phone call from Trevor, my Dell technician. Well, he's not my personal technician, but I talked to him about two weeks ago about a problem I'm having with my laptop's display; he never got my follow-up email, and called back today to check up on my case.Whenever something like that happens (a technician calls me back), my opinion of said techie's company goes up at least a star-and-a-half. I've heard enough stories about bad support—and specifically tech support—to appreciate a technician's calling back a few weeks later to see what's going on, even if the call interrupts my highly scheduled afternoon.

Trevor and I went through procedures similar to last time: I explained what was going on; he took control of my laptop via Dell Connect; he battled freezing, crashing browsers (due to my habit of having at least 10 tabs open at once and saving the session for the next time I open the browser); I watched, half embarrassed, half entertained; he downloaded and installed a BIOS update and a QuickSet update; I told him the problem was still there . . . you get the idea.

Finally, he decided that I would have to send my Inspiron in for further investigation. Yeah, 69 minutes and 21 seconds of tech support and no conclusion. I'll get a box in the mail and have a week after I get it to send them the laptop (in the box [duh]). It's going to be tight, with conference this weekend, and then notes and recordings after, but I need to get this tech work done; I only have a month left on the computer's warranty as of today.