...ruffles...

For the second time in six months my Powerbook has had to go in for repair. This time the backlight has stopped working making the screen too dark to see.

As before I phoned the Apple helpline and was instantly transported to a call centre somewhere in the world. I find being consumed by global corporations disconcerting. Its not natural to phone a helpdesk in California, talk to someone, then ring back five minutes later to continue the exact same conversation with someone completely different in Mumbai. This is magnified further by the fact it’s Apple, who are little short of a religious cult in computing terms.

Last time I chose to send the Powerbook off for repair; within what felt like minutes a man from UPS with a Powerbook sized box appeared on the doorstep and took it away. Days later it reappeared all fixed. In between I watched its progress via Apple’s repair tracking service online.

Brilliant though the process was, I found the experience quite troubling. It was too slick an inhuman.

This time I talked to Priya, who then helpfully sent me emails I couldn’t properly see (because my backlight isn’t working) these explained what we’d been doing. She was later joined by ‘David’ a product specialist who didn’t speak. Instead, Priya ended every sentence with “David agrees”. I wondered whether David was really there, or whether they can achieve greater credibility amongst middle Americans if every “foriegner” is supported by someone resolutely Christian.

Priya: “How can I help you today?”
Me: “When I turn on my computer the back light flickers, then it goes off so I can’t see the screen anymore.”
P: “OK, can you do a hardware test.”
Me: “I would, but I can’t see the pointer on the screen to move it to start the test”
P: “OK, let’s recap, you have a flickering screen problem, a backlight problem, and no pointer.”
Me: “There all part of the same problem, there’s no problem with the pointer, it’s just I can’t see the screen properly because the backlights not working.”
P: “David believes you have a hardware problem, but we haven’t isolated the pointer problem.”

I was tempted to throw in a few random words to see if Priya would process them.

"Yes and when I check my email I can't CHICKEN IN WELLINGTON BOOTS when I then hit send"
"Let me recap, you have a back light problem, a flickering screen, no pointer and a chicken in wellington boots?"
"Yes."
"We haven't isolated the chicken in wellington boots"
"Surely that's the easiest bit; Chickens can't go very fast in wellington boots"

Eventually David concluded, and then told Priya who then told me that the PowerBook should come in for repair. I chose the option to use one of their local service centres (basically a computer shop with a licence to fix Apple products). I phoned one in High Wycombe, there was no answer, as it was a bank holiday I wasn’t surprised, in fact I was rather comforted by the poor service.

Labels: Technology