Xbox drama

For anyone that does not know me personally and my lovely Xbox experience... here's the long and short of it.

On August 3rd, I called Xbox support because my son was getting the dreaded E74 error. They gave me the in warranty repair, sent me the shipping materials and off it went. About two weeks later I got the email telling me they were sending it back.

Here's where the fun begins. When I originally set the repair up, I was not told that they were going to ship it Signature Required IN PERSON. So, I gave them the home address. Now, I and my husband both work and are not home during the middle of the day. So UPS shows up at 11am and leaves the note - check marking the Signature Required box. I read the slip, and for the box checked - on the back the instructions state to sign the slip and leave it on the door for them. This is what I did.

UPS comes back the next day at 3pm. They leave another slip, checking the same box and writing in all caps: IN PERSON. Now, I check the instructions on the back of the slip again, and for this option they should be checking a different box, but fine. So the UPS person isn't the brightest person in the world and might be mildly illiterate. That's OK.

I call UPS. They tell me to call back the next day and tell them to do a Will Call Pickup at the hub. I check the address and it is on my home from work, so no big deal. I call and they tell me a rep will confirm what time I can pick it up. OK. Rep calls and tells me I can pick it up between 7pm and 9pm. They close at 6pm. So, I call once again and request an intercept to have it delivered to my husbands office instead. I give them my credit card to pay for this, as there is a fee. Another 2 weeks go by and the tracking information gets less and less specific. So we call UPS again. After an hour, they finally find my package. They did not do the intercept right and it was shipped back to Microsoft as undeliverable.

I wait a few days to make sure they get it back. I receive a phone call from Xbox explaining this and giving me a new service number. So, I call Xbox again. I explain the entire situation 4 times before the gentleman on the other end of the phone finally understands my problem. He gives me another service number and says they are going to reship it. I wait another week and a half, no phone calls, no emails, no Xbox. So, I call again, and basically the same thing happens. I wait another week. I call again, I explain it and finally get transferred to a supervisor. She tells me that they were waiting for me to call and confirm the address I gave them 3 times already. No one had said I needed to call back again. She apologizes, puts me on hold while she calls various departments and gets it arranged again. She tells me, and I will quote this, "I know you don't believe me, but you will get a phone call from the dispatch hub to confirm your address within 24 - 48 hours."

I didn't. Again, there were no phone calls, no emails, no Xbox.
After another 2 weeks passes with nothing, I was attempting to find time to call Microsoft Corporate in Washington.
Yesterday, with no warning. My husband gets an Xbox delivered to his office.

My son is happy, after nearly 3 months, he finally got his console back. And it works fine now.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they put a Customer Satisfaction Survey in the box.

I will definitely fill this out, and I will update all of my correspondence here.

A beautiful sound...

Last night, I was digging through some of my old junk. I was actually looking for a photo of myself playing Badminton (yes, I was on my High School Badminton team) for my husband's amusement. I found an old handheld tape recorder. The kind that you would record a lecture on (back in the good old days of technology). It had a tape in it still, that somehow had not melted or degraded. My husband scraped all the alkaline out of the battery compartment for me, since I had left batteries in it. I just had to see if it still worked. It did.

The tape was primarily blank. The only thing on it actually was a couple of minutes of my father saying things like "testing, testing, 1, 2, 3....". This was the best thing I have heard in such a long time. He passed away several years ago. I laughed, I cried. I think it is the first time, I have ever done both at the same time. Laughing until you cry is different. Crying with genuine sadness and feeling joy and delight at the same time is a unique sensation. As I think about this and write this article, I am smiling and my eyes are misting up.

I miss you Dad.

lunch time

30 minutes is not long enough. 1 hour is too long. I need a 40 minute lunch. That would be perfect.

What's wrong with Americans?

Notice I said Americans, not America. I am thankful to have the privilege to grow up in such a free environment with so many possibilities. I think this country is wonderful. Nothing is perfect, and that includes our government. I might complain or disagree, but don't take that as meaning I don't appreciate the fact that I have the right to complain and disagree.

So, Americans. We are portrayed around the world as rude, fat, and lazy. Honestly, they are partially right. It comes down to one thing really. We are spoiled. Spoiled rotten. We have every advantage and we don't appreciate it. We are certain we deserve it, and that it is our right.

Now, it's not a terrible thing to have such conveniences. Where I think we stray is that we forget that some people don't have them. We are lucky to live in a place where we can take things such as food, electricity, and water for granted. Everyone has a car and can drive. As much as our health care system might be flawed, no one is denied emergency medical care. Schooling is free, and they provide free transportation for the children and even free meals if needed.

I have thought about this, and I feel that the biggest mistake people in the USA make, is that they forget what opportunities living here actually provides. Not everyone is going to be a millionaire, nor is it going to be easy to achieve such success. Being American does not grant you a free ride, nor do you deserve anything other than your basic freedoms. What you DO get, is the chance to succeed. No matter where you were born, who your parents are, what your childhood was like. If you really try, you can become almost anything. That is what makes the United States of America so fantastic.

Appreciate what you already have people before you strive for more.

Facebook. GRRRR

On a normal day, I am very happy with Facebook. It is buggy, it crashes, it fails to post things and then magically posts them in triplicate later. I am OK with that. I get to hear updates from friends and family that I rarely see. It's great to see the pics and videos posted. I even play that stupid Mafia Wars games between annoying phone calls at work. Helps to keep me from thinking about how overqualified I am for my job.

I am so sick AND tired (yes, I said it) of hearing people bitch about the President. Some people post up to 10 updates per day about this. Now, an infinitesimal portion of these posts have some merit. Generally, they are uneducated doses of bullshit hashed out from someone that I can only imagine couldn't be bothered to read more than the blurb from Google News. If anyone has a real point, with, well lets say "facts", behind it, I would be overjoyed to read it. Alas, none of you actually have a point do you? If you want to point out something amusing, please share. We can all use a little more laughter in our day, can't we?

Keep your mindless pointless hate to yourself please. Or start a blog called "Reasons I don't get laid" or "What I watched on Fox News today!!" or "Morons: We have opinions too you know!". Just don't fill my damn wall with this pablum. I accepted your friend offer because I wanted to know what was going on in your life and possibly chat a little every now and then. Try to remember that, because my friends that have posts blocked is growing longer. It's unnecessary to treat people you "friended" that way. Downright tragic.