I know it's all going downhill and overseas, and having spent 18
months wearing a headset myself I try to be sympathetic. But OMG what
a repository of incompetence, incivility, and naked greed Gateway
Support has become!
I have an MX8710. I love this machine, but it came with XP MCE, and I
need XP Pro. I'm used to this by now with all vendors - if you don't
buy from the business division (at higher prices) you don't get Pro,
so reinstalls are pretty much part of the game for me.
Except it's just a little trickier with a laptop that uses a SATA hard
drive. Now, several days after first coming up against this, it
doesn't seem like such a big deal. At first though, I was at a bit of
a loss. Trying to do a fresh install from the CD, XP told me I didn't
even have a hard drive. Installing after booting from the hd, my cd
key was rejected as invalid.
At that time I hadn't really looked at the laptop's specs and didn't
suspect that it had a SATA controller. With no clue what the problem
might be, it seemed like a call to Gateway Support was at least worth
a try - if this it was a known issue I might even get a quick fix.
Five minute wait, not bad for a toll-free call. Nice enough tech
(Would I like to extend my warranty?) though he had no idea what the
problem might be. Several lengthy holds later, it turned out that
none of his cube-mates did either. One thing they were sure of
though, was that I would need to nuke any existing partitions before
any OS other than the one on the restore cd would take.
But, if anything goes wrong, I can just use that restore cd to fix it,
right? Well, not exactly. See, the restore cd assumes that the
recovery partition exists on the hd, and since you're going to kill
that, well... But, for $20 we can send you this *other* recovery
disc, and it will fix you no matter how badly you mess things up. Or
if, say, your drive dies, or you ever want to upgrade it.
So, what happens to people whose drives die (that being the likeliest
component of a laptop to die prematurely) if they don't know they need
this "magical" disc? Hmm, good question, I guess they need to call
us. But if their warranty has expired by then - oh, *that's* why I
should buy the three year warranty.
So, after giving him my serial number, system info, name, and address
again, and my phone number for the 11th time (interesting system these
guys use, wonder if Gateway wrote it themselves - it would explain a
lot) he took my credit card info (should be hacker safe, since they've
doubtless lost it already), wished me a wonderful joyous day, and I
closed everything to await the arrival of the cd.
Well, I did do one other thing. By now I was ever so slightly uneasy,
and thought getting a new, larger, hd at the same time would give me
both more space and a little insurance. Since I was already at their
website, I checked the online store. I had already noticed that you
could search for components by specific computer models - since I
don't know laptops all that well, it seemed like a good way to insure
compatibility.
Unfortunately, hard drives are the one component they carry which are
*not* listed that way. So, I found what seemed a suitable replacement
- a 120 gig WD, and opened up a chat session with sales. I explained
that due to some OS upgrade issues, I was looking into buying another
hd, but wanted to be sure that it would work with my system. After
giving him my serial number, and verifying my system, address, and
phone number, he assured me it was, and that it was the largest
available for my laptop - and asked what address he should ship it to.
Not on the first date, I thought, and replied that I wanted to do a
little more research first. Thank you he said, have a glorious
spectacular magnificent fuzzy-puppy-filled day, and vanished in a puff
of smoke.
The research lasted about 15 minutes and uncovered three items of
interest. First, the drive in the laptop had a SATA interface.
Second, the drive whose compatibility the sales rep had just
guaranteed did not. Third, Seagate - the maker of the laptops current
80-gig drive - made the exact same drive in a 160 gig model, and it
could be had for $5 more than the useless 120 gig WD Gateway wanted to
sell me. (And not once did I have to supply my serial or phone
numbers - amazing!)
A few days later I had the magic disc and new hd, and was ready to try
again. However, I still hadn't really done my homework, and so didn't
know that the problem was that XP Pro does not have SATA drivers on
the install cd. So, all I had changed was that the install had a
larger - but still invisible drive. Hoping the magic cd (which I had
by now endowed with almost supernatural powers) could help, I booted
from that. As I should have expected, it had but one purpose - to
install exactly the same XP MCE and recovery partition that the
original drive had. Been there, done that - time to try Gateway
Support again.
Apparently, Gateway had in the interim decided that we're using up too
much of their free phone support time, and their own excessive
friendliness is largely to blame. Unlike the first tech I spoke with,
who wanted to know what the problem was and how he could help me, this
girl seemed to want to know what *my* problem was, and why I was
bothering her about it. From start to finish she was, umm, more than
a "bit itchy". (Did I want to extend the *#$^ warranty? Why the h~!!
not?) After complaining about my phone volume, she demanded my name,
rank, and serial number, and oh yes, phone number. Oddly, the first
12 times I had given it to them were not enough, and it was clearly my
fault that it still wasn't in their database. I'd had some fun with
the first tech commiserating over the universality of lousy
call-center software, but something about this one told me that fun
time was over.
Rather than subject her to the whole sorry tale, I asked if there were
any notes in the system from the first call. Yes, she said, I *guess*
I can check those. (Sigh!) After a few seconds: It says we sent you
a driver disc. Ok then...
So here's the punch line, and I'm sure you Linux fans will *love* this
- she listened in complete silence as I laid the whole thing out for
her, pretty much everything in the above paragraphs. She then told me
that there was absolutely nothing that she could do for me, because,
even under warranty, Gateway Support does not assist with issues
related to *any* OS - or OS version - other than the one installed on
the machine purchased. I pointed out that they did sell XP Pro
upgrades, as well as machines with XP Pro pre-installed, and that they
even listed an XP Pro upgrade as available for my laptop. Ah, but *I*
didn't buy *that* version from *them*, and so I was on my own. Unless,
that is, I wanted to avail myself of another Support option. If I was
willing to pay them, they would be willing to share the solution with
me.
In other words, we know what the problem is, and we know how to fix
it. And we know you're only a month into your warranty. But, based
on the thinnest of pretexts, and mostly because, well, because we can,
we're going to charge you $60 (that's the minimum "subscription", she
assured me that I didn't even want to know the flat per-minute rate)
for the answer.
I will confess that at this point I interrupted her (to point out that
I was likelier to retrieve and apply the hammer from my garage than to
be extorted like this) and didn't let her get the last few words out.
Enraged, she actually began to yell at me, ordering me not to
interrupt her, and to let her finish her sentence. Apparently, I was
throwing her off-script. And here's how the script works - once the
loser, er, user, on the phone has mentioned anything that gives us
cover, there are only two possible paths. Either he pays and the call
is handed over, or the call is just *over*. There simply isn't
anything else to discuss - pay up, or shut up. And have a super,
stupendous, orgasmic, rapturous, universe-shattering day.
It seems likely that Gateway has decided that "Call Center" is
pronounced "Profit Center". If so, I have a suggestion for them - why
not just go all the way, and hire phone-sex workers? Think of the
possibilities - you're already screwing the customer, why not get 900
number rates for it, and leave them smiling.
And what about my troublesome little laptop? It's in the other room,
happily running XP Pro. Once I gave up on Gateway and tried Google
instead, it took only a few minutes to learn about the absent SATA
drivers, and how to create a "Slipstreamed" install cd that includes
them. Thanks to an excellent little program called nLite, all I had
to do was copy the SATA driver from the original cd.
And thanks to Gateway Support, twenty years from now I will still be
able to recite my laptops serial number from memory. And, of course,
my phone number.
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