you find someone to complain to. Right?
I just lost two hours of my life that I can’t get back, and the problem still isn’t solved. How do you handle frustrations like this:
Buy HP deskjet black ink cartridge for my printer at home. Bring it home. Install. Print 10 pages just fine. Go to sleep. Try to print 2 more the next morning but the black ink is first faint then gone. Take out cartridge and shake it. look at contacts. Determine they are just fine. Try several times. No luck. Determine I must have bought a bad HP cartridge. Call the 800 number. Listen to the options and find none really fit. Choose the printer problems. Describe my printer. Get told its ancient (born in 2000) and not covered. Explain, patiently, that I don’t have a printer problem. I have a defective cartridge. Get transferred, Wait…., explain it all anew to the next person. Get transferred again. Wait….., start explaining it to the new person only to be disconnected somehow.
Call back after dinner. Do the same thing as above (less patiently), get put on hold. Put phone on speaker phone. Do dishes, clean kitchen. After 1 hour, hang up and go swimming with my son.
This morning. Do the hp.com chat with a tech. from a local coffeeshop (I only have dialup at home). Describe the whole thing. Another hour later after less patiently telling them that I KNOW it is a defective ink cartridge and would they please just replace it, I’m asked to find some small print on the cartridge that tells that it expired in 2007! I should go back to Walmart, says the tech, and ask for a replacement. If I don’t get satisfaction, I should call back and they will kindly redirect me to the right dept.
Problem. I can’t from the recpt from last Friday. I probably threw it away and thus threw away 2 plus hours of my time and the 40 dollars for the cartridge.
I’m happy that I didn’t curse. I was respectful but firm and direct with the hp.com person. But I’d like to tell SOMEONE off. It would seem hp has done a masterful job at getting people to follow protocol, but that means they stop thinking.
Of course, my complaining here probably shows some immaturity on my part. In the scheme of things this isn’t a problem. I have food and water and no one is trying to kill me. I can afford another cartridge…
Musings on Faith and Psychology 