Join me in reading Don’s live tweets from the Helena School Board meeting, here.
J N
How you get the media to let you make wild claims without asking questions? Accuse them of bias…
Using a page from the 80s and 90s Republican playbook, Palin made her strategy clear:
And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected honest profession that could and should be the cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how ’bout in honor of the American soldier, ya quite makin’ things up. And don’t underestimate the wisdom of the people, and one other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family too, so leave his kids alone.
… and the strategy works. Palin makes wild claims about Obama’s death committees? The media ignores… and worse? Repeats.
What a great, democratic debate about health care!
Good news! Intelligent Discontent has converted to an All-Dell-and-Montana-Meth-Project format!
I get it, I am just one customer. I get that although I have some purchasing power to recommend, in the grand scheme of things, I do not matter. That said, I am still horrified at the runaround I received trying to purchase a couple of items from Dell computers this month.
It appears we have a final solution from Dell’s executive customer service.
After FOUR days of calling around, Dell says there is ABSOLUTELY nothing they can to speed up the order. They are “sorry.”
However, there is one option. She can cancel the order and then place it again and then they may able to speed it up. That’s funny, I believe that they have done that twice already. However, the price of the hardware will increase by 150 dollars, making a grand total of $300 over the original cost of the order. There is no guarantee, mind you, that there will be speed up and based on my own experience, I don’t believe that the computers will actually shipped by a promised date.
I am stunned, frankly. Three weeks of lost time compared to purchasing a similar machine from Amazon.com. By my estimation, at least 5 hours in time wasted contacting Dell in an attempt to be treated like anything but a chump.
In the words of my good friend Don? Dell… I am breaking up with you…
LATE TUESDAY UPDATE: I have canceled my order and plan not to give Dell business again. 
TUESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: I received a call from Dell Customer service. The message said I could call back or email. I email. Nothing in return. My sadness is moving to anger as it is apparent that the problem is happening over and over again, as evidenced by this conversation. I am amused by the look at the bright side comment, “The positive thing out of this.. is, that Dell is now aware of this issue and how it affected the orders, and the Customers like yourself..So, perhaps they are indeed working on some resolution w/in to see that this doesn’t happen again.” It appears that after three months, Dell doesn’t get it. Other than their lackluster customer service, I have yet to receive one word from corporate, despite two emails and a couple of fruitless phonecalls. Sigh…
MONDAY UPDATE: The corporate customer service group called to update me just now (Monday morning, December 22). She needs another 24 hours to contact manufacturing to see if anything can be done (?). I remain skeptical…
Don and I have had a challenging relationship with Dell computer. We have used them to provide computers for our small business since 2002 and although we have been generally happy with the hardware, the customer service, especially at the time of sale, has been a lot less than acceptable.
Don reminded me the other day that his last two desktops purchased from Dell were hardly easy transactions. It took weeks to get the order processed for various reasons, the communication being underwhelming to horrible every step of the way. In fact, Don’s last two desktops featured an interesting trend: neither desktop he ordered was the eventual computer he received. Manufacturing problems, broken promises and frustrating customer service necessitated going with compromises.
