 |
||
Another of my essays...I WAS going to save these all to disk before the great Y2K disaster....but thought I would paste them to the Net instead. If you arrive here by accident or someone actually beaconed you here...relax..nothing to buy...no gimmicks, just my weird sense of humor rearing its ugly head..... |
||
Presenting......
|
||
| Insert Tab "A" into slot "B". Rotate clockwise at a 90-degree angle, standing on your head while whistling "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandee." Ok, so the standing on the head part isn't usually the criteria. Just go with me on this. I have never liked reading "How-to manuals". The reasons are obvious. They are usually written in very small print, in Greek, and totally confusing. In order to read one, you need a magnifying glass, a translation booklet and no distractions. Keep the 1-800-HELP-THIS-IDIOT number handy. I like "pre-installed," "no tools required", " manufacturer assembled," etc, written on the box. Unfortunately, life is not that easy. Most product instruction manuals today are multilingual. You need to look for the language of your choice. The Spanish, French and English are always on the same page. While going through the installation steps, you will inevitably have to rivet your eyes over to the English version, then try to locate exactly where you left off . . .(step 1, 2, 5, or whatever) I would take French lessons to get me past this inconvenience, but it involves reading an instruction manual! I like pictures. Unfortunately, the drawings in the instruction manual are the artwork of a five-year-old. It looks nothing like the parts you are working with at the moment. The worst instruction manuals are the ones that are written in book format. Are we expected to actually read them from cover to cover? Does this make for good night reading? When I bring my purchase home, I want to use it right away, not read a novel about it. The 1-800-HELP-THIS-IDIOT phone number, fortunately, is usually in bold print. You dial the number and get the following message: "Thank you for calling The Ace Electronic Help Line. If you need to speak to the billing department representative, press "1" now, then enter your account number, hit the pound key, wait for the beep, then enter your social security number. If you need product ordering information, press "2" now. If you are missing assembly parts, press "3" now. If there is a product defect, dial "4" now. If you need help assembling the product, press "5" now. A service representative is standing by." |
||
| You press #5. Then you get the following message: "All service representatives are busy at this moment. Please wait forever, we will be available to help you within the decade." Ok, so I exaggerated, it just feels like forever. The elevator music comes on at this point and you wait…and wait…and wait. Eventually you will actually hear a live voice. It is at this point in time that you realize that the gods are not with you that day. The service representative is. He is from Bangladesh. He just graduated, bottom of his class I might add, English 101. It is his first day on the job and you are at his mercy. I do not wish to elaborate here. We have all been there, done that. After getting absolutely no where, the phone gets hung up and we go back to the instruction manual. It is at this point in time that I vow all future products I buy is "pre-installed," "no tools required", and "manufacturer assembled." Written by Joy Bovee 1999 |
||
 |
||
 |
||