TUESDAY
1. Due to a dire personal crisis, I had almost no sleep for two nights. I gave up on sleep Tuesday morning, made a large cup of really delicious coffee, and knocked it all over my computer.
2. I looked up Dell on Get a Human and phoned.
3. In the past, getting a human at Dell has taken HOURS -- hours and hours filled with oceans of hurt. I'd have to book a day off to get help from Dell.
But this time a human immediately confirmed that I had a warranty until 2018 and connected me quickly to another human. She first said, "Pack up your computer and mail it to us."
I said, "SEND ME A GUY."
She tried to do several diagnostics, I pressed F2, F12, start, restart, and I said: SEND ME A GUY.
She said, "I can't send you a guy until I know what parts to send him. If you mail it to us then we'll have all the parts available."
I said, "SEND ME A GUY."
She said, "He might have the wrong parts. He might have to make several trips."
I said, "SEND ME A GUY."
She said she'd order some parts and send me a guy, and then sent me this personal email: "I enjoyed working with you today on your coffee spill issue. I have included your service request and dispatch information below. Please be sure to contact me immediately if you do not hear from the onsite technician by noon tomorrow morning."
WOW.
WEDNESDAY
I hadn't heard from the guy so I sent a personal email to her at 9:46 a.m.
Within an hour, she wrote back saying, "I just checked the status, it looks like the technician does not have the part yet. He will reach out once he picks up the part. I’ll keep you posted."
The guy phoned and said the parts were in and he was on his way over.
The guy arrived and looked at my computer and said, "OY GEVALT!!" -- this is a Yiddish expression, that I wasn't expecting to hear from a techy. The guy was amazing. They had sent him what seems to be the Standard COFFEE-WINE Repair Kit. It had a new motherboard, a new keyboard, a new USB port, and other goodies. By 4:00 p.m. -- 30 hours later -- my computer was up and running. I wrote my personal DELL rep and she wrote back saying this:
"I’m glad to hear you were pleased with the service!! You can always reach out to me with any other issues. It was a pleasure assisting you!"
The guy gave me his cell # and told me to contact him anytime. He said, "You have the complete care warranty. You can throw the computer off the roof of your house and we'll fix it."
It's a brave, new world of computer repair.
HUBSKI: What do you think? How many times have you spilled liquids on your computer?