In my younger years, I was a bit of a Mac zealot. Okay, it goes back far enough that I was an Apple IIGS zealot.
I love underdogs. This is just one of the many reasons I’ve always loved the Mac. I knew that I wasn’t getting a mass-produced, assembly-line piece of crud computer. The things were workhorses. They lived forever.
My favorite Mac ever was Darcy. I had that PowerBook G3 forever. It was a sad day when she finally kicked it.
At my last job, I had a PowerBook G4 and a MacBook Pro. Both were nice and sexy and all, but they just weren’t as… strong as the old PBG4. The Mac is gaining market share, and I’m sad to see that reflected in the individualism of each unit shipped.
Mac hardware simply ain’t what it used to be.
When I started at BatchBlue, I got a MacBook (white one, no “Pro”). Now THIS was a nice machine. I love the thing. Compact, gorgeous, and just felt stronger than the MacBook Pro. I have had no issues with it. Not a thing. Nothing. Ran like a champ. I use this thing all day every day for everything from working to playing music to dance with Nolan to.
But today—in the middle of our weekly staff meeting—it died. No signs of warning. Nothing. I had actually just sent an email and noticed the wifi was crapping out. It froze. I did a force restart. I got the blinking folder.
Well, Sean called me up an hour or so ago and told me that the Apple Store called it dead on arrival. And for that, I get to scratch my head and wonder yet another “WTF?”
I’ll get to babysit the brand new BatchBlue iMac as my machine is getting fixed, but the hard drive was completely cooked. Nothing could be recovered. The shocking thing to me was that since I’m working on a web app and doing so much with email, Google Docs, and our internal wiki… I really didn’t need anything on that machine. Seriously, all I can think of I’ll miss right now is my instructions to run the Rails app locally.
But man… I’m irked. Seems like everyone’s Mac needs service lately. Give me the 2.5% market share back… when they actually had to fight to keep customers. The iPod has made Macs super cool, and it just feels like the quality is suffering. This is not the first time I’ve heard this. It’s a problem.
Well, hopefully it comes back stronger than ever. It’s a great little machine. I just can’t believe it is toast.
Seriously?
In just this week, Erin and I have experienced some insanely terrible episodes of customer “service”. I just have to rant about them.
AT&T: You’re No Cingular.
So, when word came out that the iPhone would only be provided by AT&T, I thought, “that’s fine… I’m already a Cingular customer and I’m happy with them.” I’ve been with Cingular for years and never had an issue. Never. In like, six years. Enter AT&T. I finally got my first iPhone bill and it was all effed up. It was about twice as much as it should have been. I called.
After waiting on “hold” for 20 minutes with no music at all, I finally figured… hey wait… I’m not on hold. I’ve been hung up on. Apparently, there was no way for the rep to get back to me to apologize for this. Especially since the only piece of information I gave them before being hung up on was my effing phone number.
So, I finally get someone (I’m convinced it is the same woman that hung up on me) and it gets even worse. Why do I have roaming charges when I’m on a national plan? Well, sir… you called from Maine. Yes, I did. But, sir, you don’t have international roaming on your plan.
I was silent for a full ten seconds.
OMGWTF? Maine is in our freakin’ country. I tell her “that’s two hours from my house. It’s in our country.” She fixes that for about a half hour, telling me “it’ll just be a minute” once every five minutes.
She tells me I am charged for my wife’s line because, well, I had two lines on the plan. But, I tell her, the reason I called them three weeks ago was to cancel that line so I could use this plan just for work. But you had the second line still, that’s why you were charged for it. But I didn’t use it, so I’m not going to pay for it. But you did use it. Look at you’re freakin’ paperwork. I called myself last week for one minute because I couldn’t believe it when we happened to turn on my wife’s phone and it still worked.
She passed me off to another person finally. The really nice person that it’s hard to get mad at. The nice grandma that they give all pissed off customers to. You can’t get mad at her. Well, she tried to make it better… she was gonna send me a Razr for my wife’s line (turns out it really makes sense to keep the second line, but I ain’t payin’ for that last month that I didn’t know I had it). Turns out that the Razr she was “giving” me is $19.95 (well, $69.95 with a rebate). Oh, and an $18 activation charge. I freak again. She finally says that she’ll waive the activation charge and it’ll only cost me $19.95 for this far superior phone. Fine, I say.
I was on the phone with AT&T for 93 minutes. Good thing I didn’t call from the iPhone. My minutes would be toast.
My wife’s new phone arrived a couple days ago. No rebate inside, but there is a bill for $70. Eff you, AT&T. I get to call you again.
Fisher Price + Toys ‘R Us = Sunnuva…
Last year, we got Ella the Little People Garage from Fisher Price. It was supposed to be for Christmas, but she got so much that we saved it. When we opened it up, it was missing the biggest piece. The freakin’ elevator. Like, when you look at the picture on the box, this is the piece that takes up a third of the picture.
We take it back to Toys ‘R Us. Oh, we don’t take returns anymore.
WTF?
Sir, you have to call Fisher Price and deal with them. Are you kidding me? So I call. The woman was very nice and helpful. BUT, the toy is no longer made and they don’t have the part. So, they’ll send me a voucher to send it back for a refund. But, elevator or not, Ella loves the thing. So, we’ll keep it anyway… just have half a toy.
Oh, and later that day Fisher Price announces that a million toys are being recalled because of lead paint. Good thing I called that morning. I would have been on the phone 94 minutes this time.
Um, that’s not my insurance company
The hospital sends us a bill for $1300 because Blue Cross refused to cover Nolan’s birth.
Of course they didn’t. That’s not our insurance company. Yaaaay, more hold time dealing with this mess.
Oh please, let me pay the interest first
So, the mortgage company takes the extra money that we send them and applies it to interest instead of principal. WhyTF do you think we’re sending extra money? So we can speed up the process of being screwed? No, we want you to take it off the principal so we are screwed less, thank you.
How do you like hockey pucks
We’re tired. Cooking sucks. So, we ordered from the local 99s. Erin got a burger (since she is not consuming milk products right now, that’s pretty much the only thing on the menu she can get). When she asks for medium well, the send her a bloody mess. So, she ordered well done this time. I’m serious—it was a hockey puck. I think it even had the NHL logo on it. I’m not sure, because they burned it off.
If the gave this to someone in the restaurant, the person would freak. They save this “service” for take out customers who can only swear and yell from the comfort of their own homes.
Just stir the damn thing
So, just tonight was literally the last straw. Erin wanted a Strawberry Coolatta from Dunkin’ Donuts. So, I go. While I’m there, I grab one of those new iced teas. I decide to get it sweetened. While I’m there, I’m actually reading the sign to employees that says “stir them with a spoon, don’t shake them”… I’m impressed.
Then I take a big ol’ swig of mine. I think I got diabetes on the spot. Apparently, you squirt in the “sweetener” (whatever it actually is) and pour the tea on top. No stirring happened. After these first two godawful sips, I had an unsweetened iced tea. I literally got all the sweetener in a sip. It nearly killed me.
So, this all happened in the last week. What’s going on? Is it me?
Update: How could I forget? Just the other night when I went to get Erin her Coolatta, they told me they needed to freeze them. They asked me to wait out front. Fifteen minutes later, I went back through the drive through line.
Yeap, they forgot about me.
Ella has been playing the Dora The Explorer: Animal Adventures game for a few months now. The game is supposedly for ages 3 and up, but Ella has pretty much mastered all of the games at the highest level (and she’ll be three on Halloween). If it sounds like I’m bragging, I apologize… but I am.
The one thing Ella hadn’t been doing is clicking on the items herself. She would point and I would click. Now I’m starting to see where the age minimum comes in. Ella has started pointing and clicking by herself with the mouse. However, the software developers made sure to make it as hard as possible for a small child to navigate to and click on the button.
Take the example below. The area that is clickable is so sensitive it is ridiculous. Also, if the “star” cursor is on the corner of the eyes they are trying to click on, it won’t trigger. The middle of the star has to be within the clickable area. Ridiculous. Talk about a guaranteed way to frustrate a little kid. She meticulously tries to center it until it lights up. Then about have the time when she goes to click, she nudges it a bit and loses it again.
It is pretty obvious to me after sitting with this game that—while it is cute—it was never tested with little kids. If so, the hovering and clicking frustration would have been immediately apparent.
So, the lesson is… don’t just test. Test with your actual user base.
