One of Those "Tech'd Off" Days

This past weekend I had one of those "technical computer storms" -- malfunctioning "puter"!  These things always seem to happen when you least expect them.

Friday I had shown some property in the community where I live and didn't expect to hear back from these folks before Monday.  Sooo, my plans for Saturday were to slob about doing Christmas cards, cleaning the homefront up a wee bit and maybe even decorate something inside the home to recognize the season.  All was going well until about 11 AM when our clients called an were looking for some more info on a property in another location that I had mentioned to them and they would like to see.  Great says I -- let me pull it up on the computer and I can than go ahead an schedule the showing for that afternoon.  As I turn from the phone in my hand to the computer at my desk I notice I am missing "lights" on the router.  Not a good sign and a good indication a computer storm cloud was brewing.  I told the folks that instead of keeping them on hold I'd get the info and call them back.

I suspect many of you probably have a much better organized home office arrangement than what I have set up.  To put it mildly all my gadgets, equipment, etc. present an awesome mess of cords that drive you to expletives to unravel -- especially when in a hurry!  Even though all had been well at 1 Am it was very obvious the router to my second laptop had expired between than and now.  This meant finding the correct cords to disconnect the defunct router so I could have one laptop working.  All the equipment looks pretty tidy when looking at it from the front.  But, when on hands and knees trying to decipher what goes where it's a nightmare.

I did get it straightened out so I could connect to the Internet, schedule the showing and meet the folks who decided this was the house they wanted to purchase.  It's a foreclosure and that's another whole story on how that's going!

Back to the router issue.  The second laptop was purchased as a backup laptop and I set it up for my husband to use.  Well, he has been spoiled and wanted to use it for more than playing solitaire.  So, off to Staples and the purchase of a new router.  The deceased one was 4 years old and I guess in the world of technology it had had a good life.  Soooooo, one would assume (never a good thing) that all the hype on the packaging about it being a breeze to network, especially just two laptops, was true.  My previous experience which was a nightmare before getting resolved.  Wrong.

All went well connecting the router to the main laptop (my work station) but nothing was computing to the 2nd laptop.  I had purchased a Linksys Router to Linksys Router Card for the 2nd puter thinking this would help things in accomplishing the goal -- networking.  Wrong.

This story has a good ending and the reason for the story in the first place was the great customer service I received from the Linksys tech I worked with and his dedication, patience and professionalism in solving the problem.  He was in the Phillipines and I was here and we were connected by a phone line and an Internect connection allowing him to access my laptop for about 2-1/2 hours.  Despite my distress he remained calm, persistent and dedicated to resolving the issue -- and he did.

I feel this is a customer service experience to remark on as I know we all hear so many tales of how awful customer service is from vendors and quite often I think we fail to remark on when good things occur.  Just my thoughts.

Sue of Robin and Sue