Tag Archives: technology

HP and Me

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It started in September 2024. I was notified that my Windows program would soon be orphaned, no longer supported by Microsoft within one year. My computer was four years old and beginning to show its age. I remember when my home computer lasted six or seven years, but they seem to have shorter life spans now. When we owned our real estate company, I purchased, installed, and connected all the computers and printers in our office for agents and staff. I replaced them every two years so our agents had the advantage of the latest and speediest technology. Our home computers didn’t require as much attention.

I decided to replace my computer and printer with the latest, greatest I could find at a reasonable price. I chose HP as the provider. Henrietta, my new laptop, was a snap to set up. I’m not a tech wizard by a long shot, but I can do the plug-and-play kind of setup. The printer, Oscar, was easy too.

About three weeks after setup, Oscar decided, on his own, to go offline. He wouldn’t print anything Henrietta sent to him. I fiddled around for a couple of hours and coaxed Oscar into a working relationship with Henrietta. All was well. I use my laptop and printer daily for my writing projects. I rely on their compliant participation in my efforts. I usually do the creative part of writing with a pencil and paper but transfer my work to the laptop for editing and legible printing.

A few weeks later, Oscar decided to take a vacation again leaving me and Henrietta without a way to share our work. I tried to persuade him to reconnect, but he was recalcitrant. I decided to call on the HP techs to help. I spoke with Brian. He said he’d walk me through the steps to reconnect. Steps I might add, I’d already done on my own. But who knows? A tech may have a fresh approach to the problem. After he and I worked on Oscar and he still was uncooperative, Brian asked to do a hands-on try. I gave over my computer to him via a sharing app. He took virtual control of the laptop and printer. It took about four hours from start to finish for Oscar to reconnect with Henrietta. Brian and I had a lot of time to get acquainted over the phone as he manipulated Oscar’s stubborn psyche.

We sailed along for a few days, THEN… Oscar, in his obstinacy, stopped working again. I just didn’t have the patience to charm him back, so I left him alone for a day. My thought was he just needed a bit of time off and would come back in a day or two on his own. Maybe a spa break. Really, Diana?

Finally, I went to my office to tackle the problem that was Oscar. I checked all the settings. I disconnected, reconnected, uninstalled, reinstalled, on and on, a number of times. Again, I decided to call on HP for help. I started with the chat bot, escalated to a human bot. I followed instructions, I redid, undid, and did-did over and over with the same result. Bupkis! The printer had gone offline willy-nilly three times in three months causing hours of my time placating it back to its job. Not acceptable.  I “chatted” with Rachel, then Jamison, then Ricardo over a period of two days. It restarted one day, then quit the next morning. Enough! This printer is under warranty, and it definitely is not working. I want it repaired or replaced. I told them I was a writer and needed a printer pronto. I told Ricardo that I was keeping a copy of the chat-texts and maybe they would be the basis of my next novel – a murder mystery.

My last helper was Shannah, the warranty maven, on the phone. She said that in order to process a warranty claim, she had to lead me through a process to document the trouble.

Oops! A bridge too far.

“No,no,no,” says I. “I have done all the processes and procedures I am going to do. I’ve tried for hours with and without tech support. I can send you all the chat texts. I will NOT go through it again. Just send me a new printer.”

Poor Shannah. She entered the drama after seven hours as I dangled dangerously on the ragged end of a fraying rope. I tried not to be harsh, but I was done dealing with processes and procedures and printers. I realize Shannah is not responsible for my dilemma. She barely speaks English and is on the lowest level of competency. She is an order taker and can only perform her job using a script, a mindless automaton.  I quoted to her the last text I received from Jose who stepped in as the supervisor when I demanded service. He wrote, “Escalate to HP Warranty Support since your printer is under warranty, request a case escalation directly to HP Warranty Services. Provide the serial number and product number when contacting them. Ask explicitly for a replacement under warranty due to the persistent issues and failed troubleshooting attempts.”

She said she would place the order. She saw I had an account with HP and asked me to verify my contact information. It was all my business info from years ago. Since I am now retired, it was all wrong and needed to be updated. I gave her my current information. She said they would send me the new printer in two weeks, and I could send the defective one back in the same box.

“Two weeks?”  I responded in a not-kindly tone. “I use the printer daily. What am I going to do for two weeks?”

I could tell she was unsettled by my retort. “Maybe, you could ask a friend to print for you,” she offered sheepishly.

“Seriously? “ I scoffed.

“Well, I could expedite it for a fee and you could have it in five days.”

“I will not pay one more red cent for this pile of junk. I want it replaced tomorrow.” My voice lost all semblance of sanity.

“I’m so sorry for your inconvenience, but that is the best I can do.”

Evil thoughts entered my mind, but I controlled myself. “I’ll figure something out.”

She wished me a better day and weekend and thanked me for being an HP customer. I hung up, poured a glass of wine, went immediately to the Amazon website, and ordered an HP printer to be delivered free by 6:00pm. I have 30 days to return it and will use it until my replacement warrantied printer is delivered. Even OLD foxes can be wiley.

Afterword: My new printer was delivered at 5:30pm that day and I set it up immediately. It WORKS! The next morning when I returned from my walk, there was a box on the porch. HP said the box. Inside was the replacement printer. Hmmmm. Maybe my message was received. One-day service. Now I just need to summon the calm demeanor to connect the printer one last time. A memo from HP was sent to my old office email address as confirmation of the delivery. One of my former agents saw the email and forwarded it to me. I guess I’m lucky the printer wasn’t delivered to the old address. Oh, well, win some, lose some. I’ll be setting up the replacement printer tomorrow and returning the new printer well within 30 days for a refund.

 Keeping my fingers crossed. As always, thank you for reading. Have a nice day. 

Technology for a Baby Boomer

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Here I am after more than three-quarters of a century looking back at some of the changes that occurred during that lifetime. The biggest technical change is the explosion of personal data devices. I did not get a cell phone until about twenty years ago. I was one of those people who said, “I’ll NEVER have a cell phone!!” I considered them an intrusion. I resisted and resisted. Then it became obvious that a cell phone was a necessary accompaniment to my daily lifestyle.

At the time my mother had moved to Tucson and was in need of close attention. She lived on her own but was in her 80s and had moved from the town where she lived for most of her life, away from lifelong friends and familiar places. She needed contact not only for personal needs and information about how to get around a new town, but also for company. My work took me out of the office, so I was not always available by landline. I believed she would find friends fairly quickly but, in the meantime, I was her social link, her sounding board, her complaint department, her connection to the world.

I discovered I needed a cell phone for business. Ken and I had just started a property management and real estate company and the need for quick exchanges of information became evident. So there I was, a new and reluctant cell phone user.

Looking way back…In the mid-1980s my family of three teenagers, two dogs, my husband and I, left our home in Bellevue Washington to travel the country. We journeyed through the forty-eight contiguous states plus a couple of Canadian Provinces and Mexican states for fourteen months. We took two of our kids out of high school (the third had just graduated). They wanted to keep up their studies while traveling so they could stay up in grade with their friends when we returned. That was accomplished with a study program coordinated by the University of Missouri and Bellevue High School. Correspondence courses were mailed (years before email) to us by the University and then back to the University as they completed each section and results were reported to their high school. All communication was by public phone in phone booths across the country and by mail, snail mail. Lots of postage. We had no cell phone and no computer. We were off the grid so to speak. Amazingly they were able to complete their studies in English, History, Math, and Social Studies – the basics, while learning firsthand about our beautiful country, its regions, its national parks, its varied cultures and languages (English has many nuances), history and geography. We took advantage of public libraries and museums along the way. Being teenagers imprisoned with their parents 24/7 for fourteen months, traveling in a van, living in a travel trailer, was indeed a sentence few would volunteer for. The only “device” they had for entertainment were Walkman cassette players with earphones. Those were revolutionary in that time. It was their means of escape into personal head space. I must give them all credit for their stalwart determination to survive. I’m sure it felt to them akin to traveling by covered wagon across the country. We crisscrossed the country from sea to shining sea four times in our quest to visit every state. How did we manage without a cell phone, GPS, the internet?

My how times have changed. Now the idea of leaving my house without a fully charged cell phone makes me quake with anxiety. What if something breaks down, what if my (fill in the blank) _________, husband, friend, daughter, grandson, needs to talk to me, an emergency, what if I get lost and need direction? What if, what if, what if?  I can hardly believe the intense change from being a NEVER-CELLPHONER to being a NEVER-BE- WITHOUT-A-CELLPHONER.

Technology has certainly changed my life. For better?