Today’s post was originally written as a satire piece for a currently unpublished issue of my school’s alternative paper, but seeing as how 1) it elaborates on my last post, 2) I’m reasonably certain I can use it both on my blog and in the paper, 3) it’s styled like something I’d write here anyway, and 4) it provides a little more clarity into why exactly I’m not updating very much right now and why you should never EVER buy a Dell, I’m posting it here. You kids have fun.
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Thrilled as I am that I’ve made it through my first month in college, the same can’t be said for my laptop. Last week my barely three month old Dell Studio 15 laptop decided that turning on was no longer something it was particularly interested in doing, and after another week of Dell sending a tech guy (twice) to ultimately not fix my laptop and then sending me an empty box, vaguely symbolic of my faith in the company, to send it back, it’s now sitting in the mailroom where FedEx picks it up the next business day and Dell probably fixes it in 2011.
It’s fitting how Dell’s commercials for their Studio series are lollipop themed, since the one they sold me was a lemon.
But as much as I’d enjoy bashing Dell for its incompetence (the Styrofoam cutout in their box didn’t even fit my laptop – learn the dimensions of your own products!), I’m much less thrilled with Dell’s inconsideration. They’re perfectly content letting their customers wait 8-14 days for repairs and playing that damn lollipop song while you’re on hold for half of the two hours you spend on the phone with tech support, but do they understand how inconvenient this is? I mean, sure, I can just go to the library to print out my homework and write papers and such, that works just fine, but going to the library ever other day to read the new XKCD? The new Penny Arcade? Clearly no one at Dell understands what a hassle it is to keep current with Questionable Content every day without your own computer you can read it on without feeling vaguely self conscious reading a giant, occasionally risqué comic in the library.
Now, sure, webcomics are one petty complaint, but then you have your tv shows. If you miss the new Office episode and don’t have access to Hulu or a sketchy Korean Youtube-knockoff to make up for it, then how are you going to be able to complain about how much worse the show gets every season? Not to mention how you’ll also have to do this in real life too, where you usually have considerably less anonymity.
It’s not even the absence of the internet that complicates matters, because even without it, you’re still going to have procrastinated enough to have to walk over to the library at 1 a.m. to check for that email your professor sent the class about what to bring to class tomorrow or to write up that paper or alternative newspaper article you put off to the last minute, and then when you suddenly have that internet access you’ve been cut off from all day, you know you’re just going to be on Facebook the whole time.
Oh? That’s right. The thousand pound gorilla in the hypothetical room. Facebook. I went there. It’s no secret we need instant access to Facebook nowadays. If you can’t constantly check Facebook to see if you’ve been tagged in any new pictures, then how are you going to know what you did last night? How are you going to write yet another status update complaining about how much work you still have to do or how you want to strangle whoever’s blasting “Boom Boom Pow” at this time of night? How are you going to play Farmville? Does Dell have any idea how many damn people are playing Farmville? Eight to fourteen days, my ass! I need to start playing Farmville!
It’s readily apparent just how great student need for a computer is, and if you don’t have your own, you either spend seven hours a day in the library, or you’re going down that proverbial creek without that proverbial paddle, or, worse still, you’re typing up your alternative newspaper article on your friend’s MacBook that half the people who listen to your story about your broken laptop inform you that you really should have gotten instead. In other words, don’t get a Dell, because Dell clearly doesn’t care about you getting to play Farmville with your friends.
