Please stay on the line; your call is important to us
Today was an epic battle between the party of the first part, known as “a victim of their own success” and the party of the second part, known as “persistently stubborn due to parsimony”. (All hyperbole, all the time). Two forces, locked into a conflict not of their own making. Now, several hours after the first stone was cast, I can finally report an outcome.
You see, I’m a Canadian client of OLPC. A great idea, tarnished by the human touch. Like many others (an estimated 81,000 although no firm statistics have been made public) I decided one month ago to make a contribution to increased computer literacy, by donating a computer to a classroom in a less-developed area; at the same time, I would be purchasing the same model of machine for our house. A simple commercial transaction, twinned with a bit of philanthropy. Classic capitalism with a twist. The sums involved weren’t beyond our means, and I am by nature very patient.
One of the Good Books of the world exhorts us, when giving, “to not let the left hand know what the left hand is doing”. So be it; one of the tenets of basic consumerism is to always know where your money has gone. Today marks thirty days from my date of transaction, and the terms of service say that you cannot request a refund after that period. Since I had not received any confirmation from the OLPC group, I decided to get on the phone and see “where we were”. Just a quick check to make sure they had the correct shipping coordinates; nothing more.
From this point, I’ll be naming individuals that I’ve never met. However, we have had meaningful conversations, and this is simply a recounting of my experience. I began my call to the pair of toll free numbers at just after 11 a.m., and after 35 minutes on hold, Christine answered with her name and her desire to assist me. This attitude lasted almost four minutes before she “dropped my call”; in layman’s terms, she hung up. I called right back.
Another 15 minutes with awful hold music, and Anthony let me know that he was also ready to help me out. Good stuff; I then repeated my story. The details remained the same, and after several short sessions of the same hold music, he admitted that “part of our database is not on the floor; some orders from December are not showing up in the system”. This wasn’t what I wanted to know, but he let me know that my call would be handed off to a supervisor, who would contact me with more information. We parted ways; me to work and he to do something.
No news is not good news when you need to know the status of your money. I decided to call back when I arrived home, Skype on my side; after 55 minutes I had a chance to discuss my case with Tony (not Anthony, as he was gone for the day). No supervisors were available either. I carefully and patiently explained to Tony that this call was important to me, since today was “the final moment”. The go/no go would depend on his ability to query the database terminal on his desk.
It turns out that he only had two fields to work with: last name and zip code. I explained that zip code would be of little use as I was calling from another country, and that we should focus on my family name. Search one; nothing. Search two; nothing. Search three, with my email address (this time while I was on the fearful hold channel, with the fearful music); the third time was golden. He confirmed that I was in the system!
So close. I challenged Tony to be “all that he could be” and produce a confirmation number (all the forums hold this up as proof that some day a laptop would come to my house). He went “off” again, and after fifteen minutes I had the magic code. He also reconfirmed my shipping address for the third time, and we parted ways. Now, only time will tell. I am confident, patient (shipping may be in mid-February) and willing to dream.
