My home computer is also my work computer when I\u2019m \u201cremote\u201d and while it has served me well for many many years, it wasn\u2019t cutting it anymore. I would click to open a program – even something simple like Notepad – and it would grind away for a few moments before responding. And rebooting was a chore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw ads that said both Best Buy and Dell were having \u201cearly Black Friday\u201d sales and I checked both sites to try and compare prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which wasn\u2019t easy – it was a struggle to find laptops that matched, even among the same general specs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of the two, I figured direct from Dell would be easier and I\u2019d be less likely to accidentally get a refurbished computer. (I had that with my chromebook and the screen was bad.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, off to Dell.com and their deals. It took me a bit to narrow it down and even mostly knowing what I\u2019m looking for didn\u2019t help much. I finally decided on one and added it to the cart – where I noticed that there was free priority shipping as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven better,\u201d I thought, with a slight twinge of guilt for as I placed the order for a replacement computer on while using \u201cold unreliable\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Except, no, even with the Free Priority Shipping box checked, I was still getting charged $55.00. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I considered switching to regular shipping and paying less for that – but I instead took a deep breath and clicked the chat. You never know which way that will go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got a response in a moment and tried to ask a question, but the automated system had half a dozen prompts before it routed me. I finally got to a person named Joyce – or at least a near-Turing equivalent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked about the Free Priority Shipping and after a moment I was asked if I was a member of the loyalty program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I rolled my eyes so hard that I accidentally saw what I was thinking. And it was not pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was enough of a delay in my response that \u201cJoyce\u201d realized a sale was in jeopardy. \u201cShe\u201d popped back in with an offer for a coupon code to get free shipping. I copied the code out, thanked \u201cher\u201d for the code and politely stated my disinterest in a loyalty program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe\u201d understood and asked if I would fill out a survey at the end of the chat. (I guess Joyce was a human after all.) I agreed to do so and continued on with the transaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I put in my credit card number and as I hit Next the screen connected to my bank to send me a text message to confirm. I selected my phone number, got a text a moment later, and entered the code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within a few minutes, I was through the transaction and got an email confirmation of my order. As I closed out the chat the survey popped up and I rated Joyce highly – and noted that I likely wouldn\u2019t have made the purchase without help. Which is true – it was starting to feel like a bait-and-switch to me and there are a lot of ways to buy a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started to get back to what I was doing and my cell phone rang with an unfamiliar, but not recognizably spam, phone number number. I answered it and got the bank\u2019s automated fraud protection system. It asked me to verify some info, then walked me through confirming my recent purchases – fast food, target, fast food again, and then the computer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay, I get it – it was an odd-ball purchase and the verification was good – if a little tedious. Though, I would have thought the bank connection during the transaction would have handled that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I finished the call and as I hung up I noticed that I had a text message from my bank as well. Same deal and verifying the same transactions. I followed the prompts and confirmed this again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I found it a little ironic that human beings have had to build all these computer systems to protect humans from other humans using computers to steal information – while trying to buy a computer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The priority shipping wasn\u2019t messing around. This was on a Thursday and I was expecting two business days later – Monday. I\u2019d be working from home and would be around in the evening. Instead, I got notices on Friday that it would be arriving that day – sometime before the end of the day. Not knowing when that would be was a little worrying since we had plans that evening, but the computer showed up mid-afternoon before any appointments or plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the weekend I did some set up work and this past week I\u2019ve been using both machines as I transfer my files between them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been well over a week since I\u2019ve gotten the computer and yesterday I got an email and a text from Dell that my computer had shipped and was out for delivery. I had to check and make sure it wasn\u2019t a duplicate order – but the online info confirmed it had been delivered in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I\u2019ve got a shiny new Dell laptop and my inner geek (and my outer geek as well) thinks all is right with the world – even though it took some doing to convince the computers that I\u2019m actually who I claim to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Edit: I wrote this yesterday and just now got another Dell email and a text letting me know that my computer has been delivered. Sigh.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My home computer is also my work computer when I\u2019m \u201cremote\u201d and while it has served me well for many many years, it wasn\u2019t cutting it anymore. I would click to open a program – even something simple like Notepad – and it would grind away for a few moments before responding. And rebooting was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions\/2704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}