Entry for February 01, 2007

I returned to work today to inspect the work of the Dell engineer. The lovely people from the call centre in Bangalore had organised an expert computer repairman just for me. Wasn't that nice of them? He came to sort things out while I was at my course in Edinburgh, so you can imagine my excitement as I came into the office early this morning; my skipping tread; the lightness of foot; the little eager flutter in my chest.
I expect you know where this is going.
Of course it didn't work. I opened it up this time and it didn't even get as far as Windows. A wee green light came on in what I perceived to be a reluctant manner. It blinked a little blearily at me, and then everything froze. I think there may have been a brief flash of a picture of an evil clown on the screen, with a badge saying "Koko the Dell Engineer" but then nothing.
Only one hour forty minutes on the phone today. To Ireland this time rather than India which made for a nice change. If by nice you mean fucking annoying of course. At one stage I had to fetch a Phillips screwdriver so the nice man at the other end of the Irish Sea could talk me through something called "re-seating the memory cards, begorrah". It felt a bit like Apollo 13, except I had the feeling that, at the other end of the line, instead of a team of the finest minds of their generation, I had four baboons, Lala from the Teletubbies and a potato.
There is another engineer coming tomorrow.