On Dealing With Frustration

(I was going to call this post "Dell - The Worst Company in the World" but thought better of it.)

I have a new approach to my Dell debacle - slow breathing, Happy Thoughts. I think my extreme frustration last week was bad for my health.

My hero and the person I would most like to resemble is someone I have never met. I saw him in a documentary about Chechen rebels kidnapping a theater audience in Moscow a few years ago. When gun-toting masked men stormed the stage and told the audience that they were all being held hostage, this man turned to his neighbor and said, "I may as well have a nap. Please don't disturb me." He put his hat over his face and went to sleep. Women with bombs wrapped around their stomachs moved into the audience; the kidnappers threatened and made demands; after a few hours the authorities sent an anesthetic through the air vents that knocked out everyone in the theater (accidentally killing half of them) and then stormed the building and shot all the kidnappers; the now-unconscious man was carried out of the building by medics and laid on the sidewalk with the rest; he apparently woke up and wandered off, and nobody knows who he was. That's the way to conduct yourself during a kidnapping.

So in that vein, I'm trying not to get my blood pressure up as Dell continues their campaign of terror against me.

My first computer, as you may remember, had a defective hard drive. It also didn't contain an element I ordered and didn't do some of the things the sales rep said it would do. Also Dell sent my credit card number to an ISP and authorized them to bill me, although I had not agreed to that. They also charged me more than they said they would. Oh, and talked me into buying an expensive component I didn't need. But that's all water under the bridge... I sent back the defective computer. The replacement came yesterday.

...And it had a corrupted operating system and has to be returned. And I hauled it down two flghts of stairs to my car but now it looks like the waybill to return it won't be coming till Monday so I'll have to haul it back up again. It's only the fifth time I have hauled a similar box in the last two weeks. So I should think of it like free weight training (hauling boxes)... an interesting way to meet new people (at the UPS office)... a chance to work on my telephone skills (talking to Dell support)...

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