HP, HP, HP...oy

So I've sent my laptop in earlier this week for a repair. As I've said before, this will be the last time I give HP a chance to repair it. Last night I got an email from Derrick, who had commented on my blog before. I suggested he go through HP's normal customer service and asked him to update me. Well, HP gave him a new laptop. A 14.1" dv4t. So yeah, I'm annoyed. So annoyed I emailed the PR guy that emailed me. I want a refund. Let's see what they do.




Hello J.P.,

I obtained your email address from a comment you left on my blog (http://truparad0x.blogspot.com/search/label/hp%20stinks). When I first received your comment, I was surprised at how my blog was able to reach HP's PR firm. At the time, I received a response and thought things would be fine. When I did speak with executive support they pushed me back to a case manager.

The case manager was pretty helpful at first and arranged for a free repair plus the stick of memory that HP had taken from me. After waiting two weeks and still not seeing my RAM, I called the case manager again. This time, I just told him I wasn't pleased with the service nor the two-month time frame without my sole computer (that I do my finances on, my budgeting, my emailing, ...pretty much my life). I asked for a refund and told him I would send the laptop to him. He told me blankly that HP was not responsible for loss of data and time and that a system buyback was not an option at that point. I asked him how he would've felt if he was out of a computer for two months. He repeated coldly that HP was not responsible for loss of data or time. He can only offer a repair.

As you can see, I was pretty frustrated and annoyed. But seeing how he won't give me a refund, I conceded to the repair. I asked him what would happen if after the repair my laptop's issue resurfaced (on my blog, I was able to connect to other HP customers who had issues resurface several months after a repair). He told me the repair was guaranteed for 90 days; after that it would be considered an out-of-warranty laptop. I was surprised at how incapable HP saw their own repair team to guarantee their own repairs for a measly 90-days. Three months? I was out of a laptop for 2/3 that time.

To make matters a little more unbearable for me, one of the people who read my blogs had the same issue with the same model. He thinks HP made a defective product. Anyway, I suggested he contact a case manager before writing to the CEO (even with my bad view of HP, I wanted him to go through the normal chain of customer service before escalating). He just wrote to me to let me know that HP replaced his laptop with a different 14.1" model. But here I am, two and a half months without a workable, dependable machine.

As I told my case manager, even if they do repair my laptop, I'm not confident enough in HP to believe my laptop will continue to work. And apparently after 90 days, I would be sh*t out of luck. That's why I asked for a refund. Why keep repairing it? This is the third repair. Either the repair center can't do their job or the machine is obviously defective.

Anyway, I wrote to you because I feel you might actually care about this and could help me in some way to get my refund. My laptop is currently with HP repair.


Sincerely,




[Dan]

Know your limits

This past week, I had been "resting" my tweaked right shoulder. I determined that it probably is my rotator cuff as certain rotations hurt, while "normal" shoulder movements just felt weird. Having come from a background of lifting and working out, I knew that in my compromised state, I would risk further injury by working out. So I opted to avoid all upper body workouts last week. Here were my mini-workouts:

Tuesday: squats (30), lunges (10 each)
Wednesday: calf raises (45)
Thursday: squats (30), lunges (10 each)
Friday: side kicks (10 each), front kicks (10 each)

I did some rotations Saturday night to see how my shoulder felt, and I could hear clicking in my shoulder. So it seems like that whole joint is kinda loose. Normally, for any pulls or other types of "major" soft tissue injury, I wait a minimum of 2 - 3 weeks before attempting to workout again. But besides the clicking, the shoulder feels decent. I decided that this week, I would do heavily shortened versions of my normal workouts and see how it goes (instead of 3 sets of 10, I would try 3 sets of 3). I'll probably start on my chest workout first since it's not as involved as my BBS workout. The BBS workout can come later in the week.

I haven't been able to fit any cardio in last week. I've been trying to get some biking in, but scheduling got in the way. Hoping to do better this week. We'll see how it all goes.