Recently, Tim's sister got a sound system. It is a DVD/CD player, radio, and speaker system for the TV all rolled into one. And it only takes three remotes to operate it. Ahh. Progress.
A few weeks ago, Tim and I went over to try and help her hook it up (well, Tim went over to hook it up, I just went along to heckle him...it's my job).
He got it out of the box, and even managed to follow the seemingly idiot-proof picture directions for hooking it up. It wasn't until he turned it on that the trouble began.
Oh, it started out user-friendly enough, encouraging Tim to choose which language he preferred, number one for English, numero dos for espanol. He pressed one for English.
A woman's voice flowed out from the speaker welcoming him, and assuring him that she would guide him through the start-up process.
And then she switched to Spanish.
Perplexed, Tim pushed the buttons to stop, then exit, then restart. And got Spanish again.
He hit some more buttons. And got Spanish again. Caramba!
He said some not very nice words, but surprisingly they had no effect on the senorita and she continued to hable en espanol.
I believe that it was at this point that the dog decided to enter the fray. Somehow, he thought that jumping up and french kissing Tim repeatedly would make everything better. It didn't (some people are just determined to be foul for no reason whatsoever).
Concern for Tim's pressure, her dog and her TV (although not necessarily in that order), prompted Rose to insist that she didn't need the system hooked up that day, but Tim was not giving up yet.
He re-read the directions, fiddled with the connections, the buttons, the knobs and the remotes. Nada.
I heckled (it was my job, after all), the dog barked, Rose soothed, and Tim cursed (some of it in Spanish--the extent of his Spanish language skills-- so the machine could understand). Still nada.
Eventually, dinnertime approached and Tim had to admit temporary defeat. He turned off the system, unplugged it, and with a muttered, "hasta la vista" and final black look, left the apartment.
This past weekend, we finally returned, but brought our twenty-two year old nephew with us. As Tim explained the problem, our nephew nodded once, walked over to the machine, switched one of the cables around and "Termine" Done. No problemo.
So now Rose can listen to her TV programs as though she is a member of the studio audience...if only she could remember how to work the three remotes.
Showing posts with label helplines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label helplines. Show all posts
Friday, July 11, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Service With a Smile
I have come to the conclusion that people in the service industry fall into either one of two basic categories: surly, embittered miscreants who make Oscar the Grouch look like Mother Theresa, or bubbly, over-enthusiastic do-gooders who are a cross between Mr. Rogers and Cheerleader Barbie.
After dealing extensively with both, I have decided that I definitely prefer Type One.
They make no pretense of trying to help or even understand the problem. I know that when I am done talking to them, I will need to crack open a fresh bottle of Advil and eat lots of ice cream to lower my blood pressure (Really. It is a scientific fact. Although, they probably don't mean you should eat the whole half gallon in one sitting.).
I feel justified in hopping on my broom and borrowing liberally from Don Rickles stand-up act. And when it is all over, I know that the person I am dealing with is just as aggravated and ticked off as I am.
I feel vindicated and somewhat satisfied.
And then there are the type twos.
They want to be my friend and share with me. They explain, in excruciatingly painful detail, everything. They pretend to be my advocate, my mentor and my therapist all rolled into one. Insults bounce off their cotton candy wall of niceness like a rubber ball off concrete. They are always calm and reasonable.
Which makes me just itch to slap them.
Like the Verizon guy.
After talking to six, count 'em six type ones,who kept transferring me because they couldn't be bothered to actually help me, I got Mr. Verizon.
"Of course, I'll be able to help you," he enthused. "But first, let me give you my direct dial so if you ever need anything, you can just pick up the phone and I'll be there for you."
Great. And can you do it without sounding like a really bad commercial from 1955?
"Oh, I see the problem. Your credit card expires next month and you haven't entered the new info yet," he gently chided me.
"Yes, I know," I gritted out, "but I haven't received the new card yet and that doesn't explain why my automatic payment scheduled for tomorrow won't go through."
"Weeeell. By golly, you're right," he responded, unfazed by my less than friendly tone. "Let me see..."
I could hear him humming a happy little tune as he clicked merrily away on his computer.
Grrrr.
"You know, it can take a full month after you register for the automatic payments to start," he explained as though I were a particularly slow two year old. "It says that right on the site when you sign up."
"Yes, I know," I snapped. "I signed up two months ago, and everything was working fine until now."
"Uh oh. I see the problem now," he crooned. So do I, and I'm talking to it. "It looks like you switched the last two digits on your credit card when you entered it." He actually make a tsk-tsk sound!
"Oh really?" That was it. The gloves were coming off. "Then maybe you can explain to me how the payments went through for the last two months without a problem? Did you perhaps give me two months free, or did someone there pay it out of the goodness of their heart, just to be a nice guy? And, by the way, I have more than one phone on that card and amazingly those charges went through just fine too. How do you explain that?"
As I paused for a quick breath before I finished eviscerating him, he jumped in.
"Well now," he said using the tone of voice one uses when confronting a rabid dog, "I don't know how you're mistake got through like that, but don't you worry. I've fixed it so you won't have this problem again."
My mistake? My mistake? My mistake???!!!
I think I may have actually blacked out for a moment there, because when I came to, he was thanking me for calling and telling me to make sure to call him when I got my new card so that he could change the expiration date for me.
Yeah. I don't think so. That is one mistake I won't be repeating.
After dealing extensively with both, I have decided that I definitely prefer Type One.
They make no pretense of trying to help or even understand the problem. I know that when I am done talking to them, I will need to crack open a fresh bottle of Advil and eat lots of ice cream to lower my blood pressure (Really. It is a scientific fact. Although, they probably don't mean you should eat the whole half gallon in one sitting.).
I feel justified in hopping on my broom and borrowing liberally from Don Rickles stand-up act. And when it is all over, I know that the person I am dealing with is just as aggravated and ticked off as I am.
I feel vindicated and somewhat satisfied.
And then there are the type twos.
They want to be my friend and share with me. They explain, in excruciatingly painful detail, everything. They pretend to be my advocate, my mentor and my therapist all rolled into one. Insults bounce off their cotton candy wall of niceness like a rubber ball off concrete. They are always calm and reasonable.
Which makes me just itch to slap them.
Like the Verizon guy.
After talking to six, count 'em six type ones,who kept transferring me because they couldn't be bothered to actually help me, I got Mr. Verizon.
"Of course, I'll be able to help you," he enthused. "But first, let me give you my direct dial so if you ever need anything, you can just pick up the phone and I'll be there for you."
Great. And can you do it without sounding like a really bad commercial from 1955?
"Oh, I see the problem. Your credit card expires next month and you haven't entered the new info yet," he gently chided me.
"Yes, I know," I gritted out, "but I haven't received the new card yet and that doesn't explain why my automatic payment scheduled for tomorrow won't go through."
"Weeeell. By golly, you're right," he responded, unfazed by my less than friendly tone. "Let me see..."
I could hear him humming a happy little tune as he clicked merrily away on his computer.
Grrrr.
"You know, it can take a full month after you register for the automatic payments to start," he explained as though I were a particularly slow two year old. "It says that right on the site when you sign up."
"Yes, I know," I snapped. "I signed up two months ago, and everything was working fine until now."
"Uh oh. I see the problem now," he crooned. So do I, and I'm talking to it. "It looks like you switched the last two digits on your credit card when you entered it." He actually make a tsk-tsk sound!
"Oh really?" That was it. The gloves were coming off. "Then maybe you can explain to me how the payments went through for the last two months without a problem? Did you perhaps give me two months free, or did someone there pay it out of the goodness of their heart, just to be a nice guy? And, by the way, I have more than one phone on that card and amazingly those charges went through just fine too. How do you explain that?"
As I paused for a quick breath before I finished eviscerating him, he jumped in.
"Well now," he said using the tone of voice one uses when confronting a rabid dog, "I don't know how you're mistake got through like that, but don't you worry. I've fixed it so you won't have this problem again."
My mistake? My mistake? My mistake???!!!
I think I may have actually blacked out for a moment there, because when I came to, he was thanking me for calling and telling me to make sure to call him when I got my new card so that he could change the expiration date for me.
Yeah. I don't think so. That is one mistake I won't be repeating.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Comcast: The Final (?) Chapter
Throughout the last six months of dealing with Comcast regarding my parents' TV and computer, my sister (anonymous in the comments), has not been able to understand my frustration---until now.
With my parents due home from Florida a few weeks ago, I called Comcast and set up a time for them to go over to the house and reinstate the cable. Pat agreed to give up her Saturday morning and wait for them. Hehehe. The joke was finally on her.
The guy arrived with the necessary boxes, but after one look at the cable running through the house, he refused to hook them up. Something about all of the lines, wires and cables having been installed by Edison. He wanted permission to run new cable.
Now, in his defense, he probably thought it was a reasonable request. After all, the new digital age is coming, and we must all be prepared or we will be left behind in the dust of analog with the dinosaurs and first generation ipods. However, he did not fully comprehend the situation here.
First of all, the cellar is a cellar. Not a basement, not a rec room. A cellar. My father is the only one brave enough to venture down there. The rest of us are sure that there are things living down there that don't suffer the light of day well and are just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to wander down and then....lunchtime, and the milk companies have a new face to put on their cartons.
Secondly, the attic is...well, let's just say that Disneyland this isn't. Although, being near the woods, there have been occasions when mice, squirrels, bats and other assorted critters have been caught scampering around, but they are not animated and generally don't sing and pass out balloons and candy.
As for the rest of the house, it is about two hundred years old, and who knows what (or who) he would have found lurking in the walls. Anything is possible. (Jimmy Hoffa?!? ) The only thing we are certain about is an intricate tangle of wires, cables and coils from my father's attempts to modernize the place over the years. He, and he alone understands this complex system that would have NASA engineers admitting defeat and heading for the nearest bar.
Taking all of this into consideration, my sister refused to take responsibility for the fallout that would occur if she said yes.
She tried instead to reason with the man. She worked with computers for a living, she said. She was used to running cable, she said. All he had to do was leave the boxes, she said. She would take care of the rest, she said.
He said no, and left.
With her dander up, she hightailed it down to the cable company to see if she could sweet talk them out of the boxes with the promise of letting someone swing by at some future date if necessary. She couldn't.
Apparently, the phone lines work faster than her car, and the guy had already called in and told them the whole story. Oh, and the next appointment available was almost a week away. She was not happy.
But, (and here is the part that makes me happy), in order to deal with all of this, she had given her name and number as the contact person, thereby making her the account holder(good to know that regardless of who pays the bills, anyone wandering in off the street can just appropriate an account by giving their name and number, but that's another blog). And now she was stuck dealing with them and I was out of it!
Pat spent pretty much the rest of the day, if not the weekend dealing with the situation, racking up the hours online and on hold. After feeling my pain for only a fraction of the time, we consulted my parents and here was the outcome(I wasn't completely out of it, unfortunately):
they switched to Direct TV and Verizon for the computer and....Pat got the calls from Comcast wanting to know why she had discontinued the service (and you can be sure that that question elicited a really charming response).
She will also get all future solicitations via mail and phone from Comcast begging her to return. Oh, and I've decided to give her name and number to both Direct TV and Verizon too, just for good measure. Hehehe.
With my parents due home from Florida a few weeks ago, I called Comcast and set up a time for them to go over to the house and reinstate the cable. Pat agreed to give up her Saturday morning and wait for them. Hehehe. The joke was finally on her.
The guy arrived with the necessary boxes, but after one look at the cable running through the house, he refused to hook them up. Something about all of the lines, wires and cables having been installed by Edison. He wanted permission to run new cable.
Now, in his defense, he probably thought it was a reasonable request. After all, the new digital age is coming, and we must all be prepared or we will be left behind in the dust of analog with the dinosaurs and first generation ipods. However, he did not fully comprehend the situation here.
First of all, the cellar is a cellar. Not a basement, not a rec room. A cellar. My father is the only one brave enough to venture down there. The rest of us are sure that there are things living down there that don't suffer the light of day well and are just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to wander down and then....lunchtime, and the milk companies have a new face to put on their cartons.
Secondly, the attic is...well, let's just say that Disneyland this isn't. Although, being near the woods, there have been occasions when mice, squirrels, bats and other assorted critters have been caught scampering around, but they are not animated and generally don't sing and pass out balloons and candy.
As for the rest of the house, it is about two hundred years old, and who knows what (or who) he would have found lurking in the walls. Anything is possible. (Jimmy Hoffa?!? ) The only thing we are certain about is an intricate tangle of wires, cables and coils from my father's attempts to modernize the place over the years. He, and he alone understands this complex system that would have NASA engineers admitting defeat and heading for the nearest bar.
Taking all of this into consideration, my sister refused to take responsibility for the fallout that would occur if she said yes.
She tried instead to reason with the man. She worked with computers for a living, she said. She was used to running cable, she said. All he had to do was leave the boxes, she said. She would take care of the rest, she said.
He said no, and left.
With her dander up, she hightailed it down to the cable company to see if she could sweet talk them out of the boxes with the promise of letting someone swing by at some future date if necessary. She couldn't.
Apparently, the phone lines work faster than her car, and the guy had already called in and told them the whole story. Oh, and the next appointment available was almost a week away. She was not happy.
But, (and here is the part that makes me happy), in order to deal with all of this, she had given her name and number as the contact person, thereby making her the account holder(good to know that regardless of who pays the bills, anyone wandering in off the street can just appropriate an account by giving their name and number, but that's another blog). And now she was stuck dealing with them and I was out of it!
Pat spent pretty much the rest of the day, if not the weekend dealing with the situation, racking up the hours online and on hold. After feeling my pain for only a fraction of the time, we consulted my parents and here was the outcome(I wasn't completely out of it, unfortunately):
they switched to Direct TV and Verizon for the computer and....Pat got the calls from Comcast wanting to know why she had discontinued the service (and you can be sure that that question elicited a really charming response).
She will also get all future solicitations via mail and phone from Comcast begging her to return. Oh, and I've decided to give her name and number to both Direct TV and Verizon too, just for good measure. Hehehe.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Information, Please
On Sunday, Tim was scheduled to go to New York on the 6:00 Acela Express Train. Around 2:00, on our way home from running our errands, he decided to call Amtrak and see if he could catch an earlier train.
Using his car's speaker phone, he called information and asked for Amtrak's number.
"Uh, is that a business?" the operator asked after a rather long pause.
Rolling his eyes while Rose and I grinned, Tim expanded on his initial request. "Yes. The Amtrak train station in DC."
"Oh. Trains. Okay," the guy somehow managed to sound both relieved and confused at the same time. He then named several businesses with the word train in the title.
"No, not trains. Amtrak," Tim rolled his eyes and shook his head as Rose and I stifled our giggles.
"Amtrak train," the guy repeated, back to sounding plain old confused. "Do you have an address for that?"
Of course, and we have the number too. Hellooooo. Aren't you supposed to be information?
Gritting his teeth as Rose and I clapped our hands over our mouths to check our guffaws of laughter, Tim replied, "It's at Union Station."
"Union Station?" the guy parroted back, like he was trying to learn a difficult technical term.
"Amtrak train at Union Station in DC." Tim had apparently decided that repeating all the information in one breath at top volume while waving his arms about like a windmill (thankfully, we were stopped at a light at the time) was the key to better understanding here.
"I have an Amtrak office on Mass Ave.," the guy tentatively offered after another painstaking pause.
"Fine," Tim roared with frustration while Rose and I roared with laughter.
A minute later, we were connected to a voice activated system. "If you want to check on train times, say "schedule"," it crooned smoothly.
"Schedule," Tim dutifully repeated, the brilliant red color slowly retreating from his face. The computer seemed a lot smarter than the guy he had just dealt with.
"What is your starting point?" Emerac (the computer from the Hepburn/Tracy movie Desk Set) asked.
"Union Station."
"I heard Durham," Emmy replied.
Uh oh. This was not good. The red tide began to rise again.
"Union Station," the volume rose as well.
Fourteen questions later, with no sign of any actual information forthcoming, Tim tried to cut to the chase. Foolish man.
"Acela Express train," he threw at Emmy. Rose and I exchanged head shakes as we wiped tears from our eyes.
"Please repeat," she sounded as confused as the information guy.
"Acela Express train." It was kind of sweet and a little pathetic the way he was clinging to the hope of actually getting the information he wanted.
Pause.
"Did you say you want to talk to an agent?" Like the information guy, Emmy too was now trying to make Tim somebody else's problem.
And once again, Tim fell for it. "Yes!" he choked out, finally seeing the humor here and joining in our uncontrollable laughter as the sounds of Muzak filled the car.
Next time, we decided, it would probably be easier to just keep the reservation, even if it wasn't nearly so entertaining.
Using his car's speaker phone, he called information and asked for Amtrak's number.
"Uh, is that a business?" the operator asked after a rather long pause.
Rolling his eyes while Rose and I grinned, Tim expanded on his initial request. "Yes. The Amtrak train station in DC."
"Oh. Trains. Okay," the guy somehow managed to sound both relieved and confused at the same time. He then named several businesses with the word train in the title.
"No, not trains. Amtrak," Tim rolled his eyes and shook his head as Rose and I stifled our giggles.
"Amtrak train," the guy repeated, back to sounding plain old confused. "Do you have an address for that?"
Of course, and we have the number too. Hellooooo. Aren't you supposed to be information?
Gritting his teeth as Rose and I clapped our hands over our mouths to check our guffaws of laughter, Tim replied, "It's at Union Station."
"Union Station?" the guy parroted back, like he was trying to learn a difficult technical term.
"Amtrak train at Union Station in DC." Tim had apparently decided that repeating all the information in one breath at top volume while waving his arms about like a windmill (thankfully, we were stopped at a light at the time) was the key to better understanding here.
"I have an Amtrak office on Mass Ave.," the guy tentatively offered after another painstaking pause.
"Fine," Tim roared with frustration while Rose and I roared with laughter.
A minute later, we were connected to a voice activated system. "If you want to check on train times, say "schedule"," it crooned smoothly.
"Schedule," Tim dutifully repeated, the brilliant red color slowly retreating from his face. The computer seemed a lot smarter than the guy he had just dealt with.
"What is your starting point?" Emerac (the computer from the Hepburn/Tracy movie Desk Set) asked.
"Union Station."
"I heard Durham," Emmy replied.
Uh oh. This was not good. The red tide began to rise again.
"Union Station," the volume rose as well.
Fourteen questions later, with no sign of any actual information forthcoming, Tim tried to cut to the chase. Foolish man.
"Acela Express train," he threw at Emmy. Rose and I exchanged head shakes as we wiped tears from our eyes.
"Please repeat," she sounded as confused as the information guy.
"Acela Express train." It was kind of sweet and a little pathetic the way he was clinging to the hope of actually getting the information he wanted.
Pause.
"Did you say you want to talk to an agent?" Like the information guy, Emmy too was now trying to make Tim somebody else's problem.
And once again, Tim fell for it. "Yes!" he choked out, finally seeing the humor here and joining in our uncontrollable laughter as the sounds of Muzak filled the car.
Next time, we decided, it would probably be easier to just keep the reservation, even if it wasn't nearly so entertaining.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
iTouch... Not Intended For Mature Audiences
Last week, we bought my mom an itouch to replace her dying first generation ipod. It was a tough sell.
"Look, you can get on the Internet." "Why? I have a laptop." "You can use it as an alarm clock." "I have an alarm clock--your father." "You can keep your Christmas card list in it." Yawn. Time to bring out the big guns: "You can download pictures of your grandchild." Bingo! We have a winner.
In retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut.
Clearly more excited about it than she was, I charged it as soon as we got home only to find after two hours that it was fully charged, but not working. Used to the regular ipods and nanos, I was a bit perplexed, but still fairly optimistic.
I tried syncing it with my computer and itunes library, but it was still not giving me anything other than the full battery screen and a zzt zzt noise. (Hmm. I can see the headlines: Woman electrocuted by itouch. Film at 11.)
Not nearly as optimistic, I tried the website. No help there (seriously, they really should have an over forty section there--a basic "dummy" handbook with large print. Oh, and a warning label on the box in big red letters: Do Not Attempt to Use Without the Help of a Teenager).
Definitely pessimistic now, I tried the helpline. An hour later, beyond pessimism and progressing quickly into totally ticked off, I was back in the store where the guy was as perplexed as I was (he was only the manager though and clearly over forty, not a "tech guy". Good to know: Avoid asking the store manager for help.), but he got the home screen simply by connecting the thing to one of their mac's.
The tech guy(who looked to be about twelve), came over and explained that I probably needed to upgrade a certain program on my computer and sent me a link (BTW, he was also perplexed, but unconcerned--probably because it didn't happen to his itouch-- by the lack of the home screen when it was fully charged.)
Returning home, I began downloading stuff that they estimated would take twenty minutes. What they neglected to say was that that was in dog years. Six hours, fourteen dozen times of Tim saying,"Something must be wrong. This download should only take a few minutes.", and many gray hairs later, the programs necessary to install before installing the necessary program finally finished downloading.
Pathetically, Tim and I greeted each finished section with cheers and did the final five countdown with more gusto than when Dick Clark ushered in 2000 (we would have played Prince's Party Like it's 1999 , but, ironically, we still couldn't download my library.)
Next morning, bright and early, I began the download process again. Three hours later...I was wishing it was five o'clock, so I could start drinking! Finally, finally, the new upgrades were complete. With weary anticipation, I plugged in the itouch and...it still wouldn't sync because the computer was reading it as a camera!!!!!!
After I managed to unclench my fist from around the itouch and back away from the window I was seriously thinking of hurtling it through, I once again called the helpline. Oddly, the girl on the other end seemed to see nothing unusual about a nine hour download time, and was sure she could solve the problem. Oh, and she was cheerful as well as optimistic. I hated her from "hello".
After leading me through a series of right and left clicks, the problem was solved (although I did have a brief moment of satisfaction when I clicked on one particular thing, told her what the screen said and, after a brief pause, she said, "Oh. It's not supposed to say that." Another pause. "Maybe I can fix it. I think." Not so optimistic now, are we? he he).
Eventually, it was up and running. Since they do not include an instruction booklet (it is online, of course and only takes thirty-six hours to download:) ) I decided to learn by trial and error. Excited by each new function I discovered during the next week, I showed it off to my fourteen year old nephew, who, after having it in his hands for less then three seconds, was expertly whizzing through the home screen, searching for album covers and connecting to the Internet.
Like I said. Clearly, this device needs a rating: for kids only.
"Look, you can get on the Internet." "Why? I have a laptop." "You can use it as an alarm clock." "I have an alarm clock--your father." "You can keep your Christmas card list in it." Yawn. Time to bring out the big guns: "You can download pictures of your grandchild." Bingo! We have a winner.
In retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut.
Clearly more excited about it than she was, I charged it as soon as we got home only to find after two hours that it was fully charged, but not working. Used to the regular ipods and nanos, I was a bit perplexed, but still fairly optimistic.
I tried syncing it with my computer and itunes library, but it was still not giving me anything other than the full battery screen and a zzt zzt noise. (Hmm. I can see the headlines: Woman electrocuted by itouch. Film at 11.)
Not nearly as optimistic, I tried the website. No help there (seriously, they really should have an over forty section there--a basic "dummy" handbook with large print. Oh, and a warning label on the box in big red letters: Do Not Attempt to Use Without the Help of a Teenager).
Definitely pessimistic now, I tried the helpline. An hour later, beyond pessimism and progressing quickly into totally ticked off, I was back in the store where the guy was as perplexed as I was (he was only the manager though and clearly over forty, not a "tech guy". Good to know: Avoid asking the store manager for help.), but he got the home screen simply by connecting the thing to one of their mac's.
The tech guy(who looked to be about twelve), came over and explained that I probably needed to upgrade a certain program on my computer and sent me a link (BTW, he was also perplexed, but unconcerned--probably because it didn't happen to his itouch-- by the lack of the home screen when it was fully charged.)
Returning home, I began downloading stuff that they estimated would take twenty minutes. What they neglected to say was that that was in dog years. Six hours, fourteen dozen times of Tim saying,"Something must be wrong. This download should only take a few minutes.", and many gray hairs later, the programs necessary to install before installing the necessary program finally finished downloading.
Pathetically, Tim and I greeted each finished section with cheers and did the final five countdown with more gusto than when Dick Clark ushered in 2000 (we would have played Prince's Party Like it's 1999 , but, ironically, we still couldn't download my library.)
Next morning, bright and early, I began the download process again. Three hours later...I was wishing it was five o'clock, so I could start drinking! Finally, finally, the new upgrades were complete. With weary anticipation, I plugged in the itouch and...it still wouldn't sync because the computer was reading it as a camera!!!!!!
After I managed to unclench my fist from around the itouch and back away from the window I was seriously thinking of hurtling it through, I once again called the helpline. Oddly, the girl on the other end seemed to see nothing unusual about a nine hour download time, and was sure she could solve the problem. Oh, and she was cheerful as well as optimistic. I hated her from "hello".
After leading me through a series of right and left clicks, the problem was solved (although I did have a brief moment of satisfaction when I clicked on one particular thing, told her what the screen said and, after a brief pause, she said, "Oh. It's not supposed to say that." Another pause. "Maybe I can fix it. I think." Not so optimistic now, are we? he he).
Eventually, it was up and running. Since they do not include an instruction booklet (it is online, of course and only takes thirty-six hours to download:) ) I decided to learn by trial and error. Excited by each new function I discovered during the next week, I showed it off to my fourteen year old nephew, who, after having it in his hands for less then three seconds, was expertly whizzing through the home screen, searching for album covers and connecting to the Internet.
Like I said. Clearly, this device needs a rating: for kids only.
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