I like to think that I spend a good amount of time online. If I had it my way, I’d decrease my time looking at a screen, and spend it fishing, backpacking, making ceramics, or starting a garden- all things I don’t do now, have no plans of really picking up, but activities that I could see myself really getting into if I wasn’t on YouTube all the time.
I have a laptop and desktop, the latter of which handles intense tasks, like designing flyers on Photoshop and looking at multiple ETFs in one browser window. This incredible machine is connected to a monitor, which one day, I woke up to find no longer turned on.
So, I gave the people who made my monitor, ACER, a phone call. I wanted to find out what exactly my options were. I bought the thing less than 6 months ago, so I was confident that this billion-dollar conglomerate would have the resources to sort this out quickly.
What an awfully naive fool I was.
At first, the representative, whose name was Colin, was cordial. I always strive to give customer service reps an abundance of patience- it is one of the most thankless, abusive jobs I can think of. I can’t begin to fathom what it’s like to take calls from around the world, belonging solely to people who are mad at you. But he began pushing back, saying that the warranty I had actually expired last year, something I knew to be impossible because I had bought the monitor…this year. We began an incredibly frustrating back and forth, where his ‘nice’ tone began to shift and mine simply morphed back into me talking normally.
After an agonizing few minutes, he asked if I could repeat the serial number. Turns out Colin had mistyped, mistaking an ‘M’ for an ‘N’ as the last digit.
“My apologies, Mr. Shrayber. But congratulations, your ACER monitor is under warranty!”
He did not need to congratulate me, that Colin. I had won nothing. In fact, what was about to happen could be considered by most to be the opposite of winning.
“With another month left, you’re fully covered by our standard warranty, Mr. Shrayber. Let me just mark that in our system and get back to you.” I said yes, thank you Colin, I really appreciate you double checking the serial number for me. Happy to see we can get this sorted out, Colin. After putting me on hold for a minute, Colin returns to the phone. He is still very much excited about me actually having the warranty I told him from the beginning belonged to me. In a cheery voice he tells me he’s going to have this all figured out for me. Then, he lays out the plan of attack, like a wise general, a king of the ACER standard warranty.
“We do believe in our products Mr. Shrayber. So what you’re going to have to do is ship this monitor out to our repair facility. Now, we cannot provide you packing or shipping materials, but any FedEx will be your best bet in getting that monitor to us.”
Wait, what? I have to ship this thing to YOU? And you’re not even going to send me a box, Colin? Take me out to dinner first, man!
On the phone, I am stunned. I ask Colin if they can simply send me a replacement for this thing. I don’t want to lug a monitor across town to a FedEx. He laughs, then prods me- “what, you guys don’t have a Walmart you can drive to?” I feel a pang of seething anger. I live in San Francisco, Colin. Walmarts are illegal here. So is driving any car that can comfortably fit a 27-inch monitor and enough packing materials to ensure it gets back to Taiwan in one piece.
I was, however, quickly corrected about that last part.
“We have a great operation down there in Temple, we really do. This place lives and breathes ACER. Only the very best make it down here, I can assure you that, Mr. Shrayber.” Suddenly, Colin transformed from an amicable service rep to a Trumpian herald of this service center. It did not help when I googled the town, and found that their official city motto was “Make Temple Great!”
“I see the return address is in California, have you ever been down to Texas at all Mr. Shrayber?” Seemed like Colin was killing time while processing my report in his system. I told him I haven’t but I always wanted to visit.
He laughed, then responded: “Well don’t start with Temple!”
My brain began to short-circuit. What was happening. Was this a test? Some sort of divine punishment handed down from the gods of consumer electronics, for, I don’t know, not cleaning my screen enough? I waited, and eventually, Colin perked up again.
“Mr. Shrayber, I am proud to announce that your return shipping label has been successfully created. I’ll be sending that over to your email right now.” What I felt next was not relief, but as if Colin had proudly handed me another piece of homework, an assignment to complete for this billion-dollar company that couldn’t even find a loose cardboard box to send me.
Then, I asked him what would happen if there was a world where “the very best people” in Temple couldn’t fix my monitor.
He responded confidently, and immediately.
“Actually, that’s never happened before!”
After a surreal moment of introspection, I thanked Colin and hung up the phone.
_________
A day later, I found myself in a FedEx, where two women in turtleneck sweaters became my saving grace. Nestled right on the edge of Chinatown, these two beasts of shipping and logistics helped me carefully pack and secure this cursed monitor. They were happy to do it, in fact, they told me, most of their business nowadays were people returning stuff anyway. I was a bit sad to hear that, I saw beautiful film scanners and printing machines scattered around their office. Returning coffee tables from Amazon was more lucrative than printing photos from a disposable film camera, and that’s okay.
A week passes, and I finally get a confirmation email from FedEx. The monitor has officially landed in the great state of Texas, and it has arrived at the repair facility in Temple, home of “the very best”, as Colin put it.
Well, it turns out, these were not the very best. A day later, I get a call from the service center, and a man introduces himself as Jonathan. He has a thick Southern accent, and right out of the gate seems warm, if not outwardly kind.
“Mr. Shrayber, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jonathan. I’ve heard a lot about you from Colin. This a good time for ya?”
Jonathan had heard about me? From Colin? I am like, the one guy in California that needs to get his monitor fixed? I guess I enjoyed the personal touch here. My mind immediately went to hoping Jonathan had some good news for me.
“I’ll be straight with ya Mr. Shrayber…it’s not looking good here.”
My heart sank. (Why did it do that? This is literally a computer monitor.) I asked him what the issue seemed to be, in a hushed tone that parents reserve for children in the emergency room.
“Well, we reckon it’s the LCD Panel, Mr. Shrayber. Looking like it’s broken, but we’ve got a great team here, so if you authorize us, we can fix that for you, no problem.”
Jonathan’s Southern hospitality put me at ease, and I immediately responded “Yes, absolutely! I authorize you! Do whatever you want.”
Suddenly, Jonathan’s tone shifted.
“Well, it’s gonna be… $180 to fix this. We don’t see much like this over here.”
I could once again feel the gears stop turning in my brain. But Jonathan… what about the warranty? Doesn’t he remember when I defeated Colin on the phone a week ago, defending the honor of this beautiful standard warranty? The one that was supposed to make this a free repair and a short story written by Franz Kafka?
I spent almost 50 dollars sending my monitor to these people, wasted an entire morning picking out a box, packing it up, and ensuring it got on a truck to Texas- and now, they found, that what was wrong with this thing is actually that a couple pixels went off too hard and that a repair would cost me more than the monitor initially sold for.
I wasn’t livid. Something in me just broke. I laughed and laughed and laughed, and then, as if my life was truly just one big Seinfeld episode, Jonathan began laughing too.
“If that ain’t a bitch, huh?” He responded.
I’m not sure if ACER customer reps can swear over the phone, but I like to think their repairmen can say whatever they want. They’re the real backbone of this whole fake operation.
I told Jonathan to keep the monitor, and if he wouldn’t mind, recycling it for me. He responded that he absolutely would, they had an area on-site for that. I broke and laughed one more time, and so did he. I hung up and genuinely hoped he had a great rest of his day.
About a half hour after the call with Jonathan, my phone would be stolen at the Walgreens by my house, snatched out of my hand while I was using Apple Pay at the register. I’m looking to pick up another one this afternoon, after I send this piece to my editor.
One less screen, I guess. Maybe now I can finally start that garden.
