Ownage by the boss

[Acolyte]

I've scored a pretty sweet weekend shift at work-I basically show up around 9-ish, hang around the shop, do whatever little things the boss needs done and such. If there's no work, I'm free to study or whatever, just as long as I'm being mildly productive.

So, anyways, I was sitting here, studying for my math exam tomorrow, when the phone rings. Figuring it was somebody else calling me from the building (Because nobody calls on the weekend), I picked it up. Not quite.

Me: Service, Acolyte speaking.
SC: Yeah, I bought a laptop from you guys the other day, and it doesn't work.
Me: Ok, what's going wrong with it?
SC: It's running really slow. I thought this Vista thing was supposed to make everything really fast.
Me: Actually, not quite. Unfortunately, Dell has been shipping Vista on every laptop, and the lower-end models like yours don't run well with Vista at all.
SC: What? That's bullshit! How can you sell crap like that!
Me: I'm sorry, but we have no control over the OS on our shelf models. If you like, you can call Dell and have them sort it out.
SC: No! I want you to come down here and fix it RIGHT NOW!
Me: Well, all I can do for this particular situation is install another OS on it.
SC: Fine, whatever! But I'm not paying for it! It's your problem.
Me: Actually, no it isn't. A copy of XP Home is around $200, and an after-hours on-site call would cost $120 an hour.
SC: What? Fuck that! I'll have you know I've been shopping with your company for 20 years now, and I personally know the owner!
*Plink*
Me: You do know that we've only been in existance for 12 years or so, right?
SC: Fine, whatever. Let me speak to your manager.
Me: He's not here. It's just me and this owner that you know so well. Here, I'll give you to him.
SC: Wait, no, you don't-*Transferred!*
Sucker.

A few minutes later, the owner comes down to the shop.
O: Hey, Acolyte, what was with that guy you sent up to me?
Me: Well, he said he knew you and wanted to talk to my superior.
O: Huh. Yeah, I had no idea who that idiot was.
Me: What'd you tell him?
O: Basically, after explaining the costs, to go fuck himself.
Me: In those words?
O: Not quite. But I wanted to.

Glad to know my boss thinks the same way I do.

[Catwoman2965]

Oh that was great! what is it about people who don't bother to do their homework, and then expect things to be changed (notice i didn't say fixed), but at no cost to them? Like its YOUR fault Dell puts Vista on laptops that can't really handle it....and he was too stupid to do any research before buying said laptop!

I am so glad i waited to buy my new computer; almost got one back in Feb, and knew nothing of Vista and its issues. Decided to wait unitl mine finally died, which it did in April, coincidentally, right after Dell announced they would offer machines with XP again. By this time, I knew that if you got a new machine with Vista, it needed to be fast enough to run it without any issues. since that wasn't in my budget, I got a Dell, for a decent price, as I don't need much, email, work from home, etc.

[sld72382]

It's unfortunate anytime someone buys a PC that can barely run the OS, when they tell you it's running slow all you can do is say "well, Vista requires 512mb and that laptop has just that, if you want it to run faster just buy more ram," then they blow up at YOU and accuse you of selling junk.

[EmiOfBrie]

Dell, HP, and a couple of other OEMs that I can't think of off the top of my head are re-offering XP. It's not just Dell anymore

XP currently has about 82% of the Windows market share. 2000 is next at 5%. Vista is still third at 4%.

The 'ehh' starts now...

[Catwoman2965]

Dell, HP, and a couple of other OEMs that I can't think of off the top of my head are re-offering XP. It's not just Dell anymore

XP currently has about 82% of the Windows market share. 2000 is next at 5%. Vista is still third at 4%.

The 'ehh' starts now...

Yes, and I remember Dell saying they were going to begin offering XP again due to "customer requests" - how about customer complaints the Vista sucked? I think a lot of it too was that a lot of companies don't have drivers (I think) that are compatible with Vista, and as such, you couldn't use your scanner, camera, etc. with it. I was happy I waited so I didn't have to deal with Vista - maybe someday down the road, but for now, no thanks.

[Banrion]

Well I have heard rumors already, though I haven't seen any official press releases yet, that Vista is Microsoft's new ME. They are going to be introducing "Windows 7" in 2010. So it looks like this is just a holdover OS to appease a small portion of the population who wanted their Windows PC to look like a Mac.

What that also says to me is, if true, 3rd party hardware manufacturers are not going to spend the time and money to create Vista compatible drivers, as they are going to have to do it all over again for Windows 7. So it is likely that the compatability issues will never be fixed.

[Catwoman2965]

Well I have heard rumors already, though I haven't seen any official press releases yet, that Vista is Microsoft's new ME. They are going to be introducing "Windows 7" in 2010. So it looks like this is just a holdover OS to appease a small portion of the population who wanted their Windows PC to look like a Mac.

What that also says to me is, if true, 3rd party hardware manufacturers are not going to spend the time and money to create Vista compatible drivers, as they are going to have to do it all over again for Windows 7. So it is likely that the compatability issues will never be fixed.

I've heard that as well; what's funny, is my old machine HAD ME - i didn't have a clue how much it sucked until recently - and while I never had any major issues, it certainly explains all the little gremilns that woudl invade my machine every now and then.

[protege]

Ah Windows ME...what a piece of shit that was. After seeing my father run into *multiple* problems with ME, it made me glad that I went from Win98 to XP, instead of messing about with it. If the rumors about Vista are true, the next machine I get is going to stick with XP--I'm not going to deal with any more of Micro$aft's bastard OS stepchildren

[JustADude]

What that also says to me is, if true, 3rd party hardware manufacturers are not going to spend the time and money to create Vista compatible drivers, as they are going to have to do it all over again for Windows 7. So it is likely that the compatability issues will never be fixed.

Looks like I might as well uninstall my copy of Vista Ultimate, then. I only 'upgraded' because a friend got me a free (and legal) copy of it. I think I'll go back to my old Windows XP install, since everything seemed to work so much better on it, and I got full functionality out of my video-capture card (aka, watching TV on my monitor while browsing the web).

[IT Grunt]

Ah Windows ME...what a piece of shit that was.

Aaaaamen, brother. Thankfully, we never deployed it here at the plant, but I often do PC repair work on the side for friends and co-workers, and I ran into lots of people who had ME on their PCs that were really fubared. It got to the point that after they explained all the issues they were having, I asked what OS they used. "ME." 'Nuff said.

I'm holding off on Vista. I prefer to stick with a tried and tested OS, than something which is already generating reports of issues and incompatibilities.

[Brightglaive]

I'm holding off on Vista. I prefer to stick with a tried and tested OS, than something which is already generating reports of issues and incompatibilities.

When I asked our EUC (end-user computing) guy when we were going to be cursed....uh....uh... upgraded to Vista he told me, "Never. Your software applications don't support it and there is no plan to upgrade your software applications." Evidently our database management group is not advanced enough to tackle all the inevitable bugs when integrating with Vista so they don't even plan to try. Heck, they haven't even gotten around to using the .NET 2.0 framework.