The keyboard Fiasco.

Tring Tring.

Helu you have reached Dell support, our IVR menu has changed, please listen for our new menu
If you have your monitor not working please press 1
If you have your hard disk not working please press 2
If you have your entire system not working please press 3
If you have you dont know whether your system is working please press 4
If you have any other problem, our counselor is pleased to help you
please press 5 for a female counselor or 6 for a male counselor.

As it was my keyboard that was not working, and hence the closest option was 3 for me and i pressed that magic button.

Helu you have reached Dell support, our IVR menu has not changed, please listen to our old boring menu

If you have a screen problem, please press 1
If you have a mouse problem, please quietly press 2
If you have a keyboard problem, please press 3

Thank god, I love this number 3. By the time I mugged their IVR menu, It had cost me 3 minutes of my call. I am sure my phone company's boss's sister is married to Dell's vice president's brother. 10% of their last net product value came through this collaboration.

After 5 minutes of fighting, I finally managed to get hold of Technical support team.

Hello, Dell support, Please tell me your 6 digit service tag number"
"A service what ? I have never called you, I am calling this for the first time" I tried to reason out.
"Sir, you can find this number from back of your system."

I painfully got this number from the back of my system and then began strenuous peace of conversation.

"Hi, Please note it FZC182"

"Sir could you spell it properly." I forgot that I was talking to an American sitting in Mirzapur.
"F for finger, Z for Zing, C for Count, 182 - I explained.
"You mean S for Sing " She had skipped 8th grade because she was too smart (as told by her English teacher who happened to be her mother's aunt's husbands younger sister's ..ZZZzzzzzz).

"No Z for Zebra"

"Sir can you spell it?"

I was spell bound for a second, then getting my composure back I said with fuming up.

"The last letter of English alphabet"

"oh, sorry sir....Yes, how may I assist you?" She had come back to their training routine. Now she felt more confident.

I told her my problem. She was not convinced that could happen she wanted to know how it happened. Hello am i speaking to a technical support or a random chatter!!!

"ok sir, now i understand your problem. We think its not your keyboard that is having the real problem. But somewhere else. I will follow you through a procedure to find where the exact problem" She was now in command.

" As far as my knowledge goes I think, the problem is in keyboard." I tried to argue.

" No sir, Please insert your diagnostic CD to your drive and please go through the procedure. I shall wait." She was not ready to give up.

"But Miss I have a problem with Keyboard, no alphabets will be displayed" I tried to convince her.

"Sir, I assure your problem will be fixed. Please start the test".

For all those people who have had an experience of diagnostic CD. It asks for inputs at certain intervals. But Dell went a step ahead - I will explain how.

The diagnostic CD started its work as soon as i put it in. First it tested the screen and then flashed a message-" If the picture quality is not correct, Please press Y". Unfortunately or fortunately my screen was ok and I didnt have to press "Y". There was counter which waited for 8 second after which the other test continued.

Then there was memory test - which took darn 15 minutes to finish. After this came the famous keyboard test

"Press Y to do a keyboard test. Press "S" to skip "

I was flabbergasted seeing this. I wanted to jump out of balcony after writing a suicide note against Dell.

Finally, after waiting more than 25 minutes on the call, she appologised to me and told me that somebody from dell team will be visiting to fix my key board.

Disclaimer: The incident happened 3 months before and may be Dell IVR menu has changed again. Also I dont have any issues with technical support lady - whosoever it was.