July 16th - A Breath of Fresh Air

4:02pm - My phone just rang. It was a Mr. Jeff Utigard, an incredibly pleasant man calling from corporate. He must be one of Annette's bosses. He asked me to reiterate my problem to him (which I did,) and then asked that I type it up in a letter, and fax it to Annette. Not only did he give me Annette's fax number, but he said "ask if Hewlett Packard can perform an exception for a loyal customer like yourself." This guy is definitely old-school customer service - when I detailed my adventure thus far with HP, he said "Of course you weren't going to get anywhere with customer service - those guys are the policy police! All they do is enforce policy, they can't actually DO anything." I told him I had spoken with case managers. His reply? "Oh! They're even MORE about the policy!! See, I want you to buy more products of ours in the future."

So. No guarantees that my laptop will be fixed - but he was the FIRST person I spoke to who made any attempt to find a solution. He also gave me his direct phone number to his direct line - "the phone on my desk".

So - I haven't been offered any repairs, but at least now there is hope!!!!! Tonight I must draft the letter and see if I can't get my hands on a fax machine in the morning.