What is pissing you off this time?

[Gravdigr]

That would have given me a stroke.

I thought I was supposed to mellow with age. My temper is actually getting worse. And it was pretty bad to begin with.

[BigV]

Hey Clodfobble.

Motherfucker.

I have great empathy for you. I am that guy on the other end of the phone all day long, remoting into other peoples' computers... Dell fucked up, as you already know, all too well. I'm sorry you had to suffer that, as my friend. I can't do shit about Dell's culture wrt tech support. But! I suffer what you suffer too. I can't always fix it. Just today, my last call of the day, I eliminated a LOT of stuff it wasn't then told the customer, my customer, they should open a ticket with their vendor of their unique, industry-specific application. I couldn't fix it.

I'm really sorry, that is total bullshit.

eta:

Sometimes, like for gear that simply can not be down, the premium support contract from Dell can pay for itself. As you know, the hardware can sometimes fail. And as I'm sure you also know, it's usually not the hardware. But identifying the hardware problem by eliminating all the possible software possibilities can be an exercise in frustration (understatement). But the top tier pre-purchased support contracts have delivered for me, not FOAF, me, personally. I have had occasion to call Dell because the server that ran our email went taillights. I called them in the morning and I had a new server *that afternoon*. No shit. Now, I wasn't paying for the gold contract or whatever the name of the tier was, but trust me, there *is* a level of support that will take care of that shit. Posthaste.

Is it worth it? Well, that is the question. But I assure you, it exists.

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, Mr. Clod's company has always had good support from their Dell contracts. I think most of it is corporate vs. consumer. It's not that they did a bad job (well, the repair depot didn't think too hard about the problem) but that they didn't listen to a word I said. At this level they have to deal with morons so often that they can't conceive of someone who knows a useful 30%.

And to be fair, it's not like I was on the phone with them for all those hours. I was intermittently cooking, working, eating, and watching a Maria Bamford special on Netflix on my old backup laptop while they were wasting their hours.

[footfootfoot]

That kind of customer service is why people go postal.

The good news is, I'm sending my resume to Dell's technical support team!

[BigV]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

That kind of customer service is why people go postal.

The good news is, I'm sending my resume to Dell's technical support team!

Seeking work as a postal carrier?

[BigV]

Pissing me off today?
I just broke a tooth.
I'm spitting out chunks of what feels like gravel and looks like it too, mixed with the occasional tooth fragments..

Goodbye lower-left-bicuspid. I'll miss you.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by BigV

Pissing me off today?
I just broke a tooth.
I'm spitting out chunks of what feels like gravel and looks like it too, mixed with the occasional tooth fragments..

Goodbye lower-left-bicuspid. I'll miss you.

honeymoon over, pain begins. I want to amputate the left side of my head. jfc, it's passing in waves, I'm sweating, I can't sit still, then it subsides. repeat. ffucking hell, no dental insurance, I'm gonna have to pay full retail for emergency work, probably tomorrow afternoon. they're on the way home and they're open until 7 pm.

those pain meds I conserved from when I had the kidney stones? I'm not gonna pace myself so much anymore.

[Griff]

damn

[Gravdigr]

How can the freezer be that full, and there's nothing in there to eat?

There is not room to put a 16 oz bottle of Pepsi in the refrigerator, and there is no food in the goddamn refrigerator.

There is no food in the pantry. There's all kinds of shit that goes with food, but no goddamn food. Want a steaming hot bowl of peas? I can fix you up. Want a bowl of green beans? You can have them. Want something that is not a canned vegetable? Go fuck yourself.

This is gonna be a great fucking day.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's why McWendyKing is successful, pantry full of food and nothing to eat.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by BigV

honeymoon over, pain begins. I want to amputate the left side of my head. jfc, it's passing in waves, I'm sweating, I can't sit still, then it subsides. repeat. ffucking hell, no dental insurance, I'm gonna have to pay full retail for emergency work, probably tomorrow afternoon. they're on the way home and they're open until 7 pm.

those pain meds I conserved from when I had the kidney stones? I'm not gonna pace myself so much anymore.

well, my denial has failed.

I have made an appointment to have the tooth fixed properly, will be close to $3000. I'm filling out the credit application today. I have health insurance, but no dental coverage. I don't have the strength to argue about the difference at the moment.

My jaw is swollen, my face hurts, I'm taking about one half an ibuprofen per hour. On Monday afternoon, the plan is to

1 -- ADMINISTER ANESTHESIA

2 - n -- who cares

n+1 -- wake up with repaired tooth (root canal, post, possibly build up, crown preparation, rx for pain meds and antibiotics,

n+2 weeks -- return to dentist for crown application. Have not settled on gold vs porcelain. Honestly, I'd prefer the most durable/compatible with opposing tooth. I was told by this dentist that the gold, being soft, can wear through in about twenty years. huh. And the porcelain is much harder. Which worried me since that means the opposing tooth is "softer". He seemed confident that his skill at matching the bite would mean minimal opposing tooth wear. Anyhow.

Immediately, the pain will be endured, and I hope the infection can be controlled before it spreads too far in my jaw. Right now, I'm poor company, and I'm not getting much done on the deck demolition project. Maybe I'll have a drink, and then we'll see.

[Gravdigr]

I gotta stop clenching my jaw. I, too, recently broke off the front corner of the most recently broken upper molar.

Like Kirk Douglas said in a movie I can't think of ATM, after getting (yet) another tooth knocked out in a fight, "I miss the big ones."

[Snakeadelic]

BigV, it's an epidemic.

What's pissing me off today is JFC, why do I always wake up with the symptoms of an abscessed tooth on Fridays???

My dentist isn't in on Fridays. Neither is my MD. We're currently in the middle of a transportation crisis (hopefully they fixed the truck transmission...and maybe we get it back by Monday...) and the case manager who might be able to help me score a ride to the dentist for an emergency exam and maybe better antibiotics...out of office on Fridays. Local "bus" requires an appointment time, 24 hours' notice (weekends NOT included), and probably won't take me that far north--they've already refused to take me to appointments in a town halfway between me and my dentist.

If I MUST have another (soooooo many unladylike words here) dental abscess less than 6 months after that butcher in Missoula ripped out a root canal I'm not even done paying for because it was abscessed, next time maybe can it wait for a Monday morning???

Oh, and the root canal was in a lower canine, which turns out to have been a keystone tooth keeping my bite reasonably level. With it gone, I have 0 chewing surfaces on the left, my jaw is tilting, and holy hell does TMJ ever hate that! My face hurts and the ringing in my ears is so bad I had to swipe my neighbor's noise-canceling headphones because I can't hear well enough using ordinary headphones on my computer speaker any more.

All of that crap is on the hands of one ER doc who yelled at me for asking nicely for help and booted me without even considering antibiotics, which ended up leaving me with an untreated abscess for a full 7 days, since I woke up on Black Friday with that dental nightmare.

This new one's just being a brat because it can, I guess. It's not even next to the now-absent canine--it's on the top.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Snakeadelic

...after that butcher in Missoula ripped out a root canal...

Is that even possible?

[Snakeadelic]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Is that even possible?

On a canine tooth, yes. If any of the dental work showed, I'd post a pic--you shoulda seen that jerk's face when I asked if they were gonna give me the tooth. They asked if I was sure I wanted it (and considering they'd refused me both sedation AND nitrous, I was regrettably clear-headed) and my answer was "Well, it is mine!"

I'm still paying off that root canal. The emergency room doctor who refused me antibiotics on the grounds that you apparently aren't supposed to take mind-bending dental pain to an ER during a national holiday weekend has been found blameless in his refusal to treat with antibiotics. You just call your dentist even if he's out of town with his family for Thanksgiving and you don't have his number, apparently.