Who Designs This Crap?

So there's this piece of plastic on the stem of the monitor. It has to be removed in order for the various cables to be connected, than it is to be snapped back on. The (minimalist) instructions in the book say "From the rear view of the LCD monitor, disengage and remove the plastic back cover from the stem." Not the worst translation from the Chinese I've ever seen, but the translation is not the problem. I can't disengage and remove the thing. I've tired pulling upwards from the monitor, pulling toward the top of the monitor, squeezing the sides and pulling, and everything else, and it won't budge. I've looked for some sort of mechanism, such as a release, but found none. It's like the thing is super-glued on. Neither cleverness nor brute force will dislodge it. It's like having a puzzle box included free with your monitor purchase.

I don't know if this is bad design, bad workmanship, or inadequate instructions, or some combination thereof. But the thing has me stuck. I'm displeased. I'm going to have to call the vendor to ask what the secret is, and try not to go off on some minimum wage flunky who works in their boiler room. Meanwhile, my room is in disarray, boxes everywhere, and nothing is accomplished. I have to clean everything up and find places to put it before I can get to sleep. My distaste for technology grows by the minute. My distaste for commerce has already surpassed it, though. I'm glad I almost never buy anything.

And I thought it would be stringing cables all over the place and getting them stuck into the right holes that would be the biggest problem! A piece of immovable plastic, for crap's sake! What were they thinking, if anything at all?

Out of Patience

Sluggo wins. His replacement is going back. I called the company to ask about the problem with hooking up the monitor, and (after a dozen minutes or so on toll-call hold) they putzed around for a while, failed to understand what I was talking about, decided they couldn't solve the problem, and said that I'd have to call the company that built the monitor because none of them had ever seen it! This on top of the whole shipment being so late in arriving, and some of the equipment not being as described.

Since their original sales pitch made the claim that they offered full support for the entire system, I decided that they were too flaky to deal with any further and that I should cut my losses (shipping and handling both ways, plus the cost of the phone call, whatever that turns out to be, and whatever they decide to deduct from my refund for anything I don't re-pack perfectly) and get the hell out of there.

That a business should be in league with the devil is to be expected. That those who make such a deal should not insist that the devil provide them with competence as part of the compensation for their souls is foolish, and unforgivable. I will have to look around for a company run by people who were smart enough not to sell their souls so cheaply.

As I paid in advance, and this process is apt to take as much as two months, I won't have the refund in my account for a long time, and I have to wait until then to get another computer. I'm accustomed to delay. If Sluggo cannot endure so long, then I'll vanish for at least a while. If the economy goes down the toilet and the company goes out of business, so I can't get the refund, I might vanish for a long time. Crap.

Macintosh looks more likely now, even if I do have to go all the way to Sacramento to find a dealer. It looks as though almost everybody connected with the PC business is incompetent. Congratulations, Satan. When you signed up IBM and Bill Gates, they found for you the mother lode of dumb-asses.