KungPowThinking

My mom recently purchased a MacBook and was using Parallels to run Windows XP for some accounting software she needs for work. First, she ran into some issues printing from the Windows vm (which is somewhat problematic, but seems to be a solvable problem) then her HP OffficeJet 6310xi decided to crap out with all lights blinking and a power reset error. She freaked because it happened while she was in the middle of receiving an important fax.

I attempted to troubleshoot the problem using my favorite tool - Google along with the HP support site and online chat support. I found this thread on the HP support forum. The problem seems to be a known bug with no resolution other than to take the printer in for servicing or buy a new one.

My mom then purchased a new HP printer which was broken right out of the box confirmed after an hour long call to HP support. She then, against my advice, purchased yet another HP printer from a helpful sales associate at Staples who told her that HP printers suck and that HP seems to be spending so much effort marketing their PCs that they’ve all but forgotten their printers. - (Note to HP: You know it’s bad when your resellers think you suck.)

The third printer came with a very interesting installer that kept telling her that the device she was attempting to install was not supported by the installer. Without being able to access HP support for Macs because they aren’t available for chat or after 4pm mountain time on Saturdays, she went ahead downloaded a late stage beta installer for Mac OSX Leopard from the HP support site and tried running it with the exact same result.

All of this madness happened over the course of 4 days.

Now I know that through some research and more time spent with support my mom probably could have found a resolution to her problems (maybe some of them were even “user error” related), but the past three days were enough to push her to the point of tears. Let me say that again for any HP people who might stumble on this post - SHE ALMOST CRIED because of these issues.

To me, my mom represents the most typical, but largely ignored, user. She uses a computer for work, email and accessing the Web. It’s a tool to get the job done, and she only wants to think about it for the few hours a workday she spends in front of it. She is not technical and doesn’t want to be. She considers every minute she spends working for her computer, a minute of her life lost. It’s a shame when companies forget about these people. The total lack of empathy is amazing in this day and age. I won’t even get into how overly technical and impersonal their support site is. It looks like it was written by technical writers for a technical audience, not for the normal folks who buy HP printers at Best Buy, Staples, Costco, etc. It makes me sad.

Since HP doesn’t seem to care about it’s users, they’re on my shitlist. I wouldn’t mind if someone, maybe a whole department, lost their jobs at HP because of their lack of concern for their customers. It would be even nicer to see their stock price drop along with tears and gnashing of teeth on a biblical proportion. Done.