Earlier this month, my beloved Sony Vaio started showing signs of wear; its fan began rattling a little louder than normal. I love my Vaio though, so originally, I was totally planning to just get the updated version of my model (SZ). Unfortunately, when I went to the store, I realized Sony totally cut corners on its latest laptops. For example, the metal solid casing is now replaced with less durable plastic AND the keyboard is all fucked up. And still no DVI input (John’s gripe). When I crunched the numbers, Sony priced out around $2k. I widened my net and researched Dell, then Toshiba, then Gateway. In the end, the household sys admin (i.e. John) announced he would no longer provide PC support in the home office. Not that he was providing that much support anyway, but I was getting pretty sick of not being able to share drives and files and shit. Long story short, I caved. Truth be told, I’m now using an Apple MacBook Pro. I know, next thing you know, I’ll be pregnant or something!

So of course I’ve been kicking and screaming throughout the conversion. I swear, I’m operating at only 60 percent efficiency trying to deal with this mouse-dependent operating system. Supposedly there are shortcut keys, but not nearly as many as for Windows. On top of that, I haven’t found the programs particularly fast. Even John was surprised by the speed (the laptop runs really hot too); early on, he suspected my unit was a lemon. Within the first week, I experienced OS hangs, random program shut downs, etc. Yeah, not a great intro into Apple.

But the last straw was yesterday. As you know, I recently purchased my Doo Wop box set. Naturally, the day my package arrived, I put in all my CDs. What do you know, my new laptop couldn’t play three of the four! Thinking maybe it was the discs, I put them into other computers in the house– they all played fine. Wtf? So, I called AppleCare and spoke to a super helpful guy named Richard. He gave me a case number and said I qualified for an exchange. The rest of the afternoon, I took all my files off the hard drive.

After John got home yesterday evening, we went to the Apple store in Burlingame. Mother fuckers. Basically, they were dicks about it. They insisted that full exchanges were only given within 14 days of purchase (I was at 21 days). According to them, Richard gave me the wrong information. So, I wasn’t going to get an exchange. Not only that, they wanted me to reproduce the problem. I didn’t take the CDs, because Richard said all I needed was the case number. And the problem was flakey– some CDs worked, other’s didn’t. So basically, I argued with them back and forth for 20 minutes. I mean, I did what I was told by AppleCare. Why should I be penalized for improper training on their end? Plus, the 14-day policy stated on the receipt is for a return if you’re unsatisfied. I don’t want a return. I want an exchange for a defective item– I think that’s different. I was so pissed. I mean, for Crissakes, we buy so much of their shit. And John even got his work to convert to Apple. Seriously, me receiving misinformation from their staff is not my issue. They should honor their word, whether it comes from some telephone support rep or whomever (I had the case number and everything!). I mean, here I had already spent all afternoon clearing off the hard drive. So fucking unprofessional, considering they have a whole inventory of laptops in the back. Ugh. Finally, I said I would go back and get the CDs to demonstrate the faulty drive. What would happen next, John asked? They would ship the unit in for repair. Say fucking what? No way! If I make another trip and show that the drive is defective, I want the goddamn exchange I was promised. I’m telling you, I don’t like being nasty assertive, but if you’re going to bullshit me, I’m not going to take it. After conferring once more with the store manager, the genius bar dude acquiesced. Jesus, they sure don’t make it easy!

Mind you, the time was already 8:15 p.m., and they were closing the Genius Bar at 8:30. I was so annoyed that they made me argue so hard about all this. I mean, I’m confrontational, but I do prefer being nice generally. And I hate when I get really pissed, because my face gets all red and my voice shakes. Not like I’m going to cry, but I’m just so worked up. I know, anger management issues. Can’t explain it. Anyway, I figured this battle was done for the night, but John– he knows me so well. He knew I was going to stew and stew over this. I mean, I was plotting a huge uproar, blah blah. So, he knew we had to resolve the issue immediately. He drove like Tony the TransAm driver to get me home to pick up the CDs and get back to the store. I walked back in at like 8:25, and they were not happy to see me. But whatever, man. I put in one of the CDs that didn’t play earlier and this time it played fine. My heart was pounding: come on, man don’t fuck with me now. Thankfully, the laptop spit out the second CD (which read fine on another laptop in the store). Whew! Now, give me my fucking exchange! I still thanked them, because I guess technically, they had to go against store policy. But still, they should have just listened to me in the first place. I am never ever going back to that store. I would rather drive 25 minutes to Palo Alto. Fuck that shit. Exhale.

Thankfully, this new unit seems less buggy than the other one. John says Apple’s definitely been having more hardware issues on their stuff. For his sake, he’s glad they did the right thing… in the end.

In other news, I got my handwriting analysis back. Obviously, a lot of the clip is general and unpersonalized; still, I’m impressed they actually scanned in my sample. I’m not going to purchase their pen, but you never know, John just might.

I had my interview this morning for the Education/Outreach Director position at a local sustainability nonprofit. Meeting went ok, but the place kind of lacked energy. It’s part-time, mostly working from home. The office, should I need to attend meetings, is a bike ride away. See? You’d think the answer would be easy, but the other thing is, it’s nonprofit. And, as much as I love them, they are always frickin’ po. Oh well, we’ll see what happens. The fuel cell place asked me for references, and I have an interview Monday for a web content writer position at an internet optimization company.