As any writer will tell you, changing computers is the single most dreaded event. You put it off as long as possible, you back-up and compulsively print out, you think 'I won't do it this week, I'll wait a bit' and whichever way you look at it, you know it's going to be pure hell. It always is.
I've just done it, and it was pure hell and the ramifications are still rumbling on, causing me to waste time, tear out my hair, and call upon God to witness that I have never done anything to deserve such pain and angst. Let nobody, not even PC World (the main culprits in this instance) tell you that they will make the transition smooth and pain free. They won't and they haven't. The actual events - though I have them written out in full for my own records - are too vastly complicated to be anything but boring, so I won't list them here. Save to say that I wanted (a) a new PC with Vista and Office 2007 and (b) a full data transfer from my old PC, as well as a health check, and whatever needed doing to make it run properly. It's an elderly (hmm, well, 5 years) HP and a good computer, and I wanted to be able to use it as a word processor, unconnected to the internet. Let me say right from the start that the old PC, bought from PC World has never given me a moment's trouble. Well hardly any. And the new one seems to be working pretty well too. And I like Office 2007 very much indeed, even though I have to make sure I save documents in the old format when I'm attaching them to emails, since most people's older versions can't read them without downloading something else. But these are minor points. No, what happened with PC World was that for about two weeks they didn't do what they said they would do and never phoned me to let me know what was going on. I spent a fortnight running back and forth to the store, to the extent that they have just, very kindly, sent me a cheque for £50 to cover my unneccessary petrol expenses. I spent what in retrospect seems like hours speaking to polite young men in call centres (in Sheffield, so they told me. We got quite friendly.) On more than one occasion I was forced to take a couple of Kalms. You know that feeling you get when you would like to go out and smash something? Possibly a computer.
The old PC is up and running again after a fashion, but seems sluggish and unhappy, and faintly off colour, like somebody recovering from the flu. Also they succeeded in corrupting a heap of files, so I have had to re-install all kinds of things. The old, old, old PC with its old old version of Word, which I have been using for word processing for some time, was wonderful, fast, clear, easy. I long for its return, and eye it as it sits forlornly in a corner of the room, waiting to be formatted and taken to the saleroom. It has never been online, and it doesn't really have any private data on it. Unfortunately, it only had an old fashioned floppy drive, and even that didn't seem to be working properly, so whatever you put on it was precarious to say the least. Otherwise, I would be using it yet.
But PC World weren't the only culprits. No, Orange weren't exactly angels either. More polite young men tried to get my broadband to work with Vista. I have been on and off the phone to them as well, and on and offline more times than I care to recall, and yesterday I had to try fiddling with it myself, in an effort to get it to work. (Which, eventually, I'm pleased to say, it did although not thanks to any of the helpful young men at Orange.) I'm writing this from elsewhere, so I'm still not sure if my solution is permanent or temporary, which for someone trying to run an internet business is challenging to say the least.
I am seriously thinking of reverting to Pen and Paper.
Meanwhile, this week, the Bank got a standing order wrong, and paid my accountant twice over.
Yesterday, Sky phoned me to offer me a month's free trial of films and sport. The only snag was that you had to set it up, and then if you didn't want to continue with it permanently, you had to let them know within 24 hours. You mean, I asked the bright young woman on the end of the line, you mean I have to phone Sky? (press one for... press two for...)
Well yes, she said.
In that case, thank-you very much but I don't think I'll bother, I said.
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