Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Computers aaaaarrggggghhhhh!

So I took my car to the dealer yesterday.
I had made the appointment a full week earlier.
The U-connect has not worked properly since I took possession of the vehicle a year ago May, and since Ontario has gone to legislated hands-free driving (something I've always espoused anyway), it became a tad more pressing that I get the sucker fixed.
The radio had already been replaced once, shortly after I got the car, for the same problem; it simply wasn't storing the phone numbers properly so I was wasting my time putting numbers in the system.  Didn't matter how many times I told it someone's phone number, when it came time to try to "call" that person, the danged thing would tell me there was no number stored for "XX," would I like to call "XX?" and then turn off.
Most annoying!
Anyway, my good friend LC is on holidays right now so she agreed to spend the day with me while I was wheel-less in the big city.
At 8:36am I checked my car in at the dealer so the U-connect could be fixed and the technician even witnessed the wonky way it was behaving.
"Bizarre," said he, "never seen anything like it.  We'll see if we can figure it out and get that fixed. Leave it with us."
So LC and I went out for breakfast and then we went back to her place and we sat and talked some more (we don't often get time to just visit together so we were enjoying the opportunity).
At 12:15 I called my guy to ask how things were progressing.
"It's still in the queue," said he, "we're really backlogged today.  I'm waiting for the electrical technician to take a look at it."
I damned near had a fit!
"You mean it's just sitting there?  What did I make an appointment for, if not to be in the queue?  Am I going to get home tonight?"  I asked.
"Oh we'll get you home, one way or the other," he responded.
"OK," I said, "but you should know that if you're planning on a rental vehicle being the way to get me home, I only come into Ottawa once a week."
"Ummmm, I'm moving your car up the priority list right now.  You'll have your car back today," he assured me.
So LC gathered a book and very nicely took me to my physiotherapy session (although she didn't get much reading in because once the therapist did her thing, LC sat in the room with me and we talked until it was time to take the needles out).
Then we went to the bookstore to kill some time.
Then we got hungry again.
So we went for lunch (it was actually late lunch, early supper for me).
When we got back to her place it was 3:30 and I still hadn't heard back from the shop.
I called again at 3:40pm and was told that my car was being worked on and it would be finished that day so I asked what their hours were.
"We finish at 8:00pm but close at 9:00pm," was the response.  "But the guy working on your car is finished in 20 minutes, so I'm sure your car will be ready by then."
At 4:10pm my cell phone rang.
"Bonnie," my guy said, "we've checked everything, reseated all the connections, updated the computer,"  yada yada yada, "and tried some test numbers.  It seems to be working.  So I'd like to clean out your phone book and start fresh."
"Oh wonderful," I said, "so, it's going to be trial and error then.  We don't really know if it's fixed."
"That's right," he said, "but I hope this will do it because we can't find anything wrong."  (The story of my life!)
LC delivered me to the dealer and my guy was there waiting for me.  He sat in the car with me, erased all my phone numbers (there weren't very many, since it never worked, I hadn't put many numbers in it), put "Home" in and tested it.
Voila! it worked just as it's supposed to.
He instructed me to put more numbers in and test it and let him know.  If the problem presents again, he'll have to call Chrysler because ...
And he sent me on my way.
So, I'm driving home and I use the voice-activated feature to put some numbers in the phone book.
"Number stored," the lovely lady tells me.
Time and again, after each number I gave, she told me it was stored.
Then the test.
"Call home," I ask my car.
"Please say the line number," as it displays a line showing "Home" and a line showing my telephone number.
WTF? 
There is no way in hell I'm supposed to have to look at that damned screen to decipher a telephone number while I'm driving to see if the system is going to call the person I've asked it to call.
So I select Line 1 ("Home").
"No number stored for Home" I hear.  "Would you like to call Home?" as it turns off.
AAAAARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH!
It just worked at the dealer -- when that was the only number in the phone book!
So today, I will call my guy back and we'll start again.
The radio has already been replaced once; I guess this time they'll have to replace the car!

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