CHARLES ANGELICH wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

CA>> Calling DELL connected me to India where a seemingly
CA>> nice/polite  person tried desperately to speak in English
CA>> to me. I had to ask him to repeat every other phrase he
CA>> spoke. Terminology doesn't lend itself to mispronunciation
CA>> but he patiently repeated the phrases until I could grasp
CA>> the meanings of what he was saying. 

RJT> This kind of thing drives me nuts. 

CA> It's a bit depressing after reading about all the jobs being
CA> shipped out of the USA. :-\

My other half works at a call center,  tell me about it...

CA>> Short story: DELL does not sell parts even where they have a 
CA>> physical presence. All parts must be ordered through India who 
CA>> then passes the order to Texas where the parts are actually 
CA>> shipped from. This requires about 10 working days to _ship_ then  
CA>> whatever time it takes for the actually delivery over land to the 
CA>> destination.

CA>> I did not bother. 

RJT> I wouldn't either. And what you're saying here is a *good* reason 
RJT> not to buy Dell. In addition to the fiasco a while back where a 
RJT> supposed "ATX Power Supply" had radically different connections 
RJT> than what they were supposed to be. Fortunately the system 
RJT> involved wasn't damaged.

CA> I am aware of no compelling reason to buy Dell myself.

I'm less and less inclined to all the time,  it seems.

CA>> I drove 150 miles back to where my desktop is at and am finishing 
CA>> the work on a REAL workstation using W2K. Laptops are 'toys' IMO 
CA>> and XP s*cks. :-\

RJT> :-) 

CA> It's good to be back at my 'whitebox' machine. :-) 

I have a thought of getting a laptop from time to time,  but haven't
decided to yet.  It's just not that much of an issue with me.  And it
probably won't be for some time yet.

---