After months of inconsistent performance, my computer now works fairly normally. It had accumulated three glitches. The most serious involved access to my email. Xfinity does not connect me to the internet pretty much every day. It will loop me to an unfamiliar starting screen, denying me access to their site. When I simply type www.xfinity.com which should take me generically to their site, it automatically adds a slash / which diverts it. A few times a week I telephone Xfinity which I find agonizing as they will do anything to avoid transferring me to a person. When I get a representative, they read me their script without ever listening to me explain what I encounter. Eventually, I get the problem patched up, only to reappear the next day.
My computer does not always shut down. Sometimes a popup called RealTek impedes this. I will indicate that it should shut down anyway, which it does. I do not know what RealTek is, never asked for it to appear on my screen, and when I asked the ISP to fix it, they tell me the problem lies in my computer.
Finally, I have a change in how my computer recognizes USB ports. When I put my flash drive in a new port, it gets a message that says it is in Port D://. The same used to happen when I plugged my phone into the port, but now it bundles it with the rest of my computer. I could not navigate the phone from my computer. Calls to Samsung turf the problem back to my computer. These corporate giants can do no wrong. Their agents are scripted to placate the caller without fixing a problem that they likely do not understand themselves.
General Message: they are not there to serve ME. The megacorporations put barriers to even accessing expertise. And these guys are proficient relative to the agents at my local Xfinity Store who are in the business of selling me stuff, not making stuff that I already have work at top form.
Out of exasperation, I considered shipping my laptop for service. When I purchased it four years ago, I took Amazon up on their offer for a four-year warranty. It expires in six weeks. I've almost mailed it twice, and once spoke to a representative who expertly guided me through a programming glitch within weeks of purchase. My problems, typing all caps and some similar annoyance, ran their course. The insurer had emailed me mailing labels. Having to back up all my data before shipping served as a deterrent to unnecessary utilization. But with the warranty in its final weeks, I needed this resolved. A not-so-easy email search through a temperamental email service identified the contract and a phone I dialed it. An agent answered promptly. After she confirmed my policy was still active, she took my information, including a description of the problems. Rather than ship my computer, she recommended that one of their 24/7 technical support people could probably guide me through this.
Within a minute or two, I got connected to a representative, a man with a hint of an accent to suggest he had to learn English as a second language, but mastered it well. He tried to share my screen but that got blocked by my protection software, so we did this verbally.
He explained that all major programs now automatically add a slash / with destination to their generic web address. Mine takes me to a loop. What I need is a slash / destination that takes me where I want to go directly. He suggested www.xfinity.com/login. It took me to log in. I created a shortcut on my Google Search intro. Subsequently, Xfinity changed /login to /email, but so far I've not had diversions to non-functional Xfinity opening pages unfamiliar to me trying to sell me something.
He addressed RealTek in a straightforward way. It is apparently a factory-installed feature that allows the laptop's speakers to function. Why it pops up doesn't matter, as long as I can override it, which I always can.
For the Samsung issue, he accessed my telephone screen. From its camera, I could now show him my laptop screen. He brought me to the Samsung entry on File Explorer, opened it, and should me how to navigate my phone from that screen.
Total time, 38 minutes, not much different than the time it takes me to bypass the endless Xfinity automated messages and resets. All solved. This fellow did not read from the script. He let me explain what I had experienced. Were he able, he would have looked at my laptop screen and navigated it himself. As he went along, he explained to me why I encountered what I did, along with its significance. I do not remember what Amazon charged for the supplemental protection. Worth everything I paid for it.
Having devoted my career to serving not only as an expert but with a responsibility to explain what patients sought in a way that they would find understandable, I connected well with the warranty representative. Expertise matters. He had it, and he conveyed it. I valued it. Our corporate giants accept a lesser interaction with their consumers.
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