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I don't know what it is about me, but as soon as a school project is due and all retail establishments are closed, I cause printers to malfunction. I've written about my wonderful experiences with Hewlett Packard in the past (like here and here), but after a month or so of not having a science project due, I had kind of forgotten about how it tends to break down at critical times. This time, though, it wasn't because of a science project -- it was for Spanish.

For this project, Zach had to write sentences that described each family member (I didn't read it very closely, but I'm assuming my page included things like "Mi mama es totalmente loco.") and also include a picture of each person. Things were going really well, until we attempted to print the pictures. Needless to say, the colors were not accurate.

Since I had noticed color inaccuracy issues over the last several weeks (but honestly, who cares if the school lunch menu has a slight blue tint to it?), I decided it was finally time to invest a few minutes and call Hewlett Packard to let them know that I was the proud owner of yet another piece of their manufactured shit. I looked online to find a customer service phone number, dialed it up and almost fell off my chair when a real, live human answered on the second ring, saying "Hello. This be Radharishnan. Thanks calling HP for your needs. How can you be helped?"

I explained my printer issues to him, he seemed genuinely empathetic to my frustrations and I was feeling optimistic about how things were going. Then he said that I had called a customer service location that was meant to help with corporate software issues, that he had no ability to help with my printing needs, here is the correct number for you to dial and oh yes, have a day that's nice.

I hung up, slightly confused, and then called the number he gave me. This is when things took a nasty turn and now my feelings can be best summed up as: I fucking hate Hewlett Packard, aka the worst company in existence who manufactures nothing but pieces of shit that are molded into things that slightly resemble printers.

Fortunately, a couple days after the phone call they sent me an online Customer Support Survey, which I was more than happy to complete.

Please select the language that you would like to take this survey in:

English, so that I can say "fuck you."

You have selected English for this survey.

Yeah, no shit.

The survey will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

***sigh***

In which country do you currently reside?

The United States, unlike your customer service department.

Our records indicate that you recently contacted HP's Technical Support, where it was determined that your HP product is no longer supported under HP's warranty program. Is this correct?

Yes, it is, because your warranty program is designed for products that aren't pieces of shit. But unfortunately your products suck donkey ass.

Were you offered technical support for a fee to resolve your product issue?

Yes, I was. And I think after I was given the opportunity to pay $35 for someone to say "clean the printer heads" instead of "We're so sorry our printers suck, may I suggest, for free, that you clean the printer heads, which can only be done through the HP Device Manager on your computer," I maybe said something like "No thanks, stupid bitch."

Did you accept or decline the fee-based technical support offered?

Pretty sure that "no thanks, stupid bitch" means I will decline the opportunity to give you $35 for 12 seconds of advice.

Please indicate the main reason why you declined the fee-based technical support?

Maybe, just possibly, because I believe that a company shouldn't sell hunks of crap that are constructed with zero quality control just so that they can make more money when the customer has to deal with technical support.

Overall, how would you rate this most recent telephone support event from HP? Please use a scale from 0 to 10 where "10" means "Outstanding and "0" means "Unacceptable."

0 - which in this case, means holy shit was this a waste of my time and your company sucks. And oh yes, you are unacceptable.

Using the same scale from 0 to 10, please rate your satisfaction with the technical support agent who assisted you.

Not to sound redundant, but 0.

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey. Your responses are valuable to HP and will help improve service and support.

Yeah, right. And I'm going to become a vegetarian and start homeschooling my kids.

After I calmed down from the hellacious phone conversation with the clueless tech support agent who was incapable of using any common sense, I went online and found a solution to the malfunctioning printer issue myself. In the process, I came across several posts about Hewlett Packard's crappy service, including:

• By far the worst support EVER!
• I am fighting with the support in GOD-DAMNED India!
• I am disappointed that everything with your company is money.
• HP customer service is horrible.
• I will never buy another HP product ever!
• This is where they make their money since they have such a lousy product.
• The warranty is up by one day and they want $100 for support.
• Pathetic - those are the only words to describe HP's quality control and customer service.
• I have had the worst experience with HP.

Okay, so I'm not alone in my hatred for this company, which makes me happy. And the fact that the pictures were eventually printed with the correct colors made me happy. And listening to Zach quiz Zoe on Spanish words, and hearing her respond correctly, made me really happy. She knew that:

1. hola = hello
2. rojo = red
3. verde = green
4. adios = goodbye
5. vamos = let's go
6. uno = one
7. Dora the Explorer = moron
8. margarita = mom