2 more days at Le Journal de Québec since my last update.

On Wednesday, I spent the full day with Benoit Gariépy, staff photographer for 25 years and spot news specialist. No one in Canada has more photography of car crash, murder, and fire than him.

We spend a good 4 hours covering the funeral of Mark Bourque, a RCMP constable who died in an ambush in Haiti. The Governor General was there, and I got a very good shot of her that I am very proud of.

Today (Thursday), I spend 4 hours with Didier. A press conference and a portrait were on the menu. Nothing very exciting, but it is just more experience for me.

Tomorrow, I will be with Karl Tremblay. We will be at André Arthur’s political campaign debut. He is a controversial but very popular radio host in Quebec City that decided to run as an independent candidate.

School’s off. I’m back in Quebec City for Christmas time. Yes, my computer is still not working. When I want to surf the net and take my email, I have to come to my parent’s home.

Finally, I was able to set up something to tag along with a photographer. I was supposed to go to Le Journal de Montréal, but for some reasons, it didn’t work out. At the last minutes, I tried to get access to Le Soleil and Le Journal de Québec. Le Soleil was not really willing to host me, but Le Journal de Québec was.

Anyhow, I spent the day with Steven Leblanc, photographer for Le Journal. We had to cover the Boxing Day. However, there was a snowstorm on Quebec City so there was not a lot of a person. I manage to get one picture to illustrate that. I also got a feature-ish picture at the mall.

We then got the call from the newspaper to go get a picture of highway 20. The eastbound was closed from Lévis due to the snowstorm. On our way there, we bumped into a van involved in an accident.

Great!

I own a HP Pavillion ZD7000 notebook. I bought it at Ameublement Tanguay in Quebec City. I bought it “refurbished.”
Now, the laptop don’t want to boot.
The computer tech tells me that it’s not a hardware problem. I need the “recovery CD” that I can get by calling 1-800-hp-inven.

You now have the background information to hear my incredible journey.

November 20, Sunday
I call the HP tech support. The girl seems pretty new at her job. She constantly put me to hold, but she never tells me that she is, so I sometime speak to no one. She tells me that she can’t find the proper recovery CD into her database. I need to call back the parts department, which is open the next day.

November 21, Monday
The part supply guy says that I need to get in touch with the tech support and transfer me to them before I have the time to tell him that I already talk to them. I explain my story again to the new lady, who transfer me again to the parts department.
After a couple of hours, I give up: I need to go to school

November 22 and 23, Tuesday and Wednesday
My call escalate to the second and third line of support. They find out that my notebook his an american model, never intended to be sold in Canada. They transfer me to HP USA, because HP Canada does not have that recovery CD.

HP USA tells me that they don’t help canadian customer, and they transfer me back to HP Canada. I explain my story again, and I’m transferred me back to HP USA.

The guy says that HP USA can’t send CD to Canada. He his sending a message to the Toronto Office: they are going to call me. However, he can’t give me the phone number of that place, because his multibillion dollar company does not know the phone number of his offices around the world.

My call escalates again to the highest level of tech support. I now have a special “secret” phone number with a special code to dial when I’m into the system. They are working directly under the CEO.

The lady don’t know what to do. She can’t Fedex the CD to Canada because, according to her, Fedex Canada and Fedex USA “do not talk to each other.” She asks me if I have a friend in the USA that they they can fedex the CD to, so this person can mail it to me. I don’t.

Since the office is about to close and it’s Thanksgiving weekend in the USA, she says that she is going to call me next monday with the solution.

November 29, Tuesday
The lady did not call me back on Monday, so I use my special phone number to get in touch with her.
Things I’m learning:

• No, Fedex USA don’t send stuff to Canada
  
• They can’t use $1 for stamps because they can’t track shipping when using snail mail. “What if would be lost in the mail??” (I restrain myself to tell her that she could buy another $1 of stamps to mail another $0.50 CD and there is, anyway, only about 1 mail out of 5 millions that are lost)
  
• I live in North Korea. They can’t mail stuff to Canada, because there would be problem at the border. She don’t understand how I was able to buy $5000 of photo equipment, DVDs, and other things through the Internet from various US store in the past.
  
• Apparently, Toronto (which is in the same province of where I live) is not in North Korea. They can ship the CD to the Toronto’s office, and THEY will send the CD to me
  
• There is only ONE person at this office who can get the CD and ship it to me.
  
• This person is one vacation

Now, at this point, one could imagine that I will NEVER buy an HP product in my life ever again. They are spending millions of dollar in advertising each year, but they are willing to lose me and my girlfriend as a customers because they don’t want to spend $1.50 to ship a CD.

The story does not end here. In French, we say “la cerise sur le gâteau” (the cherry at the top of the cake). Kind of your “here is the kicker” in English.

December 9, Friday
A large envelope waits for me at my door. Inside, a smaller envelope. Inside, a CD, not protected by a jewel case. Here is what I got.

I spoke to at least 20 persons.
I spoke at least 10 hours with those persons
I waited at least 5 hours “on hold” because “your call is important for us”
All I have is a broken CD.

Today, I have two pictures in the Intelligencer’s sport front-page section, and one in the Toronto Star’s Home Entertainment section. Well… It’s a teaser and the picture is played bigger inside, but still!