Blog of a Stockham Student

AOL can kiss my big fat arse!

Last night i was having a touch of insomnia as per usual so i decided to just surf the net as you do. However upon reaching the study i was confronted with a note taped to the keyboard from my dad asking me to "fix AOL". Now i may be good with computers (we have established that i'm very good with mac's) but i'm not good enough to know what the problem was just from this little note. So i turn on, log in and boot up the old AOL software and go off to make a cup of tea. Upon returning, i expect to have been bombarded with a bunch of crap from AOL news that isn't even noteworthy enough for OK! magazine. Instead the progress bar is still stuck at the "establishing DSL modem connection" bit.

Fast forward 20 minutes later, and i'm finally allowed to start surfing the interweb. Now this isn't on, not even for dial up, and we're supposed to have the 2nd fastest AOL account that money can buy. I disconnect, exit software and reboot computer. Same thing happens. So after copious amounts of searching i finally find the help section and it gives me 2 options: either phone the company and pay up to 50p A MINUTE for the priveledge, or talk virtually to someone on the help desk. I picked the far cheaper option. Oh how wrong i was.

Immediately i am confronted with a barrage of automated messages from Chatagentuk65 saying that he will deal with my problem in a moment (i'm sorry i automatically assume that this agent was a he). So off i go, typing my problem only to find myself disconnected from the service because it took too long to type. Opened up another chat window, copy and paste question from previous agent and wait. The only answer i am given is "Have you tried restarting your computer?"

I am left with no option but to phone the dreaded company. The AOL help centre and I go way, back to the days when we couldn't install the update for AOL 6 and ended up having to wipe the hard drive every day for a week. So i was prepared for the hell awaiting me.

The man on the phone was quite polite during our 20 minute conversation. I however wasn't.

It transpires that AOL doesn't want to work with Windows XP. The problem appears to be that they decided to update their network, so everyone had to download an update in order to connect with the new faster connection speed. This update doesn't like Windows XP, it wants to see it die. AOL are now advising people not to have Windows XP when using their service. When asked what i was supposed to do, the guy said "to be honest, i don't know". At this point i shoved my hand down the phoneline and strangled the guy to death.

I got a letter in the post this morning asking if i wanted to recommend AOL to any of my friends. It's currently in the recycling bin.

posted by Em @ 9:23:00 am