Guess I need to browse my own site more often, just found out that the ratings didn't work in my Photo Album, and that if you followed a permalink to a blog, the menu for my site didn't work. You would think that a software developer would do a better job of testing his own work, now wouldn't you? *sigh*... Both of these issues have been fixed.

Once again, Michael Yon is back in Iraq as an embedded reporter, this time as an affiliate of The Weekly Standard. He wrote an interesting piece on what it takes to become an embedded reporter that is definetely worth the read.

Getting to the Middle East requires a long, expensive flight. And the Hilton that came so highly recommended also came with a high room rate: $590 for a room that would have been worth maybe $150 in Florida. There was nothing to drink in the room, but the front desk offered to send up two bottles of water for about $23. There was no internet cable in the room. For $590 per night, a guest shouldn't have to pay for water, or call for an internet cable. For that kind of money, there should be a helipad on the roof.

For most journalists considering Iraq, where the frustrations and dangers are high, where there is little glory and less money, and where the expenses vomit—I've now got probably $35,000 worth of gear that might burn up in the next IED explosion—nobody needs a calculator to figure out this one. Food and lodging are free after the embed process—which greatly helps—but that does not settle the account.

Shesh, gives you a new found respect for what they have to go thru, and what it costs to actually report the war in Iraq. The fact that Michael Yon was able to do the first 8 months there as a completely independent writer is truely amazing.

Well, you just knew it was too good to be true. Went to bed with the refrig doing its job, the thermometer reading around 65. Woke up this morning (got my self a gun.. no wait, thats Sopranos.. but it sounds daaaamn tempting right now) and checked the thermometer - 70.8.. ya, thats not going to work for me, time to call 1-800-4MAYTAG again.

Now, last night before he left the tech said "If this doesn't fix it they need to see about replacing it, I've done 2 major repairs now. There's nothing left I can do". So I figure I'd jump right past the whole scheduling hassle and go straight to customer service. So at 7am when their support lines open I place the call. After a short delay I'm talking to a lady in customer support - which brings me to another thing, I've talked to well over a dozen people at Maytag support and not ONE of these people has said their name in a way that I could understand. Do they train them to do that? "Good morning, this is Ewethamk speaking, how can I help you?". "First off, speak you freaking name clearly - enunciate for gods sake!"

Anyway, Customer support decides to transfer me to a supervisor but doesn't tell me or him why, so we spend several minutes going thru the usual questions .. name, address, phone, model, serial number, what is the reason for your call. Supervisor says there is nothing he can do but have a tech come back out, he's going to transfer me to scheduling. After 15+ min in the queue I get some dude who decides to help me out by transfering me to a "Solutions Specialist". Once again I answer the same questions (name, address, etc). Then Kethashiqakjg says "I don't know why they transfered you to me, there is nothing I can do - they have to schedule a repair call. I'm going to transfer you to scheduling".

"Jesus!" I say "This is ridiculous. I've been on the phone for over an hour and I keep getting transfered around, can't someone help me?? I've talked to customer support, supervisor, scheduling, a solutions specialist and now you want to send me back to scheduling?? Does anyone know what is going on there?"

So, it's back in the phone queue, 10 min later I get scheduling. I go thru the SAME DAMN deal with them (name, address, model, blah freaking blah), and finally we get to the crux of the problem. I need a support call, but its not scheduling things correctly - she needs to transfer me to a supervisor. FUCK ME! *sigh* .. so, I'm back on hold listening to the same damn music. I've been on this call for over 1hr 20min, answered the same damn questions to 5 different clueless sobs and I'm anxiously awaiting my chance to do it again with #6 sometime soon.

update 8:30am - We're finally getting somewhere, the best they could do is schedule a call for tomorrow. The tech needs to come here then call up whatever support line they have so can start the replacement process - if they deem it necessary. This last lady I'm talking to is the first one that genuinely seems to care about how shitty I've been treated - after putting me on hold she went to talk to her supervisor about it personally. They're kicking this upstairs and the supervisors boss is going to be giving me a call back. Now, I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but if past experience is any indication there is no way in hell that I'll be getting a call back. Call back today, tech comes tomorrow (friday) .. ya, there's no way on earth I'll have a refrig until sometime next week. This is really bullshit.. nice way to build customer loyalty.

My tale of woe starts out last week Sunday. We returned home from a weekend couples camping trip to Gov. Dodge state park - I still need to do that write up.. Anyway, when we got home we noticed the refrig didn't seem to be working quite right, but didn't give it much more thought. By Monday it was obvious that the 14 month old Amana refig we had purchased no longer seemed to be doing the job we wanted - namely to keep our food cool / frozen.

A call to the Amana service line got us to Maytag service, seems that Amana was bought out by them some time ago. The earliest they could book a service call was on the 12th (we called on sept 26th). Kim did some yelling and then the support line person says "well, we can come out tomorrow but you'll have to pay an extra $30 fee". Nice cust support don't you think? Can't do warranty work in a timely manner unless you're willing to be extorted extra money. Ok - fine. We need the refrig fixed so we agree to pay the fee.

The support tech comes out around 6pm the next night to work on it. After an hr he believes he fixed it, but suspects the compressor is going too so he orders another one right away and schedules another support call to install it - that won't happen until the 11th. He assures us though that they'll call to reschedule the appt to a sooner date within 24 hrs.

A day goes by, no call from the support line so I call them up. They didn't think they could reschedule it sooner. I start bitching, telling them that the refrig is dead and I need the damn thing working now. They finally relent and agree to send a tech out on the 4th, thats the best they could do.

Tuesday the 4th comes around - the tech is supposed to be coming some time between 7am and 6pm (nice time frame, don't you agree?). By 6 we figure he's not coming, he calls at 6:30 to say he'll be there shortly .. he finally arives at 8:30pm. After 1.5 hrs he finally wraps up the compressor swap and warns us to wait 24 hrs before using it to make sure it's cooling properly. Wednesday morning when I woke up the refrig was still holding at around 70 degrees - not a good sign.

Another call to the service dept, they agree to send the tech out again but it wouldn't be until the 17th. Ya, thats not going to work.. another round of bitching and yelling and they decide they can send him out on Thursday. Surprisingly - the tech noticed the call for tomorrow, realized it still wasn't working so he decided to stop in today and fix it. Another 2 hrs spent pulling all the lines - cutting, cleaning and resoldiering them. He ended up hacking away at the back side of the refrig so he could get to some line that was leaking now from all the bending he'd been doing. The damn plumbling back there looks like a mess with all the splices he's put into place. On a positive note, as of this writing it looks like he might have fixed the problem. It's at 65 degree's and dropping.

So next time you see one of those lonely maytag repair man commercials, know it's a damn lie. They're so busy right now the repair guys are working 6 days a week, 12 hrs a day to fix all the broken equipment.