David Gillon

 ... while I was out. Message left saying "We don't quite know what's happening, can you ring and tell us if we delivered a laptop or not?"

So I finally ordered a new laptop 6PM Tuesday evening from the HP website, received acknowledging email straight back

08:30 Wednesday. Automated "Order Acceptance" email, "your order has been accepted, delivery on Thursday, we'll send you a text Thursday morning with an hour slot in which we'll deliver". That's a nuisance as there was stuff I needed to do Thursday, but I'll work around it, especially if they deliver early.

09:00 Thursday morning, no text. Sits waiting. And waiting. And waiting. 

14:00 Still no text. Go to check emails from HP for a contact number to find out what is happening. Notice, quite by chance, another email that I'd ignored as spam as it is from no name I recognise and has a meaningless number in the title field. On a second look realise the unrecognised name has HP buried in the middle of it: "UK GLA HPStoreSalesSupport". On opening it up realise the meaningless title is my order code. The email, sent 4pm Wednesday, says "Whoops, we have to cancel your order because Logistics say we don't make that model any more. What do you want us to do with the sleeve and the copy of Office? Let us know if you want to talk to someone from sales"

14:30 Send email noting 1) I have wasted most of a day because they can't address or title emails properly, 2) I need the laptop before travelling next week, 3) why the hell are you noting the model as in stock if it isn't even in production 4) and why did you 'accept' the order at the acceptance stage, when presumably you check stuff like 'do we actually make this still', 5) integration of logistics and sales processes, see basic business competence, 6) ring me urgently

14:35 Look up current hourly rate for Ada contractors (£42/hr), plan to make pointed remarks on the value of my time.

15:20 Automated text: "your order will be delivered Friday".

15:25 Send email demanding to know if this is the full order or just the odds and sods without the laptop.
15:26 Send email demanding to know how to make a complaint.

15:53 Automated email stating "your order has been dispatched" - laptop listed alongside other items.

17:30 Still no callback, 3 hours on from request to ring me urgently, probable end of their working day

19:30 Now. Still no reply. Still no idea whether delivery tomorrow will include laptop or not as I have been told both that the order is cancelled and that it is to be delivered. I won't be accepting delivery if the laptop isn't in the package, so the delivery guy will have to wait while I find out which it is.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that HP would be incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery.

More specifically my flailing arm struck the side of my pint glass of rum and coke last night, upending it into the laptop.

Obviously I grabbed the laptop and immediately inverted it to drain, but not in time to stop in announcing a hardware failure.

On the positive side it's eight years old and I was supposed to be going out and looking for a new one this week anyway.

On the negative side there's some un-backed up stuff on there, mostly game-related stuff I did over Christmas, I can live without it if need be and I can probably recreate it, though it'll be time consuming.

I'm going to leave it to dry out for a couple of days and then see if it'll boot, if it doesn't I can still pull the hard-drive and see if that works, but really I'd have been much happier if the rum and coke had ended up in me, not the laptop!