Ethical Dilema

OK... so my computer was on the fristz and I took it to a well known
(nationally known) PC "fix it" place. Had never been there before, but the
guy who built my custom PC is long gone, so my options were:

A. fix it myself (fat chance)
B. get a friend to fix it (nah)
C. Try out this well known company.

So the guy at the counter seemed competant.

I left with a good feeling; he would take good care of my machine.

Well, two days goes by and no call, so I call them.

Discover that Counter Boy has moved my project over to a rookie.

OK, so she's very nice and everything. But I had needed my box back and her
rate of progress was slow.

There was even one point where I got in my car and purchased a cpu fan,
because their coprorate rules prohibited them from getting into their cars
for a part (they can only order through their system, using only approved
vendors, and all parts must be delivered by courier). Thus, it was a lot
faster for me to just go get the part from a local vendor. I didn't mind
doing this. What I minded was, they had wasted a BUNCH of time trying to
locate this part in their network of approved vendors. Had I not called for
a status check and discovered the delay (then offered to go get the part
locally) I think they'd still be looking for it....

Anyway, after seven (7) excrutiatingly long days, I finally got my 'puter
back. I got a lot of new things: New power supply, new fans, new 500GB disk
drive, new anti-viral software, new DVD/CDR burner with Nero, new install of
WNDWS, a few other things. All in all, it cost $900. Sure, I could have
bought a new PC. But I like my box and did not want to make a
comparison/contrast decision right now.

OK, so I finally get my PC back home...sure enough, minor annoyances....
The least of them, my speakers ain't working. Maybe it's the sound card,
but they supposedly bench tested that. So it must be the speaker/sound card
combination. We can't get it working by phone, so I gotta put both box and
speakers into my car and drive them over. Hopefully this is a simple thing
and Rook can fix it quickly.

But now I just discovered something else. Something big.

Somehow, Rook restored my system without including the contents of the "My
Pictures" folder. All that "My Pictures" has inside it right now are the
stock photos that come with Windows XP.

I had hundreds of photos on my PC. Only a couple dozen were family photos
(vacations, goofing around the house, etc.), that can be easily recovered.
Most were shots of my interests, I grabbed off the interwebs. Nature
photography, fishing shots, sports figures and/or musicians in action, all
grabbed off websites. These can be replaced, over time. I'll just have to
hit those same websites again.

But....

I also had a shitload of photos that can not be replaced. Most were from my
old neighborhood in Chitown, plus other neighborhoods we ran as kids. These
shots are priceless to me, because they capture a city that's now gone.
There are even some shots where I know the people in the photos, even though
I didn't take the pictures myself.

The majority of these pictures are irretrievable. (At least, irretrievable
w/out a TON of hassel). They were posted on websites that you have to join,
from people's private collections. Most are too old to retireve. In other
cases, the poster had said, "here's a great shot from 1965, I'm gonna leave
it up for 3 days and then I'm taking it down; so if you want it, grab it
now." Getting these photos back is impossible.

OK, so I had backed up my system before taking it into the PC Repair shop.
So I actually have all of these pictures on an external backup drive. I can
restore them to my PC. It will just take time. But what if I hadn't backed
up? Part of what I paid for was "One Time Data Backup, Unlimited Files."
These were supposed to be backed up & restored to the new hard drive. The
service cost me $159.

Rook is very nice, and has been helpful. But she screwed up big. I was
very specific about these photos when I left off my machine. I told Counter
Boy (who had told me that he would be doing the work) about these pictures.
In fact, I told him about them twice. I very specifically told him about
the irretrievable nature of most of the photos in My Pictures.

I have to bring my box back in later today so Rook can fix the speaker/sound
card problem. My dilema: do I make a big stink and demand the $159 back?
Or do I quietly let Rook know how badly she messed up? I don't want to get
a new employee in trouble, maybe even fired. So I'm inclinded to just talk
to her, tell her how fucking lucky she is that I had backed up my files. On
the other hand, the company certainly did not do what I contracted them to
do. What would you do in this situation?

=====================================
Better bring your own redemption when you come
To the barricades of Heaven, where I'm from.
Jackson Browne


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