Alright. I'm bored at work and I have some free time, so I'm going to pass along one of my most frustrating tech moments ever. Be forwarned; there is a Wall O' Text a-comin'.

A few years ago my ex sister in law had ordered a pc and a printer from Dell. Some small form factor machine that went for like $700 bucks and a POS printer. She called the house and said they had arrived and asked the family tech (me) if I would install it for her.

Sure I'll do it.

When I got to her house there were not two but three boxes. I asked my ex sis if she had only ordered a pc and a printer and she verified that was all she had ordered, but yet there was a small Dell box, a little larger Dell box, and a pretty good size Dell box.

What the hell...?

I opened the large box first and it was a tower pc. I can't remember if it was a Inspiron or a Dimension but I know that at the time it was one of their high end systems. She had a Mac so I looked up this system and it cost $1500. A far cry from the measly $700 machine. I opened the other two boxes and there was her complete order; the SFF pc and the printer.

What the fuck is going on here?

The packing lists for both systems were for the $700 system. This $1500 rig was not listed anywhere on any paperwork that was included with this shipment.

Now here is where it gets frustrating.

My ex sis is really religious, so this extra system was "not ours so it really needs to go back to Dell". A very Christian thing to do, I know. I’m thinking God will understand that you have an extra pc, but I didn’t voice it.

No matter how much I pleaded, she demanded that I contact Dell and get a RMA number to have this thing shipped back. I'm a grown man and yes, I'll admit I went through all the emotions a liitle kid would show attempting to keep her from making me do this horrible horrible thing.

I pleaded. I got angry. I threw a tantrum, and at one point I may have even had tears well up in my eyes. "Please don't make me do this!!", but she didn't listen. “We really need to call them cause it’s not supposed to be here.” I’m serious when I say I may have had tears.

So I looked for a Dell warehouse number or something of that nature because I knew the regular customer service line probably wouldn't be able to handle this, but I didn't find one so I ended up calling the CS line anyway.

I get Dell India...(oh shit),...and a long call begins. This person on the phone had no idea what the hell I wanted, Not only did we have a bit of a language barrier but I was asking her something that she had never encountered before. Several times she asked for what purpose was I calling when I clearly had said I was trying to send a pc back to them.

She confirmed the order for the SFF pc and the printer. She had no idea about this “other pc”. She couldn’t grasp what I was asking. Hell, I couldn’t either.

Think about what would you say if you were trying to send a free computer back to somewhere. Think about how you would ask that. Now think about what the person on the other end would say. Add in a language barrier. Now add in this religious person who is looking at you with concern as you begin getting madder and madder with frustration.

I was so frustrated by having to ask this woman for a RMA number that I not only began yelling at her but I began yelling at my ex sister in law too for asking me to do this stupid thing.

We were on the phone for over an hour and finally, FINALLY, this american guy gets on the phone and flatly says, “Look. We don’t send out RMA’s. Not from this facility, and I can’t tell you who to call to get one. We’re not set up to handle that. You have a pc that we don't have paperwork for. Congratulations. Do you need anything else?”

Hell naw foo.

My sister in law seemed relieved when I explained to her that they wouldn’t take it back….which is exactly what I told her from the start. She gave me the $700 POS SFF pc for my troubles, and I still have it. It’s sitting under a bunch of shit in my office at the house, collecting dust. It’s a Celeron so under that shit it’ll stay.