Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you come across someone on a help line who is actually, well, helpful.

Today, I tip my hat to “Dennis,” wherever he may be.

If you’ve been following my ongoing data nightmare, which I began writing about here, you’ll recall that while I have all my data (and therefore can rest somewhat easy), I haven’t had access to it. I have a variety of computers both here at home and at my office, but I couldn’t see any good reason to restore it all to any of those — better to wait for the return of my primary laptop. Astonishingly, it came back yesterday, after only a little over a day in the shop. Now I’m putting the data back. So far it has been a major timesuck, but not too frustrating — that is, until I hit the QuickBooks accounting issue.

Last night I attached the MacBook Pro (recently fixed) to my old iMac via FireWire and did a “new computer” file swap that Apple allows when you’re configuring a computer for the first time. It’s incredibly easy and, once again, worked like a charm, transporting all the files from the iMac onto that laptop and, with it, all the various configurations. That means that applications I own but don’t have the software for, such as Appleworks, came over. That’s a good thing. It also means that the internet settings and accounts (and I have multiples of them) came over as well. Another good thing. It also brought over QuickBooks Pro, and I was able to download from .mac my backed-up file. Again, good things.

Then I booted up QuickBooks and was asked for a key code to register the product. I entered the key code directly from the software label — this is one piece of software that, believe me, I keep close to hand. It wouldn’t accept it. I tried it again. Wouldn’t accept it. Then, providing a physical picture of the definition of insanity, I tried it yet again hoping for a different result. Nothing doing. I was able to access my file, but the screen warned me ominously that I had 14 boots left, after which I’d have no access. Bear in mind that I’ve been running my business from his file since 2003. Resisting the urge to have a really strong drink (which would have led to many more), I went upstairs and watched a boring bad movie and finally fell asleep fitfully.

This morning, after putting off the inevitable, I finally called Intuit, maker of QuickBooks. I got what I expected:

1. Someone teenage-boy-sounding who suggested I go online to www.quickbooks.com/keycode, and who then chased me off the phone. I tried the URL — again, three times — and each time it redirected me to Yahoo. Evidently, that URL doesn’t exist.
2. I called back and spoke with another person who sounded like a teenage boy. This one suggested that I buy a new copy of the program ($249). I said I didn’t see any reason to do that — I already own the program, have registered it, and have a key code on the disk, it’s just not working. He told me to go to the quickbooks.com site, search for “keycode” and follow the directions. I did that, and it promised to email me a new keycode. When? It didn’t say. That wouldn’t do. Had it said even “today” I might have felt I could wait.
3. Third time, again navigating through the aggravating phone tree, I went to gethuman.com, a directory that provides prompts to avoid aggravating phone trees. (Use it often!) It worked — and I wound up talking to what was clearly India. I could barely understand this man, not only because of his accent, which was thick, but also over the din of about 5,000 other Indians on other phones behind him. I was irritated but did my best to keep it out of my voice; I didn’t want anyone, no matter where in the world, confusing my irritation with Intuit and my software issue with, possibly, irritation about speaking to Indians as a people. I also didn’t want to spread the image of the Ugly American — and I was certainly feeling ugly. This gentleman gave me a new number to call. You guessed it: It was the number for sales.
4. But this time, I got lucky. Whomever “Peter” in sales is, he took pity on me, even though I wasn’t going to buy anything. Although he’s now in Phoenix, he looked back fondly on his time spent living in Burbank, even mentioning the Black Angus that my friend Grant criticized for having food that was “too salty.” I explained my situation, and he said (before I could), “You shouldn’t have to buy a new version, you already own a copy.” And he transferred me to Dennis — evidently the lone helpful tech at Intuit, who gave me a new keycode and my registration number.

So now I have access to my accounting again. Thank you, Dennis, and thank you Peter for forwarding me to Dennis. I suspect you knew Dennis would help me where others would not. When he did help me, Dennis said, “I don’t understand why nobody would do this for you before.” Well, neither do I.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 5:10 pm and is filed under On being, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.