The Great Touchpad Death March of 2011 continues, and if you’re not interested in getting a touchpad (or if you work in HP marketing apparently), you probably have no clue why people are getting so angry about it. I’ve decided to summarize the events of the past few weeks and the associated emotions created for me.
August 18th: Apotheker announced that HP was exiting touchpad business and blowing out the Touchpads at bargain rates come Monday.
My reaction: Ah, too bad. Cool, though, I’ll pick one up on Monday when they go on sale. Asked some family members if I should pick one up for them. They had no clue what a Touchpad was, but based on my recommendation, sure, pick up 6. O…K.
August 19th: Canadian merchants start blowing out the touchpad, days early.
My reaction: Hmm, that’s odd. They clearly said Monday. Ah well, I’m sure there’s still time.
August 20-21: Random merchants start rolling out new price, usually DDOSing themselves off the internet.
My reaction: Oh, it’s on baby. I know this game. Put in orders across the internet. Went to sleep.
August 22: Yeah, about those orders you placed and payed for? Well, fuck you. We’ll give your money back in a few days/weeks, but no touchpad.
My reaction: Well, shit. scramble, click, search, click… ah, found replacements. *whew* Just in case, drop the old name in the HP ‘interested’ link.
August 23-Sept 11: Oh, you think it’s like that? You can suck on ebay, fool. Your orders mean shit to us
My reaction: It’s going to be ok. At least I got 3 from QVC. HP promised me a whack at ordering new stock.
Sept 18: Internal HP memo reveals 800,000 HP employees have first dibs on 200,000 touchpads. ebay stock increases 3%.
My reaction: Bitch, please. Why did you even fucking mention it if you were just going to sell it internally?
Sept 19: We, at QVC, are sorry. Really, very sorry. Now fuck off, will you. No touchpad for you.
My reaction: Oh Motherfucker! Is this the goddamn holy grail or some shit? More like fucking phantom pad.
Sept 2??? fuck, who cares: blip, bing, whirr, random touchpad availability. Shops STILL can’t handle taking orders.
My reaction: If I see one more fucking cute hashtag, I’m gonna go Office Space on a fucking HP printer. FUUUUUUUUU!
Here’s my walk of shame on HP vendors- HP SMB- server crashed on payment processing. CDW- 4 cancelled w/o explanation. Barnes & Noble: 4 ordered, cancelled 2 days later. PCMall- 4 ordered? Apparently not, no record in their system. TigerDirect- unable to order due to server crashes. Onsale- 3 ordered, not backfilled because they were ordered 3 hours after their cutoff, QVC- 3 ordered, cancelled 2 weeks later. GTSI.com- Touchpad, wtf? No, we don’t sell that, whatever our webpage says. Random dude on Amazon- Amazon didn’t trust him enough to honor sale, refused to forward payment.
So, here I sit with disappointed nieces, nephews, elderly relatives, watching prices inexplicably rise on ebay. I don’t even want the damn thing anymore. Yet, I’ve raised hopes, so I keep looking. Meanwhile, I’m getting EXCITING tweets about people playing angry birds at after-grammy parties on the account that was supposed to be dedicated to touchpad news, and looking through #foundhp hash tags to read about 2 week old news and online scams.
Thanks HP. Really. Thanks. It’s been real.
(Mood Video)
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