An Inhuman Condition

Lenovo recently made it much more difficult than it needed to be to find a battery for one of their laptops. I had the computer model, serial number, and the part number from the old battery. What I found out was that the technical part numbers associated with the computer itself and located on the battery will not help you purchase a battery. You need the marketing part numbers for them.

I wish I had saved the entire conversation, but I was too frustrated at the time. The support rep said something like “To look up the technical part numbers, you would need to check with tech support.” I replied, “Alright, so can you ask them to help me find a battery?”

After the chat session I was asked to rate my experience and at that point had enough foresight to save the feedback below.

“Your batteries lie. The part numbers mean nothing, and your support people are clueless. I would expect this kind of incompetence from my neighbor Jerry who is trying to make computers in his garage, but it is completely unacceptable from a company that has been pretending to make computers for years.

I believe you just slap random numbers on these computers to make people believe they have models, serials, etc. so it looks like you know what you’re doing. Even Jerry knows what kind of batteries he is using, although I think they are all AA batteries.

Also, I think your sales support people may be robots. I can’t confirm this, but the person I was dealing with would definitely not pass the Voight-Kampff tests. I have messaged Harrison Ford on Facebook to see if he can do anything about it, but I wanted to make you aware as well so that you can possibly add the Voight-Kampff tests to your hiring processes.

Alas, there is nothing I can do to find a battery for this laptop, so I will need to use it as an awkward cutting board or maybe a flotation device.”

I eventually found out that they had changed their way of naming\designating these batteries and then discontinued the battery under its new name but replaced it with yet a third name and zero indication it would go with the computer in question.

Thanks, Lenovo. Hopefully you take my input to heart.