Dells XPS are made of magic. [long story, major fuckup, 10k+ damages]

It all started in December. One morning I was late to work, drove there as fast as possible. (I live like 3 minutes away so me being late really meant *late*) Parked my car in a secluded car park, grabbed my backpack and ran to work. The car park is like 100 meters away from work so I took my feet into my hands and ran. Next thing I know my heels loose all grip while I go down a small slope and I drop on my back full force. On a sharp edged stone. With only my 1700$ XPS in it. Fuck.

I paniced, but got up and ran to work. I checked on the notebook, praying it would boot. It booted! Holy shit. I flipped the notebook and saw two small dents in the aluminum shell. I was thorougly impressed. I later discovered that it left a small shadow on the display, but given what a hit that was (I am not exactly a lightweight), impressive would be a massive understatement.

Fast forward to February, I am weighing my options to get the screen replaced maybe, as damage on my hardware (even if neglectable) triggers some sort of OCD and makes me feel bad 24/7. Also my laptop tends to shut off from time to time, looked into the Event Viewer and saw kernel panic. I figured that the battery probably still took a hit and that it drops voltage from time to time and the kernel assumes a critical situation, thus shutting off.

It stayed quite snowy in Austria up until March, so occasional snowing wasn't rare. Got out of work one day, saw it snowed a bit. Whatever. I had my moms car at the time, so I tried if it would slide a bit if I donut on the now (5pm) empty parking space. Nothing. Drove done a small hill, ABS triangle lit up red (board computer can't outbalance the snow). I drove out to the main street where everything was salted and drove along towards my house. Took a turn into my street, accelerated for a bit and then went off the gas so the car would smoothly drive along with the speed slowly degrading. So I went off the gas and noticed I was a bit to the right, no wonder, centrifugal forces.

*steers left*
"Huh seems like I need a bit more"
*car still doesnt move much*
"What the- go to the left!"
*steers left hard*
"Fuck that wall is coming closer"
*Breaks*
*car doesnt break*
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!"

Everything got quiet in seconds, me waking up to an open airbag, ripped pants, a hurting wrist, the radio somewhere on the ground and fumes that smellt like burning wires. I grabbed my backpack that was now somewhere on the floor instead of on the seat and ran outside, tears in my eyes and the phone on my ear calling my mom. I walked inside as she walked outside, hearing a weeping scream that I haven't heard from her since I am alive. While walking inside I noticed my backpack was wet on the bottom, my 2 litre water jug shattered when my backpack hit the dashboard. I tried to stay calm and act rational, knowing that every second counts when It comes to water damage. I hastely searched for some rice and a bag to put my laptop into, stuffed the bag with both and went outside. The car was totaled, my mom pissed and crying. And I was in shock, sad, angry and hurting.

I kept the laptop on my heater for a few days, bagged in rice. I dared to try a boot after a while and you wont believe me, it fucking booted. Even the keyboard backlight worked, just the screen was obviously broken in the back (no color distortion or bad pixel rows though!!) and the aluminum shell had a dent on the front. I talked with Dell Support a few days later, asking if it would be ok to open the XPS up so I could drain all of the water. She said yes thats fine, as long as I dont touch anything or screw around with it.

She said I can send it in and get it checked, but the pickup and analysis will cost 150$ and I can go from there.

I sent it in and estimated that, because battery, screen and other things probably needed changing, it will be around 900$.

Got a call a few weeks later:

"Hello beggarboy, the repair team reported back to us and said that they will have to replace everything, which will be 1700$."

"Fuck... Buying a new one is cheaper.."

"Yeah I know I am sorry about that, I can offer you a voucher so you can buy a new one for 250$ off if you would prefer that"

"Sorry but I will need some time to consider"

"I understand."

The agent clearly noticed I was bummed about it.

After going back and forth what to do I got another call a few days later.

"Hello beggarboy, we talked a few days ago. I have good news"

"Hello, yes, speak up?"

"I was able to get a special offer for you after putting in a few words..."

The next thing she said seemed unreal to me.

She was able to cut 600$ (!!!), making the new offer 1100$, instead of 1700$ or a new one for 1500$. I figured the reason she probably did that was because I am always very polite with support members. Always.

My XPS is back and healty again.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Dells XPS are made of magic.

So I tell my coworker how ticking noises of clocks can annoy me really bad. It is an OCD thing where I will not notice a clock, then I notice the ticking and it annoys the hell out of me.

He leaves the room after a while after turning on a fucking youtube video with 11 hours of ticking clock.

I am like, "You fucker..."

Then another guy we work with comes into the office and pretends like he is wondering what the ticking noise is.

I said, "Yeah right, he sent you in here to ask about didn't he?!" He was like "maybe..."

Anyway, that must mean I am part of the team now. They are screwing with me. All in good fun.

I gotta say, I actually admire the work that content creators must go thru to make quality content.

So as I stated before I’m working on YouTube channel, under the name “TheSoftwareSage” ... to create tutorials and a way of me teaching software the way I believe it should be taught, not how the mainstream methods of today are.

Bottom up approach rather than top down

(Must start with a firm understanding of the foundation.. and build upon the knowledge as we go thru the layers of abstraction but the key concepts must be understood first)

Anyway, I’m working on this in my spare time and I was not aware of how much effort I would actually need todo this right haha. At first I figured I’d just screencast a monitor and have a ppt or text editor or terminal open and that stuff and just do it.

As In person with my interns I never have “planned” lessons or content is all impromptu based on the need at the time and I just go with it, with their computers and a whiteboard lol.

I was wrong for video recording lol... maybe it’s OCD... or perfectionism, I’ll make a video, review it like 5times and then be like shit I forgot to mention this or that or I didn’t like how I explained this or that
OR
I keep worrying too much about colors, and sound levels and quality and transitions and video angles and all this other shit.
And then post editing fuck.... I’m about ready to say fuck it and “do it live .. one shot” and just upload the end result.

I guess this would be in the content world similar to our “paralysis analysis” notion.

Maybe I've spent too much time around marketers or maybe it's just my OCD... but for the love of God people, when referencing the app we all use and love can we not at least use the proper case?

It's devRant. Not DevRant. 😑