The People

The people were beyond memorable. We will never forget any of them. Here is a quick synopsis:

Dr. Olga: Doctor on the floor of the baby home that Dima lived in from birth to age 14 months. Smart, savvy woman who (we believe) kept our son alive for us. The conditions were horrible and her supplies unreliable. She was a modern-day miracle worker.

Dr. Sergei: Head Doctor of the Baby Home #2. He looked like a Russian Brian Denehey, only shorter. When our liason informed us that he'd prefer a bottle of scotch whiskey to a shirt, I inherited a beautiful striped Polo shirt. Donna was fairly convinced it wouldn't fit him anyway (too many gifts of scotch, perhaps?!?) Another sharp operator. We brought a Western-trained, Russian/English speaking doctor with us to examine the child before we accepted. He didn't reveal until an hour into the interview that he spoke fluent English. He wanted to be sure the "rent-a-doc" was telling us the factual information about our potential son.

Alexander, the Driver: How did "Sasha" become a nickname for Alex? I've got an Aunt Barbara they call "Pee Gee" and a President who calls his chief advisor "Turd Blossom", so I shouldn't be casting aspersions. A nice man who didn't seem at all troubled by his boring job.

Helen, the Translator: Helen is actually the daughter of our "liason" in Perm, Lana (see below). We never determined her exact age, but he was young (college-aged) and very atuned to the fact that she lived in a big-small town. She tried her best to make us comfortable, playing Frank Sinatra in the car, for example and telling us about the upcoming Madonna concert in Moscow. I advised her that Frankie is from our home state. Then I asked if she knew Bruce Springsteen. She hadn't heard of him. When, a few hours later, a Springsteen song came on the radio (albeit covered by someone else), I got excited and said "listen...THIS is a Bruce Springsteen song!" Helen didn't understand my excitement and she said, quite cautiously, "Is this man, Springsteen, a friend of yours?" Guess you have to be from Jersey.

Sergei, Husband of our Liason, ex-KGB, Professor at Perm University: Sergei didn't speak a word of English, but opened up his home to us. We had vegetables from his garden, shared a bottle of Champagned to celebrate our new son's imminent arrival and shared stories from the Cold War (through his exhausted wife). He told a wonderful story about serving in the KGB, having to monitor the movements of two Norwegian military officers visiting Russia. When the two officers got drunk and one wound up on a barge headed north, the other in a brothel, Sergei's KGB career came to an abrupt end. He is very bright, very warm and very Russian. He sang to us after dinner (I tried to accompany him on their upright piano, but it hadn't been tuned since Krushchev went on permanent holiday in Crimea). He asked us to come back and visit, and I believe he was sincere. I owe him a return visit and the ability to tell him how I feel about him (and his family) in Russian.

Lana: Our coordinator, the head of language studies at the University at Perm and one of our favorite people in the world! She certainly got paid more for doing adoption assistance than she does at the university, but she definitely has the interests of the children first. She is a quintessential Russian woman: a giant heart and a tough, 'help me or get out of my way' exterior. She has a self-effacing sense of humour that caused us to like her quickly (she's quite large and she said her husband believes that "only large women are good women"). Her husband, Sergei (see above) said that "Russia is the world's heart". If that's true, then it's because of people like Lana. I can't wait for the day when our son is old enough to understand what she did for him (and for us) and take him to Perm to meet her.

Custody Date

It's Friday, “Custody Day”. Very strange to be giving birth this way, so to speak. We wake up in the morning with two children and, after lunch, we'll have three. Andre has no idea what's in store for him -- he's already been given a different name, now he's goint to leave the only home and the only care-givers he's ever known. Hope he likes us well enough to do this!

Lana is wearing her long, flowered dress. It's her "I mean business" dress. Sadly, it was also her "Let's party like it's 1999" dress; her "I'm an educator" dress; her "travel" dress; her "casual Friday" dress; and her "Ask me about Amway" dress. We'd seen this one before...LOTs before. She does mean business, though. She's bursting through doors like a gurney on the way to the operating room. We're thankful we're not on the wrong side of those flying doors.

Our first stop is the Perm Courthouse to get his Original Birth Certificate and Four Copies of the Court Decree. We're there before the courthouse is open for business, so I decide to snap a few shots. The next thing I know, an older Russian man is yelling at me in Russian. Unfortunately, I have chosen to get my cultural understanding of Russians from less than authoritative sources -- namely, The Simpsons. There was an episode in which Lisa becomes lost in the Russian District of Springfield. She encounters some Russian men playing chess. They realize she is lost, so they give her directions to get home, but in the Russian communication style (loud, flailing arms) which frightens Lisa. I assumed this man was one of those helpful Russian chess players. This was a serious mistake. He was a judge from the courthouse who wanted to understand why an American was outside taking pictures of a government building. Now I don't look at all like a terrorist or a spy, but this guy lived through the Cold War. It's fairly understandable that he would be at least a little suspicious of me. The only reason I'm not deported immediately is Lana. Not just that she knew the judge, but apparently he has the hots for her. This works in my favor, so I have nothing further to say on the matter.

Now we deal with the bureaucracy at its worst. Picture your local Department of Motor Vehicles...on a day when their airconditioners and fans aren't working...and their toilets are all backing up. This is not going to be pleasant. Lana explains that the woman at the front entrance will keep us waiting so that we know who's boss (hint: it's not any of us). Lana explains that to get what you need from the bureaucracy, you have to humble yourself or, as she so beautifully put it: "I am ready not to be important. "

We get the docs we need and Lana reads the Court Decree aloud twice. Now she's hit her stride and the full agenda kicks in. It looks like this (quite literally):

9:00-9:08, Original Birth Certificate and Four Copies of Court Decree, Courthouse, Perm
9:13-9:18, Adoption Certificate (with our names) from Leninsky District
9:36-9:44, Birth Certificate with our names as parents
10:02-10:13, Apostilles (including time for Lana to sneak in a well-deserved smoke)
10:17-10:19, Photo copies (at the Ural Hotel)
10:27-10:47, Andre’s Russian passport

In the middle of all of this planned madness, Donna frowns and scolds me: “You didn’t bring up the highchair from the basement”. I try to explain to Lana that Donna doesn’t understand the concept of compartmentalization – focusing on the task at hand and deferring other items until the appropriate time.
Lana: “Donna, now I am thinking only of birth certificate. Then I am only thinking of apostilles. Then I am only thinking of the child’s passport. Then I am only thinking about your flight tomorrow. Donna, live in Russia in my house for two weeks…Sergei will cook, you will be cured.”

We finish Commrade Toad's Wild Ride, then stop for lunch and a rest. Later in the afternoon, Lana returns to take us to Baby Home #2 for the last time. We bring gifts for Andre's first "family" -- perfume for the ladies; a bottle of Macallan 12-year-old for Dr. Sergei. We sit down on the couch where we usually played with Andre and started the normal "look, we're funny, please like us" routine. After a few minutes, Lana exclaims "Don't you people want to leave this place? You don't have to stay anymore! He's your son now!" Holy sh#*, she's right. We can go. We have a son and he's going to go home with us. We have a son.

Court Date

The Dream
It's Sunday night, September 3rd. Court is tomorrow (the only "real" hurdle left). We've been in Perm since Wednesday, August 30th. We've completed our ten visits with our soon-to-be son (five on the previous trip, five this one). Nothing left but the legal formalities -- well, and my wife's anxiety. She is relieved to find out that the judge is a misogynist. He doesn't want to hear from her, so I will do nearly all of the speaking. This works for both of us -- Donna gets nervous in these situations and I love the sound of my own voice. It transfers her anxiety, however, from having to speak in a foreign court to worrying that I will blow it. Not that she thinks I am incapable of saying what needs to be said...it's that perpetual worry that I will say too much. More specifically, humor doesn't translate well across languages. I understand this problem. In much the same way I understand the value of flossing, I choose to ignore this practice. My wife knows this all too well (both the flossing part and my constant abuse of humor in serious situations). I confirm these fears, as I usually do, by asking our coordinator if I can ask the judge to dismiss a parking summons I received on our last visit. This goes over as well as the t-shirts I tried to distribute as gifts (see the logo from the shirts below).

Perhaps my wife is on to something about me...

So, the dream: It's Sunday night and I'm not sleeping. This time, it's not the ever-present official bird of the foothills of the Urals, The Mosquito -- we're at the hotel with air conditioning (ignore the fact that it's 8 celsius at night -- we're Americans...we INSIST on air conditioning at all times...unconditioned air is...well...unAmerican!) It's also not the bizarre roar of a Bengal tiger we swore we heard the first couple of nights from our hotel room in the Industrial District, Perm City. Felt like an episode of Lost. Gave our coordinator a good laugh, too, when we asked what it could be -- she explained that our hotel is across the street from a zoo. Never occurred to the dumb Americans. We caught Lana giggling several times, muttering to herself 'ti-gre'.

I'm not sleeping because of the ever-present fear that something new can go wrong. So it manifests itself in me this way: Aeroflot flight 316 is descending, but we are targeting a US aircraft carrier. My wife and I are on the plane, trying to go get our son, but we're obviously getting caught up in the middle of some geopolitical mess. Are the Russians the ones who are upset (hey, I voted for Kerry...and Gore...really........I've got bumper stickers.........and all of the people in my town hate me................) Maybe the Americans are causing this (politics stop at the water's edge...Dubya's my commander in chief.......I didn't bring my car, who here will know that I voted 'blue'.............) The Aeroflot crew politely put on CNN to explain why we’re not permitted on Russian soil. Anderson Cooper is even less comforting in this dream than he must've been to the people of New Orleans with his photo-op charity. The laws of physics and engineering I'm breaking by having a 767 land on an aircraft carrier...1000 miles from the nearest ocean...are doing nothing to interrupt this nerve-fest. A Ural Hotel mosquito would actually be quite welcomed at this point. I wake up on the USS Mattress to find I am on Russian soil; Anderson Cooper is no where to be found; and my wife is as sympathetic as the bedframe is when you stub your toe. My nerves are out-of-touch with reality...it's court day and everything is in order. For now...

Court Date
I am confident, not only because I have performed on stages larger than the family courtroom in the Industrial District, Perm City, but because I have prepared and been prepared. Olga (our excellent, waif-like translator) has outlined for me what I must say and what I will put into my own words. There is little wiggle-room here, so my wife is very comforted (and smug...smarmy little thing that she is). I must say certain phrases in a certain order. I write them down and rehearse them like I'm studying lines for Godot. The only risk I run here is slipping into a different speech (mine starts with "I am Glenn Michael Thompson, born in Trenton New Jersey, United States. I live in Mendham, New Jersey in a single-family home...") The speech I'm in danger of delivering? "I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion und a yacht."

I stand in the hall warming up with singing exercises. It loosens my throat and vocal chords but it also takes my mind off the Soviet-era block walls. It's easy to get lost in a USSR moment. Olga gets more nervous because the singing makes her think I'm nervous (or maybe my voice just grates on her nerves, but she's too polite to say this).

The Documents
Court consists largely of the judge reading into the record all of the documents we've prepared to prove we are worthy of parenting this son. In our case we thought it would be easy as we have two girls already. They may be emotional wrecks (Deidre, the 5-year-old, cries when the wind shifts directions...Alaina, the 2-year-old, makes Camille look like a stiff) but they look perfectly normal to outsiders. We assumed this would make for relatively smooth sailing, legally speaking. As the judge looked at page after page of photocopies with notary stamps and apostilles, we got lulled nearly to sleep. It didn't help that the room was not airconditioned (the Hotel Ural helped prep us for this nicely, though) and that the judge is a low-talker. We needed sub-titles that just weren't available, so we had to sit perfectly still. Scratching your arm would be enough to drown out a full sentence from this man -- breathing became something of a luxury. The only page that the judge spent more than dva seconds on was the description and picture of my car, a 2003 Toyota Prius. When I asked the coordinator why he paused on that particular item, she said "He is man. In the future, I ask all couples to bring pictures of cars to keep judges' mind off questions of the Prosecutor."


The Disaster
So we're snoozing but cruising. I can already taste the victory vodka I have planned for this evening. It will all be over but the waiting...until...he asks to see the roster of Russian families. Each child is supposed to be presented to at least three Russian families for domestic adoption before being placed on the registry for International placement. The social worker presents the looseleaf notebook that passes for the official docket of families and orphans in the Region of Perm. It is full of blank spaces -- families who don't appear to have seen any children; children who were never presented to any Russians; etc. He ERUPTS! The low-talker has found his voice and it appears to have come at a bad time for us. The tirade is apparently directed at the social worker -- it is her job to keep this book updated -- but we can't tell what he's saying. Not because we don't speak Russian, but because our translator is catatonic with fear. She is staring at the floor and ignoring my persistent requests to find out if this has anything to do with our case. The lovely Olga has become as useful to us as a solar panel to a Texan. The judge storms out of the courtroom. We have a flight to the States in 19 hours and we don't know if we should stay, go, pray or bang our shoe on the table top.

The Idiot

We're all in the hall now. Our coordinator, our translator and the social worker. Apparently, Judge Low Talker has decided that this case cannot go forward because he has no idea if Dima (or any other child on the registry, for that matter) has been presented to three Russian families in accordance with their law. While 1% of me is happy to see the rule of law actively at work here, the other 99% is pure rage. The kind that could fool me into thinking that I could punch a hole in the cinder block wall of the Perm courthouse -- a stupidity-induced broken hand would go nicely with this quandry. So, speaking of stupidity, the coordinator is grilling the social worker to find out what happened and what she's going to do about it. The social worker is young and, as we're now finding out, clueless. We don't speak Russian, but deer-in-the-headlights is a universally translatable look.

The coordinator is as upset as we are -- she knows what this means to Dima. Yet another deferred "freedom" date. In an attempt to share our outrage, she explains that the social worker did not do her job and is now not prepared to fix her mistake. In explaining, she utters what is probably one of the most memorable lines of the entire process:

"She is so stupid, she's probably adopted."

She is so stupid, she is probably adopted. I realize the double layer of irony is self-evident, but I need to spell it out, if only for sport. We're in the middle of an adoption process -- one that requires us to explain to the judge why we believe we can love our adoptive son as if he were our own; as if he were equal to our biological daughters. The author of this quote helped us craft our speech to the judge. More importantly, she knows that I am adopted -- we have represented this over and over as a primary motivator for wanting to adopt in the first place. Ah, the truth serum that is anger.

здесь приходит судья

The Judge and Prosecutor return (I've taken to capitalizing their titles because they've taken on much more importance in our lives than I'd expected). They are laughing with one another -- perhaps because they have the stupid Americans over a barrel? No, it seems more like he's strangely attracted to her 1959 Baltimore haircut. It looks quite sassy juxtaposed against her military uniform.

We file back in and put on a hangdog look that would make them feel guilt if they weren't still interested in terrorizing the social worker (can you blame them?)

The Judge begins a 10 minute diatribe. Olga, our translator, had been giving us a sentence-by-sentence captioning of the events. Now she stands silent, as if speaking or exhaling could change the course of events. My wife, paean of positive posturing that she is, is looking at me with an increasingly pained look...a look that says "Put on the Closed Captions, I can't follow the dialog". Olga waits until the end to explain what the Judge has said -- she starts from the beginning

"When, in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds..."

Are you kidding me?!? Did he rule in our favor or not? She continues

"...one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood..."

Where is this going?!?

"...what happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? Ooh, we're afraid to go with you, Bluto. We might get into trouble. Well from now on you can all kiss my"

Stop! Olga, do we get our son or not?

Da.

In Russia, they need to learn about leading with the headline, but it's no matter. We're ecstatic. Our rollercoaster ride is going to end with smiles on our faces. Even Judge Low Talker smiles at us! And, in English, tells us 'Congratulations and good luck'. Sweet justice, sweet words.

It's Only Money

Yes, indeed. It's only money. And sex is just a way to kill time on a Saturday night. We have gone through all manor of acquiring children:

• Deidre just "happened" (the only thing interesting about this conception was the way my wife told me -- I had an appointment to go to the doctor's with a sperm sample in hand...well, in cup. We were in that risky demographic for parent-wannabes: over 35 -- Donna handed me the as-yet unused cup and said "you don't need to do this now". Romantic, eh?)
• Alaina was IVF try number 3. It took two years, one miscarriage and two failed IVF tries. Oh, and $15,000 out of pocket.
• Andre took 22 months and over $40,000.

Or, put differently:

Conceiving Deidre for free after 7 months of trying? $0

Conceiving Alaina after three IVF courses, $15,000

Buying Andre from a currency-starved foreign country, Priceless.

Here is a breakdown of the adoption expenses...note: if you are financially faint-of-heart (or faint of wallet, as it were), read no further!

Agency Fee: $4,000 (World Child International)

Baby Home "Donation": $14,000

Notaries and Apostilles: $2,450

Doctors' Appointments (not covered by insurance): $1,600

Air Travel (three trips from NY to Perm, Russia): $11,000

Hotel (14 nights in Perm, 2 in Moscow): $2,150

Food and Booze: $1,600

Gifts: $300

Drivers: $700

Immigration Fees (US and Russia): $3,200

ouch

First Visit to Russia

Ever been floated on top of a mosh pit? Neither have I, but you could imagine the sensation: a complete lack of control, but undeniable trust in the people below you -- despite the fact that they have a combined BAC of .20 and have consumed enough pharmaceuticals to satisfy the demand of an AARP bus trip to Canada. That is the sensation of going to the interior of Russia for the first time...without any of the trust.

We were headed for Perm, an industrial city of about a million people -- 990,000 of whom had never encountered a foreigner. This place grew to be a military industrial powerhouse during World War II. Stalin needed a location to build weaponry that was out of reach of the Luftwaffe. Perm was already an industrial city, having been founded as a mining city during the reign of Peter The Great. The number of weapons required to beat Hitler into submission caused the area to grow exponentially. It is a potentially nice location -- in the Ural Mountains (hills, really...'Urals' is to 'mountainous' as 'Tom Cruise' is to 'hetero'), on the Kama river (Kama is obviously Russian for 'drinking spot'...come to think of it, all words in Russian can have dual meanings, one of which is always 'drinking spot').

Evil, thy name is Orbitz.

So this thing is already expensive (see It's Only Money post). We get only 10 days notice that we have to be in Russia. That means we're paying full fare for travel at a time when the price of a barrel of oil is approaching 80 trillion dollars (thank you, Dubya!) and it's high season in Russia. No, not that people are traveling to Perm...believe me, no one goes there because they want to. I said it was "high" season...trust me, these people are all stoned. So I'm searching the Internets for a fare that won't cause me to send my wife back out on the streets (Note: this is a joke...I wouldn't send my wife out to prostitute herself to fund the adoption. She's too old to land the Johns with real money now.) Orbitz comes up with the best fare -- $2800 for two of us, round trip from JFK to Perm. Expensive, but not earthshattering. When I get to the screen with the credit card information, I get a "system error...please click 'Purchase' again". Wanna guess what THAT does? Anyone? Bueller? It hits my creditcard for another $2800. The bank declines it. It takes me 30 minutes to get them (Orbitz) to call MBNA and explain that there are erroneous charges and they should come off. Once I finish this, I decide to have the rep on the phone help with the reservation (so as to not get that pesky system error message again...I'm in technology, but I only like dishing 'em out). The agent tells me it's a good idea because they've "been having systems issues all day". Once he gets the route booked, he quotes me $5100. Fifty one hundred simoleans! What happened to my $2800 fare? "No fares are guaranteed until booked, sir." I get that, but your system had an error, not mine. "No fares are guaranteed until booked, sir." This guy's good. Stays on message like a Republican Rove-bot. "I want you to honor the fare I had earlier...I have a screen print". "I'm sure you do, sir (uh, oh, he's heating up) but I can't honor that...and marriage is between a man and a woman" (alright, he probably didn't say that, but I'm glazing over at this point). I asked for the supervisor and I let her have it. "Wendy." My wife realized the futility of what I was doing, but I explained it thusly: I was so angry at Orbitz that I wanted Wendy to go home and have to drink to get over Angry Customer Muldoon and subsequently have a headache the next morning. That was all I could extract from Orbitz at this point, but it would be a form of justice, nonetheless.

What we have here is a failure to communicate!

It began on the plane in New York. Aeroflot was our only choice after Orbitz tried to rob me...and kidnap my pet bunny..


A Russian lady across the aisle from us had a small packet on her tray. My wife starts stewing: "they're not giving us nuts because we're not Russian". I hardly think that's the case, but she's certain. We're off to a bad start. Next the stewardess comes by and says "coffee, tea, milk, lemon". "I have no idea what she's saying...how are we going to do this? We'll have to have a translator with us 24-hours a day!" Honey, she's speaking English. Oh. Well, in my wife's defense, she doesn't do well with accents. We have to watch Benny Hill with closed captioning on. Really.

We land in Moscow and a smiling gentleman is there to greet us with a sign that says "Thompson". This is good. Jetlagged or not, we're likely to recognize our name. But seriously, my wife half expected to see this: Thompson. (this is what she thinks Cyrillic characters look like). The only problem with the smiling gentleman is that he was supposed to be a smiling lady. And the smiling. You know this move, particularly if you're American. You don't speak the language of the people you must communicate with, so you smile. It's a facial contortion that says "you're too stupid to learn the language of the country you're trying to navigate so now you're under my complete and total control...I should make you suck your thumb while I make your wife take off her top".

Russian Adoption Journal

The Quest for Andre
This all started in 1975 when I was 13 years old sitting with my father at a Phillies game. No, really. I was very close to my parents, but knew there were at least some differences from our family to others. My mother had no "birth" stories. There were no complaints about my size (she's "four feet, ten and three quarters inches tall"...anyone who feels a compulsion to include that 3/4 inch is reaching, quite literally); no time-of-birth recollection; no reminisces about where President Kennedy was when I shot out. And all of those comments about how much I looked like my father seemed as obligatory as the "are you losing weight?" platitude my mother's friends passed around like a big fatty. He has a chiseled face that is Mount Rushmore-worthy and I looked like Little Ricky Ricardo with the mumps.

So I figured it out -- Dave Cash was leading off, Jon Matlack was about to get him to ground out, the Philadelphia horde was poised to boo the best infielder they'd had since Granny Hamner and I was having a revelation:

I was adopted.

So what? I felt quite "normal", even though I was geekier than most of my friends (reading the World Book encyclopedia for recreation, then using the volumes to build an Egyptian tomb will earn you this label). My parents loved me. I had a lot of first cousins (36 at the time), many of whom I felt very close to. So what did it matter that I arrived in this family differently than others arrived in theirs?

For one thing, no one ever talked about it. My first theory would have to wait -- Bowa walked and now Michael Jack Schmidt was up with a man on base...double play. As soon as the leather-lung next to me stopped threatening the future hall-of-famer, I'd surmised that they were protecting my birth mother (my family, not the Phillies). Maybe she was ashamed. After all, look what she gave up! I read encyclopedias, dammit! Now I was getting angry. Would I have read encyclopediae if she'd kept me...how would I have come to know Eero Saarinen, whose architectural accomplishments meant nothing to me, but whose first name would come to be invaluable in completing the New York Times Crossword puzzle...or, worse, what would've happened had I wound up in an orphanage? I didn't really understand the possibilities at all, but clearly something bad could've been in the works for me. I had new respect for my adoptive parents (a phrase I wouldn't come to know for another two decades -- throughout the '70s and '80s, they were my real parents). I was chosen and given a good life, unlike some of my friends who fell into theirs by genetic sfortunato. I would respect their decision to keep the facts silent, no matter how odd it seemed to me.

This lead to an inevitable wave of guilt (I was raised Catholic, after all...the group that taught you to do an act of contrition if you found a nickel on the sidewalk -- there are children starving in Biafra, after all). I was on the plus-side of the ledger. Actually, that's an anachronism -- I wouldn't be exposed to the mind-numbing cruelty of accounting until 1977. I probably thought of myself as batting .400. I would make it my life's goal to use all of those hits to drive in some runs for someone else. I didn't know how yet -- adoption into my own family seemed a bit distant since I hadn't yet hit my stride with women (editor's note: the author is hoping for that occurrence before the Democrats win their next national election...Vegas odds are favoring the Dems) and the combination of the Massachusetts State Supreme Court and some non-threatening sitcom characters made adoption by single (read: gay) parents fashionable were 30 years off -- but I would do something beneficial for orphans.

Dell Disasters

Anyone as disappointed as I am in the decline in service provided by Dell? There were always horror stories, but they have done huge volume so this is to be expected. But, in an obvious attempt to wring cost out of their support systems, they have placed the onus for service on the buyer. Here is a personal account of one small example that seems to be indicative of larger concerns that company should have for its brand:

I am attempting to purchase a new tower computer for my daughter. I configured the machine online, got a good price and went off to the races. When I mentioned the configuration to my wife, she suggested I have the Linksys Wireless G card factory installed so that, when it arrives, we can get it up and running with less fuss (and fewer complaints from our impatient six-year-old). I agreed this made sense, so I attempted to contact Dell. The website said that I had the opportunity to change/augment the order as long as the machine was in the "build" stage (which it was).

Step 1: I tried to augment the order online. This seemed to be in line with their instructions (if you ordered by phone, call; if you ordered online, update online), but, I landed in the wrong channel. The site prompted me for the type of machine I selected, so I chose Home/Home Office (it is an E510). My order number was not found, however, even though it was accepted and I received the confirmation e-mail.

Step 2: I called the number on the confirm e-mail. All it would provide me was order status ("in the build stage" -- it even asked me to write that down...a little insulting). When it asked if I wanted to check another order and I answered 'no', it hung up on me. No option to speak to anyone.

Step 3: I called the main Dell sales number. They also couldn't find my order number, but at least asked if I was receiving a corporate discount (like many companies, mine has negotiated an employee discount for purchasing Dell products online). That put me in the Business channel, even though I was purchasing a Home system. The courteous representative gave me the number and wished me good luck (little did I know at the time that he was being ironic). The department I then connected to was closed (it was 7PM Eastern time in the US).

Step 4: I e-mailed the link provided in the confirmation message. I received an automated response quickly that they received it and then another in an hour or so that read my text and determined that I wanted to change my order (correct!) The instructions, maddeningly, referred me back to my Step 1. This is when my attitude began to deteriorate.

Here is my first exasperated e-mail to them:
PLEASE help me! I am simply attempting to correct an order I placed on-line (see details below). I ordered a desktop computer, but neglected to add an
upgrade for a Linksys Wireless G network interface card. I have called several numbers and have been told I need to speak to a different department (who is always closed) or that I have called the wrong division. I have also attempted to use the online links provided to no avail. This is quite frustrating. I am actually attempting to spend more money with you and I keep ending up in blocked corridors of service. You should not expect your customers to be experts in navigating your labyrinthine service channels.

Please assist me, or I will consider canceling this order and going to one of your competitors.

I received a heartfelt response that sent me back into the maze (see the following):

Dear Mr. XXXXXXXX:

Thank you for contacting Dell's Online Customer Service for our Employee Purchase Program customers.

I understand that you would like to add Linksys Wireless G network interface card to your order. Please accept my apologies for the difficulties encountered when attempting to resolve your issue. I assure you that your situation is not indicative of the quality service Dell is capable of providing. I am truly sorry that we were not able to provide an experience that was completely satisfactory to you.

Unfortunately, Customer Care does not have access to pricing or detailed product information. Dell Customer Care takes care of post purchase logistics and other customer satisfaction issues.

Please contact our Software and Peripheral department for better assistance with this issue, they will be more than happy to assist you with your request.

You may call them at:

1-800-449-3355 ext 72-40168

A representative will gladly assist you in placing an order for the Card suiting your needs. Moreover, they shall also be able to provide comprehensive assistance with payment options, ongoing promotions, and any discount structures available in the segment.

You may monitor the progress of your order online using your Dell order number and customer number at:

www.dellcustomercare.com/orderstatus

As soon as you get a notification that your order has shipped, the shipper name and tracking number will be listed in the order status page. Please contact the shipper at that point of time and schedule the delivery as per your convenience.

Mr. Thompson, I apologize that I am not able to assist you with this issue directly.

You may receive a survey requesting your feedback on your Dell experience. Please take a moment of your time to complete this survey and provide us feedback on how we deliver to your customer needs.

Thank you for choosing Dell.

Respectfully,

KC_Pramod
Customer Care Specialist
ABU Customer eCare
Dell Inc.

Anyone want to guess how I'm going to respond to that survey?!?

Dell needs to wake up to the fact that the hardware and software they can provide are commodities and that the only way they can differentiate themselves is with service. In this case, they have CLEARLY stood apart from their competitors...at the bottom of the list.