Today, I share a true story of woe. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

Once upon a time, in the land of clicking and clacking keyboards, a business owner lived whose life was turned upside down by mischievous tech gremlins. This email isn’t your typical ghost story; it’s a tale that would make even the most seasoned IT professional’s circuits short.

The Phantom of the Operating System. Our protagonist returns from a windy adventure in Chicago, only to find their trusty Dell laptop has taken a nosedive into the abyss of the Blue Screen of Death. Attempts to revive the fallen Windows 11 were futile, leaving our hero in digital despair. “Curse you, tech gremlins!” they cried, shaking a fist at the uncaring silicon gods.

The Desktop of Dreams. Determined to outwit the gremlins, our savvy entrepreneur invested in a shiny new Dell Precision 3660. It was a beacon of hope, a fortress against downtime, and a dream of triple-monitored productivity. For a fleeting moment, all was well in the realm of bytes and bits.

The Gremlins Strike Back. But alas, the gremlins were not done yet. Upon returning from another Chicagoan quest, the desktop, barely 40 days old, began a light show of its own. Monitors flickered, sounds bellowed, and the mouse… seemed to have joined a rodent union and went on strike. “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” our hero muttered, restarting the computer only to find the computer stuck in an endless loop of despair.

The Motherboard Mirage. A call to Dell summoned a valiant technician, Jerry, who battled the gremlins with a screwdriver in hand. Yet, despite his efforts, the motherboard replacement was a mirage in the desert of malfunction.

The Memory Module Mayhem. The plot thickened as the gremlins laughed at the sight of memory modules being swapped like cards in a magician’s trick. The computer, stubborn as a mule, continued its cryptic signal of 4 white and 2 red blinks. “What sorcery is this?” our hero pondered.

The Quest for the Elusive Memory. In a twist of fate, the required DDR5 32GB memory sticks at 4400 MHz were as elusive as a unicorn in a field of horses. The gremlins had played their hand well, leaving our protagonist to wonder if the Dell Precision 3660 was nothing more than a myth.

The Hard Drive Hardball. As our story ends, the business owner stands firm, demanding a refund or a hard drive swap. But Dell, the mighty tech giant, plays hardball, leaving our hero to wipe the drive clean of data, protecting their clients from the gremlins’ prying eyes.

And so, dear readers, we leave our business owner pondering the lessons learned with a glimmer of hope that the breakthrough will come one day. Until then, they silently pray that their laptop remains free of the gremlins’ curse.

Is it the end… or is it just the beginning?

Humor aside, it has been a frustrating technological ordeal. It is incredibly disappointing when the tools we rely on for our livelihoods fail us. I hope that my next email to you provides a satisfactory resolution.

I have been living this journey for the past seven weeks. Remember, every haunted tale eventually leads to a dawn where the gremlins retreat.

To a better tomorrow.

Lisa Olinda

Olinda Services, Chief Chaos Whisperer