I’m having a bad IT day! Its bad because, since I installed Adobe Reader 7.1.1, every time I open a PDF file my computer hangs, It might be a coincidence of course, but its particularly bad because the people who I think are responsible and who are certainly the only people who know for sure are in denial.
I have spent more hours that I can’t afford trying to get hold of customer support at Adobe. They have the tab on their web site, but it leads to a treadmill of links that just keep you going round in a circle and getting absolutely nowhere.
It can’t be that they have gotten their navigation a bit wrong by mistake – they are programming experts for Christ’s sake! – This happens for one simple reason. They clearly don’t want to know.
I suppose if they admitted that Reader had a flaw they’d be in trouble and I guess they don’t know how to fix it so the best thing (they think) is to pretend I am imagining it. Their strategy is to get me into this loop and keep me there until I give up and go away.
Adobe are not alone in adopting this strategy of course, there are many businesses out there doing the same thing, but is sucks. Thirty minutes ago I felt it sucks because I needed them a) to admit that their programme has a glitch – there are enough people writing posts on the Internet about the same thing to reassure me that I am not alone in this assumption (Google “Adobe Acrobat hangs computers” and you get 53,500 entries) – and b) to fix it!
Now though I’m over it. Why? Because Adobe are no longer a feature of my life. I’ve taken out every Adobe file that I can find in my computer and I’m in the process of replacing them with perfectly good alternatives. Here’s the one for Reader and its FREE! and my computer is working fine!
I was writing elsewhere yesterday that its possibe to turn problems like this into positives – like Hoover did with their Air Miles screw up – and you don’t even always need to call in the PR disaster recovery squad. However, you first have to recognise that you have a problem! If you don’t, of course, it will, eventually … bite you on the arse!
Michael Weaver
January 29, 2008