I am currently waiting for a return phone call from the shipping company to tell me if Dell has faxed them an approval letter to ship my notebook to the correct address - the same address they picked it up from! I was supposed to have this machine days ago, but now am being told it might be a few more days!

I could go on and on about all the continued nightmare with Dell over the last few years, climaxing with them lying to me on the phone today, but I just don’t have the energy at the moment.

I am just wishing that my mom wasn’t still paying for junk computers, or that Dell would make things right.

But they never will.

1. Jeff’s mom taught him not to lie
2. Jeff wonders why the Dell announcement is so important, and then writes a lot about it.
3. Comments in his blog, written by other people I don’t know, say he has criticised Dell in the past
4. he looks forward to linking to Michael Dell when the Dell corporate blogs DO appear.
5. Jeff heard the Dell corporate line in the press conference call, but he asked some tough questions.
6. He followed up on those questions by digging up some more facts on the story.

In a lot of ways, you’re right—the basics are pretty easy in theory. Be transparent. Tell the truth. Discuss negative topics in a meaningful way. Admit your mistakes, and learn from them publicly. For companies of any size, some of these things don’t come naturally. In practice, it becomes even more difficult when there’s a legion of folks ready to dissect and potentially criticize every word.

Are these new standards a change for the better? Yes, they are. Is it a good thing for consumers that more companies and their employees want to proceed down this path? Of course. If we want more of our employees to enter more conversations, we want them to do it the right way. Because some of those basics don’t come naturally, an education process has to take place. These guidelines serve as part of that process.

Sincerely,

Lionel Menchaca
Digital Media Manager, Direct2Dell

How did that make you feel? Did it increase or decrease your faith in their “we’ll be ethical now” message?

It’s one thing to “lie” about a laptop, but quite another to lie about everything else under the sun.

Oops. I forgot the NYT lies about solar warming as well.