I've now moved into the company dorm at Sony. Fortunately, I lucked out and got a room in the newer dorms and have a fairly spacious room. The rent I pay is $160/mo for the room plus $20/mo for the water and electricity is metered, so I expect to be paying about $220/month in total.
The starting salary for new grads in Japan is quite low where most people make approximately $30k/year. I hear, though, that salaries rapidly increase over several years to be on par with salaries in developed countries. I will be looking to see how things turn out on the financial end.
Laptop Woes:
It has been over a month since my ACER laptop has broken down. With the warranty being 1 year out of date, I am now running on the extended warranty I purchased. Customer support without the original warranty is terrible.
I have so far sent my laptop for repairs at the original store (Yodobashi), with them estimating a 3 week turn around for the laptop and that repair costs up to $850 will be covered. I know that my laptop has a motherboard problem and the last time I checked was that repairs was in the $600-$700 range. After 3 weeks of waiting, they finally quoted me with a repair bill of $1200 and that I would have to cover the additional $350 extra over the $850 coverage.
This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit.
I went to great lengths to figure out what company they sent my laptop to and requested that they give me the contact number so I can figure out why the repairs cost so much. Yodobashi refused my request and told me that they would relay my message to them and they also told me that laptop parts were expensive to justify the tepid explanation of the cost. I was furious.
I would have loved an audio copy of the conversation just to show how ridiculous the situation was. And at first, they told me that if I did the repairs anywhere else that I would be on my own, they've since reversed that position and that I would get store credit for the costs of the repairs.
When it comes to customer report, I am now going to take the stance of recording my calls using external software through Skype to have concrete evidence if I need to make a complaint. It's much better than just making arguments based on hearsay.
I have since sent out an e-mail to the ACER guys in Japan to get a quote on the repairs a few days ago and have yet to hear from them. The computer has been out of operation for over a month now and I am quite annoyed about it. Has this computer been a desktop, I'd have it up and running within a few days for a fraction of the cost.
Laptops are useless if they aren't reliable and repair fees are exorbitantly expensive. It would be very nice to have a website that could rate the reliability of the laptop sold to help the average consumer out on choosing a good company to buy from.
On another note:
The moving company that shipped my scooter from Sendai to Kanagawa busted something with one of my brake handles and I have no front breaks for the time being. I am going to have to get that repaired and see if the moving company can have it covered.
Ugh... headaches.
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