Well I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and blog about my
“ One Laptop Per Child” experience
so far. I guess from what I’ve heard and read that I am one of the lucky
ones. I placed my “Give One, Get One” donation on
12/29/2007. I paid via PayPal. This morning on the Geek News Central podcast I heard Todd Cochrane mention several PC
World stories that shared some woes of those whose orders were late,
missing, boched, or worse.
On 1/21/08 I received an email from OLPC with the following text.
“Dear Donor,
We are contacting you in
regards to your Give One Get One donation and the shipment of your laptop. Your
donation is in the queue for laptop shipment.
Please expect to receive
another update from us by Wednesday, 1/23, with information on when you can
expect to receive your laptop.
We appreciate your
generosity and patience.
Sincerely,
OLPC Donor Services“
and then on 1/24/08 I received the following
“Dear Donor,
We wrote you several days
ago to let you know that your donation is in our shipping queue for the
shipment of your XO laptop.
We are awaiting the arrival
of new inventory so that we may ship your laptop to you. We will send you
another update in the next few days when we have specific shipping information.
We appreciate your
generosity and patience.
Sincerely,
OLPC Donor Services“
After reading the second
PC World article I decided to head over to the OLPC donor site
and check on the status of my order. Not surprising I had the same
result, after inputting my email address and order reference number it just
gave me a generic response that said
“We are working hard to ship all XO Laptops. If you are unable to track
your laptop or have not received it, please contact OLPC Donor Services by
calling 1-800-201-7144 for assistance”
So I called the number.
I was prepared to spend an hour on hold but
surprisingly I was only on hold about 15 minutes. I got a very helped gentleman
that confirmed that they did have my shipping address information
correct. He also told me that my laptop was at “status three”, whatever
that means, and that it should ship shortly.
Even with all the difficulties OLPC is having I pray that in the end the world
really will be a better place for all they’ve done.