Tech hell

I spent three hours yesterday trying to connect a 27” monitor to my Megalithic Tech Company corporate laptop. That includes trying to follow the IKEA-level instructions and then on a chat and then a call with MTC’s IT support. Guy kept trying to get rid of me—go to this web site and do that; no—I told you, the monitor has power and is connected to the laptop. Oh—then go there and do this; no—I told you, it’s connected.

He finally initiated a call, again trying to fob me off on some goose chase, even bringing someone else on the call, who started by telling me to connect the monitor via the cable.

Three cables came with the monitor: HDMI/HDMI (I have no HDMI port on the laptop or the docking attachment), USB-C (no more available Type-C ports on the laptop & all ports on the docker are Type A) & Type-C to Type-A. I used that last one, but the laptop absolutely doesn't recognize that a monitor is attached. The only display that shows up in what Chrome OS is pleased to call a settings menu is what’s in the laptop lid.

Tech Guy’s last take was to send me to a public site to do a “hard reset”, which should have taken at least 30 minutes to repopulate the machine. Nope—just like a restart, instant.

Then, I was to order a new cable. Well, when I did that (using the link TG gave me), I got a reply saying I should go to a different site to order the cable, but I have no idea what to order.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to work on a 14" laptop screen, with an alien OS, in the shadow of a 27" monitor. Ugh..