I worked at Viewsonic for a couple of years. I took a writing assignment on contract, and then they hired me on for a few more contracts. After that I left. One of the problems was the commute. Viewsonic is all the way out in Walnut, and I was living in Northridge at the time. The commute was terrible, even by L.A. standards. But I wasn't about to move. I couldn't afford to move, and I seriously doubted that I could find any decent landlord that would take me, given me credit history.

I spent a lot of time out of the office. The technical writing people were in a pretty isolated corner of the building, and nobody really kept track of our comings and goings. Our manager at the time was also in charge of the help desk, and spent most of his time dealing with that department.

There was this Mexican place in La Habra that Owens knew about since he grew up in the area. A few of us would go off there sometimes and work on a project that Owens himself had come up with years before he even knew the rest of us. He had this notion that he could come up with a set of core concepts and elements that you could use to develop any sort of story that you could possibly imagine. That is to say, you could pick and choose from these basic building blocks and put them together you'd have a ready-made novel or screenplay or whatever it is that you wanted. It was an interesting idea, but one that was almost surely doomed to failure. But Owens believed that he could make it work.

Owens, however, only trusted me with the most important details of his plan. He explained his rationale to me once when we had gone off to lunch by ourselves. "I know that you don't have any interest in writing beyond the stuff we do at work, " he told me.

"How do you know that?" I asked him.

"I can tell, " he said. "The other guys, they're always working on something. They try to hide it. They keep windows open on their screen that they dash off to secretly when they think the rest of us aren't looking. You know what I mean. You don't do anything but work. Or else you sit there doing nothing when you're not working."

"That doesn't mean that I haven't given the idea some thought, " I said. "You know, maybe I'd do one of those novels that's really an autobiography."

Owens laughed at that. "Listen to yourself, " he said. "Now I know for sure that I can trust you. 'Maybe I'll do a novel'. You talk about it like someone thinking about going skydiving. You have no idea."

I didn't want to argue with Owens. The fact is that I liked the fact that I knew more about his project than anyone else. Even if I didn't understand the whole thing, I was struck by his ambition. I remember once when we were talking about geography. This was a big topic for him, so this was one of those times when it was only the two of us talking again.

"So how do you like Viewsonic?" he asked me. This was after I'd been with the company for about a year.

"It's better than a lot of places I've worked at, " I told him. "Though I haven't worked much lately. The drive is terrible, though."

"You have to move closer, " he said. "It's ridiculous how far you come."

"I made a lot of mistakes back a few years ago, " I told him. "More than a few years ago. I don't like talking about it. But, you know, you get into money problems and they haunt you for the rest of your life."

"You'll dig yourself out, " Owens said.

"I'm not so sure, " I told him.

Owens pulled a notebook out of his briefcase. "I've been working on places, " he said. "You know, they have to be granular. Discrete units. Like a lake."

"We're talking terrain here, " I said.

"You build a story out of setting, " he said. "That's the key to everything. Say that the two of us were at a fancy French restaurant in Pasadena. We're having this exact same discussion. But the whole atmosphere has changed, right? It doesn't make much sense anymore."

"So a French restaurant in Pasadena, " I said. "That's one example of a setting."

"That's too specific for my purposes, " he said. "Remember, these are atomic units I'm looking for here. And besides, I want to work on geography today, not physical buildings."

"So a canyon, " I said. "That would be an example of what you're looking for."

Owens thought about that one for a moment. "It doesn't make sense, " he said. "Who sets a story in a canyon? I'm thinking of great sweeping prairieland. You know, that's the sort of setting you put a good story in."

"An old fishing village, " I said. "I know you don't want buildings. But a small harbour in the northeast where settlers would have gone in the seventeenth century."

"That's good, " Owens said, writing something down. "I'm making some rather impossible distinctions here, though, aren't I? Stories are about people. I can't just focus on the terrain. People live in homes in towns and cities."

"A forgotten suburb just outside of a major city, " I said. "You know, the richer people have moved on to nicer places. Or else they've bought into one of the new condo towers going up downtown. The fringe of the city if the place nobody wants to live."

Owens wrote quickly. "This is great, " he said. "I'm glad we worked this out. We should stay for the whole afternoon."

We didn't return to work that day, as it turned out. Once Owens was happy we parted ways and I drove all the way back to Northridge. There were two police cars parked outside my building when I got there. I parked in back and then went around to see what was going on.

Keyes was among the crowd of folks milling around out there. He and I had known each other for years, though I can't say that we were exactly close friends. He was the one who pulled some strings to get me my place, though, and I could never figure out how to repay him for that.

Keyes spotted me as I approached the scene, and came over so we could talk away from everyone else. "I thought maybe you were holed up in your place, " he said.

"I'm a bit later than usual today, " I said. "What's going on?"

"It's that family that moved in on the second floor, " he said.

"I don't know them, " I said.

"People have been complaining about them from day one, " Keyes said. "Yelling at each other at two in the morning, with the baby crying and everything. The woman came out with the baby a while back, then went back inside. They're all in there now, with the police."

"So who called them?" I asked.

"Nobody here, " he said. "We're guessing it was the wife."

"I have no idea who these people are, " I said.

"You should be more social, " he said. "It's good for you. You come and go from work and nobody sees you."

"So how did she look?" I asked.

"She'd been crying, but that's all anyone could see, " Keyes said. "Who knows. These things play out the same way all the time. The police will keep coming back. So you better get used to this. The problem will never get solved. But eventually they'll move. You know, they'll have another kid."

Back at Viewsonic the next morning, Owens came to my workstation as soon as he saw me come in. "Good session yesterday, " he said.

"I didn't realize that we were calling them 'sessions', " I said.

"I have whole scenarios in my mind now, " he said. "You know, I think I'm getting this concept down right now. You pick a town or a city. You pick a part of a city. You choose an alleyway, or a motel that nobody goes to anymore. It's that simple."

"I think this might be a bit more complex than you think, " I said. "I have to be honest here. I didn't think we resolved anything yesterday. I still don't quite understand what you're trying to do. I mean, I understand it conceptually. But practically it doesn't seem to come together well."

"I know what you're thinking, " Owens said. "That I've got myself so far into this that I can't admit to myself that it won't work. But the thing is that it's just the opposite. I've had so many ups and downs with this thing that I know for sure that yesterday we had a breakthrough moment. I know enough from past experience."

"I guess I can't argue with you, then, " I said.

"We're going back there today, " he said. "We need to get this down right."

"I really have to finish up something for the editing people, " I said.

"Finish it up this morning, " he said. "We have to go."

You know, I lost touch with Owens after I left Viewsonic. The company offered me another contract, but Owens was really starting to unnerve me with the passion he had for his little project. I couldn't stay. I had my debts to work out any my own life to put back together. I had come a long way. I think Owens was bit unhinged and I couldn't stand to be around him any longer. It's as simple as that.

I" Paid for my telvision back in July 2009 and hav'nt receive my product yet.

Probably 6 years ago, I spend over $1600.00 on a new Compaq Computer and a 17 inch ViewSonic monitor, well the monitor had a $100.00 rebate. I completed all of the paper work, but made a mistake taking the paper work to work, in order to make a copy of all the paperwork! I then forgot that I had intentionally left that little bar code thing that I had cut out of the box, at home, and went ahead and mailed the original bill of sale and the rebate paper work, without the bar code. Well, I never heard from ViewSonic, and finally a few months down the road, I ran across that little bar code that I had cut out of the box, but figuring, that this rebate was for $100.00 and not for say $10.00 or $15.00, I figured any honest company would make an effort to get a hold of me, and inform me that they needed the bar code piece, but ViewSonic just kept the $100.00 or maybe an employee pocketed the money. I know I goofed, but you would think that a big honest company would not want this type of bad publicity?

ViewSonic in turn did lose out on some business, mine and some of my close friends and relatives! I just recently bought myself a new 22 inch Gateway monitor!

Our vx2235wm viewsonic monitor was manufactured Oct. 2006, and, with the three year warranty, there is still over a year to go. We just bought a new computer with VISTA. The monitor is not compatible with Vista because we tested it on another computer as well. After speaking to customer service, "Josh" (who was the only helpful person there) told us to ship it back because these sets manufactured in 2006 did not support VISTA. He would fix it or send us a later machine (same model) that would work on VISTA.
When we received our replacement, we saw that it had a manufacture date earlier even that our monitor. Of course, it didn't work on our new computer. The first customer service guy told us to download drivers--which didn't work. The next one told us that "Josh" wouldn't be calling us back because he was too busy. We finally got hold of "John" the floor manager, who ducked and weaved and repeated that "he wasn't going to exchange it for a monitor that worked on vista". He said it worked on xp, so that was enough. We were on the phone with him at least 45 minutes, during which time he basically told us to get lost. He suggested we contact the computer manufacturer--(which one? The monitor didn't work on either Vista machines). Of course, he said we were the only customers on the planet that had this problem. Odd, since the problem occurred with BOTH the original and the replacement monitor. Wouldn't you wonder, too, why they had the replacement monitor sitting around in the warehouse for two years? It was brand new. Obviously, they couldn't sell them because they were incompatible with Vista. In addition, John said he had instructed Josh not to give us anything.
Well, I'm getting ready to write the the CEO of Viewsonic because of the terrible treatment we endured. You can be sure I will never buy another product from this company.

Upon purchasing a 16” ViewSonic LCD TV model N1630W online the unit arrived without a remote control. Thus began a round of back and forth e-mails with ViewSonic where I requested a replacement remote control, “even if I had to pay for it.” After providing the unit’s serial number I received a reply stating “Can't validate serial number. Please verify serial number” I then took a clear close-up photo of the serial number label on the back of the unit and e-mailed it in reply demonstrating the serial number I provided was correct. After that there was no further response from ViewSonic.

Based on this experience and user complaints I have since read online ViewSonic customer support is geared up to brush off customer’s problems rather than solve them.