Tuesday: The Powerful One Intervenes
So after the fun, fun work day yesterday (note the thick sarcasm) I come in to work this morning, expecting roughly the same experience. H greets me with a grin from U's desk, telling me the two sick ones are still sick, and his computer is still dead. He proceeds to tell me that he has taken care of all the support emails already, and is considering taking the day off now since he can't get any more work done anyway. I reply that if he does, please stop by U's and R's houses and kick them both from me. 
Before leaving H heads over to the field service people's office and talks to them to get a status update, since the online case monitor for support cases is close to worthless, but from the wrong side of the scale. He comes back and tells me and Supervisor (S) the field service people have been told the replacement hard drive will arrive late afternoon, and though they would love to help him (they like us) they have no spare drives they can give him.
S frowns and says, "No. We can't have another day like yesterday." I nod fervently in agreement. "Thank you!"
S then tells H that he will not get the day off after all, since we can't have only one Tech Support agent taking calls, and heads over to the Department Manager(DM)'s desk. We see them have a brief conversation, and then DM reaches for the phone. Twenty minutes later our favorite field service tech shows up with a replacement hard drive, and a very amused expression on his face. Apparently DM called the people providing spare parts and, ahem, "upgraded" the priority and emergency level of H's case. So the tech was handed a replacement drive and told to drop everything else and fix this computer right now, before more displeased senior managers called and complained.
The tech of course thought this was hilarious.
Before leaving H heads over to the field service people's office and talks to them to get a status update, since the online case monitor for support cases is close to worthless, but from the wrong side of the scale. He comes back and tells me and Supervisor (S) the field service people have been told the replacement hard drive will arrive late afternoon, and though they would love to help him (they like us) they have no spare drives they can give him.
S frowns and says, "No. We can't have another day like yesterday." I nod fervently in agreement. "Thank you!"
S then tells H that he will not get the day off after all, since we can't have only one Tech Support agent taking calls, and heads over to the Department Manager(DM)'s desk. We see them have a brief conversation, and then DM reaches for the phone. Twenty minutes later our favorite field service tech shows up with a replacement hard drive, and a very amused expression on his face. Apparently DM called the people providing spare parts and, ahem, "upgraded" the priority and emergency level of H's case. So the tech was handed a replacement drive and told to drop everything else and fix this computer right now, before more displeased senior managers called and complained.
The tech of course thought this was hilarious.
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Digg thisIt's a Monday, alright.
As I came in to work this morning, right before 8:00 AM, my coworker H poked his head around the cubicle wall and said, "No R today, he's seeing a doctor."
Surprised and a bit concerned I inquired further, and found out that R sent H a text Sunday night (they're friends outside of work) to let H know he has a bad eye infection and will be in on Wednesday at the earliest, and that's if the doctor gives him effective antibiotics.
Ah well. There's only four of us on the Level 2 Tech Support team, so we did just lose 25% of the active members, but a regular Monday is nothing the three of us can't handle.
At 8:30, half an hour before the most recent addition to our team, U, is supposed to arrive, he calls in sick. Very high fever. U hardly ever stays home sick, so it's a fair assumption this is perfectly legit, just with very bad timing. H and I exchange a look, and play rock-paper-scissors on who gets to move their lunch to an hour later, before we go ask our supervisor if someone can help out with the tech support calls at least over the lunch breaks.
By 9:30 AM the hard drive in H's work computer makes several loud clicking noises, and then it dies. When he clocked out at 4:00 PM it still hadn't been replaced.
It's going to be a long week.
Surprised and a bit concerned I inquired further, and found out that R sent H a text Sunday night (they're friends outside of work) to let H know he has a bad eye infection and will be in on Wednesday at the earliest, and that's if the doctor gives him effective antibiotics.
Ah well. There's only four of us on the Level 2 Tech Support team, so we did just lose 25% of the active members, but a regular Monday is nothing the three of us can't handle.
At 8:30, half an hour before the most recent addition to our team, U, is supposed to arrive, he calls in sick. Very high fever. U hardly ever stays home sick, so it's a fair assumption this is perfectly legit, just with very bad timing. H and I exchange a look, and play rock-paper-scissors on who gets to move their lunch to an hour later, before we go ask our supervisor if someone can help out with the tech support calls at least over the lunch breaks.
By 9:30 AM the hard drive in H's work computer makes several loud clicking noises, and then it dies. When he clocked out at 4:00 PM it still hadn't been replaced.
It's going to be a long week.
I got Puppy!
After a few years of just not having the energy to mess with it, I have finally accumulated enough curiosity to go find myself a Linux distro for an old laptop again. I now have a full installation of Puppy 4.30 on the hard drive of a Compaq nc4010. It found my sound card and wireless adapter without my help, connected to the wireless network in no time at all, and I was off surfing websites in the ugliest browser I have ever seen -- Seamonkey.
Don't even get me started on the name. Seamonkey?
Fortunately, Puppy Linux has a very active and very documentation-happy forum community, and I was able to find a guide to how to install and configure Firefox. I then replaced the Seamonkey shortcut on my desktop with the Firefox one, and my next project is to find a way to make the laptop hibernate automatically when I close the lid.
I love having a new toy.
Don't even get me started on the name. Seamonkey?
Fortunately, Puppy Linux has a very active and very documentation-happy forum community, and I was able to find a guide to how to install and configure Firefox. I then replaced the Seamonkey shortcut on my desktop with the Firefox one, and my next project is to find a way to make the laptop hibernate automatically when I close the lid.
I love having a new toy.
Customer Service Week is here!
One of the high points of fall season: Customer Service Week at work.
Today the supervisors are making breakfast for us. They put an "order form" on every desk, and asked us to put our names on the top, then put check marks next to what we wanted, for example milk or juice, and what type of juice. I prefer orange, so I checked that box.
I just finished off a pair of sausage links, and a couple of waffles topped with butter, blackberries, and powered sugar. The entire building smells of sausage and bacon, and the other departments hate us for sharing the heavy smell with them, but not the actual food.
The morning is off to a good start.
Today the supervisors are making breakfast for us. They put an "order form" on every desk, and asked us to put our names on the top, then put check marks next to what we wanted, for example milk or juice, and what type of juice. I prefer orange, so I checked that box.
I just finished off a pair of sausage links, and a couple of waffles topped with butter, blackberries, and powered sugar. The entire building smells of sausage and bacon, and the other departments hate us for sharing the heavy smell with them, but not the actual food.
The morning is off to a good start.
A note to some of my Apple customers:
Before we go any further, let me clarify my statement from the blog title: This doesn't apply to all the Mac owners out there. It applies only to the ones that own an Intel-based iMac and are complete idiots as well.
If you have an Intel-based iMac, but also have common sense, the ability to reason logically, and a simple understanding of electronics, then this doesn't apply to you. If you are a complete idiot that doesn't own an iMac, then you shouldn't be reading this either. In fact, you shouldn't be anywhere near me. Idiocy irritates me.
For any idiots that do own an Intel-based iMac, and who don't want to sell their kidneys eBay to finance a RAM upgrade directly from Apple, there are a few things that you need to be aware of before you buy it from any of the many other memory vendors out there.
The first one is that if RAM bought from someone other than Apple looks different from the ones directly from Apple, that is irrelevant. Whether we are talking about components, PCB, labels, or any other cosmetic difference between the two brands, believe and trust me when I say this: Looks absolutely do not matter for computer parts. Specifications do.
The second is that specifications are the same for all brands. There is a standard for these things (called JEDEC, if you are curious), and the whole idea with that standard is to make sure that all DDR2-667 SODIMM memory is made to the same specifications. You can put your old iMac modules in your Gateway laptop, and you can buy any "PC memory" that has the right specifications and run it just fine in your iMac.
Third, is that you need to realize that the great price difference between Apple's parts and my company's parts is not because our product is of lower quality. It's because Apple knows that you would sell your kidneys on eBay if you had to, to pay them that outrageous price . We charged them a lot less per module than we charge you, by the way. Apple memory has never been manufactured by them and most likely never will be since it's cheaper for them to buy the parts, relabel them, and sell them on.
Fourth and last, and this ties in with the first important point: It doesn't matter that there were no labels on the original Apple parts, the ones on our parts need to stay on!.
Seriously.
By removing them you have made several critical errors in judgement and solidly proven your idiocy. You assumed a component manufacturer would deliberately put the labels where they will interfere with the functionality of the part. You assumed that all parts must be exactly like the Apple parts. You assumed that the tiny black squares the label is glued to will survive having the label removed.
They will not, by the way. When the label is pulled off it the force of the movement rips the soldering points between the ICs and the PCB. You can't see it, but it does, and it effectively kills the part and guarantees that it won't work. Worst of all, you assume that after pulling off the label you can still get the part replaced, becuase you didn't know you were not supposed to take them off so they should still be covered by the warranty.
So after reading the phrase "warranty void if removed" right there on the label you assumed we didn't really mean it? That, more than anything else, is why you are stupid. You read that phrase and you pulled the label off anyway, and you defend it by saying that you thought the label was the reason the part didn't work.
I don't understand how you people even manage to function in a modern society.
(Once again, if you are not stupid enough to fit the lengthy description above, none of my bitterness and frustration is directed at you. I don't blindly hate all Mac users because they own a Mac. I hate this particular group because they are so stupid that my brain cells weep when I try to explain things to these people.)
If you have an Intel-based iMac, but also have common sense, the ability to reason logically, and a simple understanding of electronics, then this doesn't apply to you. If you are a complete idiot that doesn't own an iMac, then you shouldn't be reading this either. In fact, you shouldn't be anywhere near me. Idiocy irritates me.
For any idiots that do own an Intel-based iMac, and who don't want to sell their kidneys eBay to finance a RAM upgrade directly from Apple, there are a few things that you need to be aware of before you buy it from any of the many other memory vendors out there.
The first one is that if RAM bought from someone other than Apple looks different from the ones directly from Apple, that is irrelevant. Whether we are talking about components, PCB, labels, or any other cosmetic difference between the two brands, believe and trust me when I say this: Looks absolutely do not matter for computer parts. Specifications do.
The second is that specifications are the same for all brands. There is a standard for these things (called JEDEC, if you are curious), and the whole idea with that standard is to make sure that all DDR2-667 SODIMM memory is made to the same specifications. You can put your old iMac modules in your Gateway laptop, and you can buy any "PC memory" that has the right specifications and run it just fine in your iMac.
Third, is that you need to realize that the great price difference between Apple's parts and my company's parts is not because our product is of lower quality. It's because Apple knows that you would sell your kidneys on eBay if you had to, to pay them that outrageous price . We charged them a lot less per module than we charge you, by the way. Apple memory has never been manufactured by them and most likely never will be since it's cheaper for them to buy the parts, relabel them, and sell them on.
Fourth and last, and this ties in with the first important point: It doesn't matter that there were no labels on the original Apple parts, the ones on our parts need to stay on!.
Seriously.
By removing them you have made several critical errors in judgement and solidly proven your idiocy. You assumed a component manufacturer would deliberately put the labels where they will interfere with the functionality of the part. You assumed that all parts must be exactly like the Apple parts. You assumed that the tiny black squares the label is glued to will survive having the label removed.
They will not, by the way. When the label is pulled off it the force of the movement rips the soldering points between the ICs and the PCB. You can't see it, but it does, and it effectively kills the part and guarantees that it won't work. Worst of all, you assume that after pulling off the label you can still get the part replaced, becuase you didn't know you were not supposed to take them off so they should still be covered by the warranty.
So after reading the phrase "warranty void if removed" right there on the label you assumed we didn't really mean it? That, more than anything else, is why you are stupid. You read that phrase and you pulled the label off anyway, and you defend it by saying that you thought the label was the reason the part didn't work.
I don't understand how you people even manage to function in a modern society.
(Once again, if you are not stupid enough to fit the lengthy description above, none of my bitterness and frustration is directed at you. I don't blindly hate all Mac users because they own a Mac. I hate this particular group because they are so stupid that my brain cells weep when I try to explain things to these people.)
