Tuesday, June 15, 2004

They made progress on my AC today....the two technicians who looked at it today discovered that THE FAN WAS WIRED UP BACKWARDS. *beating head on desk*

It's still not quite right, but it's much better than it's been. I have the fan set on "hi" and the temperature set on 60. It's getting fairly comfortable now, but at those settings you should be able to hang meat in this office!

Oh well.....babysteps, babysteps....

Monday, June 14, 2004

Hot, hot, HOT!! The AC in my office still isn't working. It's just unbelievable. Two technicians came in my office this morning, flipped the fan switch around from "high" to "off" several times and nothing happened. They shrugged their shoulders and said they'd work on it.

In the meantime I had to make three trips across campus to get one letter sent UPS Next Day Air. It's in the low 80's here with miserable humidity; so I was dripping wet when I got back to my office, where there was NO AIR!! *grumble, growl*

The good news is that my TiVo unit arrived as scheduled on Friday afternoon. I hooked it up, and it runs like a dream! I had such a good time playing with it this weekend.

Well, my lunch break is over, so I'd better get back to the grindstone.

Friday, June 11, 2004

The other day a friend of mine at work was talking to me about electronics (my vice), and he mentioned TiVo. I told him that for some reason, TiVo had passed me by and asked him to tell me a little about it.

After describing things that TiVo can do, he told me that if I was interested, he knew where I could get a used unit cheap. A friend of his had bought a Series 1 unit at a closeout when K-Mart closed a store. He'd plugged the unit up to be sure it worked, but had never actually subscribed to the service and used the unit. He'd sell it to me for $75. I told my friend that I wanted to buy the unit.

He brought it to me day before yesterday (Wednesday); that evening I hooked everything up and started to go through the guided setup. After a point in the setup, the unit powered itself down, then powered up and started setup all over again.

After I'd gone through that process several times with the same result, I dialed customer service for Philips (the manufacturer of the unit). A recording told me that if I chose to speak to a technician, the service charge would be $19.95. I hung up and dialed TiVo's customer service. A recording told me there would be a 35-minute wait. I waited an hour and five minutes, and never got through.

So, I just unhooked everything and took the unit back to the office with me yesterday. I called my friend; he said that it wouldn't be any problem for his friend to take the unit back. He came to my office, picked up the unit and gave my check back to me.

On Wednesday afternoon, I'd gone ahead and subscribed to TiVo service through their website in anticipation of having everything ready when I got the unit hooked up. So now I had to call customer service to discontinue the service. I wasn't looking forward to making the call in light of the hour and five minutes I'd wasted the night before.

However, when I called them yesterday, the recording said I'd have a 5 to 10 minute wait. A very nice customer service representative answered the phone after only 7 minutes. When I told her I needed to discontinue a service I'd signed up for only the day before I explained what had happened with the defective unit.

She said that if I wanted to cancel, that was no problem at all, but she was authorized to make me a special deal on a new TiVo unit. She offered me a brand-new Series 2 unit (more features than the one I'd tried the night before) with twice the storage space on it for $129.95 with a $50 mail-in rebate. So, for $4.95 more than the defective Series 1 unit, I got a brand-new Series 2 unit with twice the recording capacity!

I told her I wanted the Series 2, she placed the order, and said she'd transfer my account to the new unit. She also told me TiVo was paying the shipping charges on the new unit. I got an e-mail last night confirming shipment via UPS. I checked the tracking on it this morning, and it's going to be delivered TODAY!!

I am shocked and delighted; now I can hook it up tonight and spend some time this weekend learning how to use it.

Sometimes things work out in spite of yourself!

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Ah, the joys of working for a state government agency....back in February everyone in the building I work in was relocated to temporary offices in other buildings so that our antiquated HVAC system could be replaced.

I was quite happy in my temporary office; it actually had a WINDOW. Lots of lovely natural light!! The temporary office was in a much less-traffic-filled building, too, so it was much quieter. I was much more productive because interruptions were so infrequent.

So, HVAC replacement supposedly "completed", we moved back into our regular offices the first part of May. I was quite unhappy to find that the new HVAC system was not operational and apparently wouldn't be for "a week or so". Additionally, the HVAC installers had removed protective plastic from files I'd had to leave in my office. I'd wrapped them very carefully (using materials I'd purchased myself), so I was irritated to find that my files were now filled with grit, dust, and metal fragments.

Since my office has no window, and the A/C STILL isn't working ("We'll have that running in a day or two."....yeah....right) the temperature in my office hasn't come under 82 degrees and is higher than THAT in the afternoons.

Of course, I rarely have faith in ANYTHING done by the low bidder!

I've also been aggravated that for the third year in a row my request for office furniture has been blown out of the water. My office is a hodgepodge of furniture that's been rescued from salvage. Not only does nothing match, but it's from an era before "ergonomics" was even HEARD of. So it's not only ugly, it's uncomfortable. In the 17 years I've worked here, I've had two new pieces of "furniture". One is a small Rubbermaid file that was purchased so I'd have something on which to put my fax machine. The other is a maroon task chair that was bought about 15 years ago when my former chair fell apart and unceremoniously dumped me in the floor.

Times are a little hard in my neck of the woods, and I guess I should be glad I have a job. Sometimes, though, sitting in this miserably hot, stuffy office and feeling my damp hair clinging to the back of my neck, it's a little hard to be grateful.