The office I work at is not a place to be if you're in any way knowledgeable about computers. Recently my stress levels due to being the only computer literate in the office have shot through the roof. How I've survived here as long as I have, purely putting up with people who can't grasp technology is anyone’s guess. Some day soon I'll be nominated for most tolerant dude in the world...if I can hold out long enough for such an award to be invented.
This morning we received a call from a company telling us we MUST register domains for the company NOW because an evil individual is about to steal the name from under our feet. The horror!!! Oblivious to the fact we own two domains already ((www.blah.com and www.blah.co.uk)) this company, based in a shoe-box office somewhere in Surry, wanted to charge £200 to save us from loosing a domain we don't need. In fact, I can't imagine anyone registering the domain they wanted us to purchase. Basically, it’s daylight robbery from crooks who are probably earning an absolute fortune conning idiots this way. For shame...
Over two years ago, the decision to upgrade the Internet connection here to Broadband was made. The task of making a single phone call to arrange this has been in hand since then. The whole process couldn't be simpler; however, today my colleague had a guy in his office for over an hour talking about it. How anyone could stretch "...it's very fast, allows the line it's on to be used for voice/fax calls whilst online, can be shared across your LAN, requires a BT line and costs £blah..." into a conversation lasting so long beats me.
Last week my colleague ((the office to be exact)) purchased a new Sony Vaio laptop for £1400. Why? It gives him something to take home to work on and means he can show clients pictures on the screen. Pictures? Let me see, a piece of paper costs 0.1p, if that and we have an A1 colour plotter and an A4 colour laser to print on. As for working at home, a rewritable CD probably costs as little as a stamp. The office computers have CDRW drives and the computer he has at home, which the office bought, has a CDRW drive. He could even email work to and from his home computer and the office.
Just to continue my point, two eBay auctions for models above and below what he has bought, came to an end Monday evening. The model above his went for £900, whilst the model below went for £600. I did tell him to take a look before rushing into anything. Shouldn't have bothered - heck, he was even sold software that was already pre-installed on the laptop.
So during the day I drew up a proposed design for that Eliot Hall job I mentioned the other day. Yesterday I had gotten so far before being told "Hey, that's really good! I meant to tell you..." and subsequently ended up scrapping most of what I'd done. Same sort of thing happened today, though not on such a large scale. Why I can't be told the whole design criteria from the start and to be able to trust that what I'm being told is really what the client wants boggles the mind. My initials no longer grace most drawings I do because too often what I'm told the client wants isn't what the client wants. That, or something I have drawn is given the okay ((or even drawings that I haven't finished)) are being sent out by my colleague and the response from the client is negative. All they will see is a drawing drawn by MEC - so it's not unknown for people to phone the office and ask for MEC. I have no gripes putting them straight, politely of course.
Got it finished anyway. Nice bit of work, if I may. Daft thing is that we've ended up with a 1:12 ramp for wheelchair access to the lower ground floor, which including landings every 5000 has produced something in the region of 45000 length of ramp, which wraps right around the back of the building ((large floor-floor)). If this project happens, boy am I glad not to be the contractor ;).
Arrived home this evening to find a couple of parcels – the Camera and the Dreamcast I've been patiently waiting to arrive ((the dude sending it put the wrong postage on first time he sent it so it got sent back to him, or something like that)). I'll talk about the camera tomorrow I think. Along with getting a parking fine for parking opposite the office ((wrong side of the road, d'oh!)) and knowing my receptionist watched the whole thing ((we've fallen out big time)) I've not been the best of moods.
This morning we received a call from a company telling us we MUST register domains for the company NOW because an evil individual is about to steal the name from under our feet. The horror!!! Oblivious to the fact we own two domains already ((www.blah.com and www.blah.co.uk)) this company, based in a shoe-box office somewhere in Surry, wanted to charge £200 to save us from loosing a domain we don't need. In fact, I can't imagine anyone registering the domain they wanted us to purchase. Basically, it’s daylight robbery from crooks who are probably earning an absolute fortune conning idiots this way. For shame...
Over two years ago, the decision to upgrade the Internet connection here to Broadband was made. The task of making a single phone call to arrange this has been in hand since then. The whole process couldn't be simpler; however, today my colleague had a guy in his office for over an hour talking about it. How anyone could stretch "...it's very fast, allows the line it's on to be used for voice/fax calls whilst online, can be shared across your LAN, requires a BT line and costs £blah..." into a conversation lasting so long beats me.
Last week my colleague ((the office to be exact)) purchased a new Sony Vaio laptop for £1400. Why? It gives him something to take home to work on and means he can show clients pictures on the screen. Pictures? Let me see, a piece of paper costs 0.1p, if that and we have an A1 colour plotter and an A4 colour laser to print on. As for working at home, a rewritable CD probably costs as little as a stamp. The office computers have CDRW drives and the computer he has at home, which the office bought, has a CDRW drive. He could even email work to and from his home computer and the office.
Just to continue my point, two eBay auctions for models above and below what he has bought, came to an end Monday evening. The model above his went for £900, whilst the model below went for £600. I did tell him to take a look before rushing into anything. Shouldn't have bothered - heck, he was even sold software that was already pre-installed on the laptop.
So during the day I drew up a proposed design for that Eliot Hall job I mentioned the other day. Yesterday I had gotten so far before being told "Hey, that's really good! I meant to tell you..." and subsequently ended up scrapping most of what I'd done. Same sort of thing happened today, though not on such a large scale. Why I can't be told the whole design criteria from the start and to be able to trust that what I'm being told is really what the client wants boggles the mind. My initials no longer grace most drawings I do because too often what I'm told the client wants isn't what the client wants. That, or something I have drawn is given the okay ((or even drawings that I haven't finished)) are being sent out by my colleague and the response from the client is negative. All they will see is a drawing drawn by MEC - so it's not unknown for people to phone the office and ask for MEC. I have no gripes putting them straight, politely of course.
Got it finished anyway. Nice bit of work, if I may. Daft thing is that we've ended up with a 1:12 ramp for wheelchair access to the lower ground floor, which including landings every 5000 has produced something in the region of 45000 length of ramp, which wraps right around the back of the building ((large floor-floor)). If this project happens, boy am I glad not to be the contractor ;).
Arrived home this evening to find a couple of parcels – the Camera and the Dreamcast I've been patiently waiting to arrive ((the dude sending it put the wrong postage on first time he sent it so it got sent back to him, or something like that)). I'll talk about the camera tomorrow I think. Along with getting a parking fine for parking opposite the office ((wrong side of the road, d'oh!)) and knowing my receptionist watched the whole thing ((we've fallen out big time)) I've not been the best of moods.
posted by Matthew E Cornish at
21:03
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