Thursday, 6th November
7:55am
Wake up. Penny informs me her USB mouse doesn't work. Before I've even done anything else, I'm already doing tech support. Test her computer with my USB mouse, works fine. I go to find a spare mouse, which turns out to be an old cordless mouse, but it needs batteries.
8am
Penny goes to work, I read emails that have come in overnight, news, messages sent to me on a dating site. Find I have a new member of my journal. I talk to them about Reiki.
8:20am
Make myself some breakfast – Coco Pops. Mmmm… just like a chocolate milkshake only CRUNCHY!
8:30am
Get into a discussion about gay men on my journal with the new member, wondering if I'll alienate the new gay guy.
8:45am
Update the journal with links to the photos I updated last night.
9:10am
Update the journal with info about 'A day in the life of Me'.
9:20am
Started doing the dishes, but got sidetracked about an email enquiry about the new Reiki mailing list I started a couple weeks ago.
9:40am
Finally gets around to doing the dishes.
9:45am
Received a phone call that the new mattress I bought a couple of weeks ago has arrived from Auckland and will be delivered Saturday afternoon.
10:25am
Finished dishes and ironed clothes for the day. Time to have a shower.
10:40am
Head off into town for an 11am haircut.
11:30am
Rang Garry, a friend of mine, asking if he wants to meet me for a coffee and discuss his involvement on the USS Scorpion, but he was at home instead of in town at work. Cancel that idea.
Went to Dick Smith Electronics to buy batteries for the cordless mouse. While there I speak to Jardin, friend of Penny's who works there. Talked about digital cameras with him 'cause he's planning on buying his own. Used one of their display computers to show him the photos on my website and sold him on the idea of having a zoom lens. Left him with an invitation to come over for a beer sometime.
12:20pm
Updated my notebook of events since haircut. Showed fireworks photos to some workmates.
12:30pm
Started work.
12:40pm
Responded to a friend's email about Matrix: Revolutions (part 3).
12:55pm
Responded to an applicant for one of the Star Trek games, letting them know the game of their choice was unavailable and to resubmit their application for another game of their choice.
1:15pm
Dealt with an urgent issue for one of Computerland's clients, which I'm responsible for ensuring get good support from us. One of my colleagues (not a workmate – definitely not a mate), who I've never respected since I met her, decided that she wouldn't actually process any of the jobs that she received during a period of time. This was part of her protest at being on the phones by herself for an hour while the rest of her team were either away or on admin duties. The other part of her protest, which became evident when I asked her why this particular job I discovered hadn't been dealt with 3 hours ago when she logged it, was that she was too busy to actually follow up on any jobs because she was the only one on the phones. When I pointed out that there are many occasions when we 'are the only ones on the phones' but that shouldn't stop her from dealing with an urgent job, her reply – which was more of a rant and rave – was that it was all the fault of our team leaders for their poor administration that ended up with her being on the phone.
After turning my back on her halfway through her rant and rave – which didn't stop her from continuing it to anyone else that would listen – I escalated the job and ensured that it would get looked after. However, it was logged urgently by the client 3 hours ago, so I informed the team leaders of this fact as well.
2pm
The client proceeded to complain about the fact that their urgent outage (all the phones were unavailable for the Auckland office) and a Client Service Manager enquired about the slowness of response on this job. I found out as well that Auckland engineers wouldn't be able to respond to it until tomorrow morning – which would have been a different story if they were informed about it at 11am when it was logged.
I advised my team leaders about this problem, and the reason why it had occurred. They sent an email to her asking to have a chat.
3:15pm
Yes, over an hour later she was 'not so busy any more' that she could go over to the team leaders and have a chat about the issue. Their attempts to have a quiet chat with her ended up with her speaking so loudly that the whole room could hear. She told them that it was their fault she wasn't able to follow up any jobs AT ALL because she was too busy (reminder: everyone is, at some point or other, 'too busy', but jobs are always followed up, especially if urgent), and so on. Her rant ended at precisely 3:30pm, when it was time for her to go home. Very convenient, I thought, that she didn't have to take any phone calls for the last 15 or so minutes of her time there.
It pisses me off to no end that I'm surrounded by people who don't enjoy their work, and take it out on the clients and their colleagues. (Note: as I'm transcribing this on the 8th, I've decided to take this further on Monday as an official complaint about her actions.)
4:30pm
Penny calls to say her PC has died. Lots of things going wrong with it. Told her I'd look at it when I get home.
6:20pm
Penny rang for tech support. Unable to wait until I got home, she discovered that she could actually troubleshoot her PC herself. It's amazing the lengths that internet addiction drives us… Her efforts discovered that her USB Hub had a problem with power supply. After half an hour of tech support, she decided to continue a bit more on her own.
8pm
Finished work, went home.
8:30pm
Penny and I started watching Matrix: Reloaded on DVD while I fixed her computer.
11pm
Matrix: Reloaded finished.
11:20pm
I finally fixed her computer, after finding that her registry was corrupt. Fixed the registry, everything worked fine.
11:30pm
Checked my emails.
11:50pm
Went to bed.
The end.
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