“We’re getting new computers!” Mick rubbed his hands together, barely able to contain his boyish glee.

“It’s about fricking time,” I said. We had been due for a major revamp of our network for the longest time now. In fact we were still using terminals that were older than me for our work here. The new network though promised to bring us brand spankin’ new computers, consolidate all our antiquated databases, and eliminate at least half of our workload. It was the kind of thing we could have only dreamt about, but it looked like it was finally going to become reality.

Several tech guys showed up with cables, and one of them discussed the new setup with Mick.

“Yeah we’re gonna replace these two terminals here, should happen in a couple of weeks or so.”

“Don’t forget we need an extra computer too. We have five guys here and four computers. That’s just not gonna work.”

The tech guy just ignored me and continued chatting with Mick. I seem to be getting a lot of that lately. Am I dead or something?

The tech guys started removing shingles to wire some cables through in preparation for our upgrade. One of them removed a shingle over the desk behind me….

And a flood of mouse droppings came pouring down.

“Sh–!!!”

It was everywhere. On our fax machine, the computer, court papers, the keyboard… just… everywhere.

We had a problem with this before, and basically nothing had been done about it. But now we were approaching critical mass. I mean seriously, does someone need to drop dead from mice poisoning here before people start to give a flying leap?

What truly depressed me though was the look on my coworkers’ faces. This look of defeatism, the sad reality that nothing they said would ever make a difference. They just stood there, shrugging their shoulders while the sky rained its pellet sized crap on us. Their tired eyes revealed virtually no will to fight.

Screw that. These bastards are gonna get a war from me. Let the poo fly, cuz it… is… ON.

Tags: cables, computers, corruption, coworkers, critical mass, defeatism, fax machine, glee, job, leap, mice, mouse droppings, network, screw, shingle, shingles, shoulders, tired eyes, upgrade, workload
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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Verizon sucks big hairy monkey’s butt.

I had a battery ordered from an eBay store to replace the dying one I had on my cell now, and I figured it was safe enough because the seller had a near perfect rating from thousands of buyers. Otherwise I’d have to get it from Verizon, which charges a hefty 40 bucks for the same battery (WT*??) This way I was getting it for just 10.

Battery fried my phone. I don’t mean it simply didn’t work: it @#$% NUKED MY PHONE. When I put the original battery back in, it kept giving the error message “Use Genuine Battery,” and then it would power back down. I found out later on that Verizon’s LG line of phones uses a chip in their batteries to prevent customers from purchasing cheaper batteries from third party dealers. Well, isn’t that just lovely?

I took my phone to a service center hoping they could fix the problem. A battery swap didn’t work, so they held onto the phone to see if it could be fixed (maybe by resetting the software). I came back and the Verizon guy simply dropped a crappy replacement phone in my hands, along with a receipt to sign for it.

“Dude, the hell is this? Where’s my phone?”

“Oh, we couldn’t repair it, so we’re giving you a replacement phone.”

I looked at the phone. It had scratch marks all over the screen and looked like it had been used for years.

“This phone isn’t new. I want my old phone back. What about all the contacts and pictures I had on it? That all goes poof, just like that??”

A shrug of the shoulders.

“And this phone is refurbished for crying out loud.”

“No, it’s straight from LG.”

?????

“Yeah, and? It’s still refurbished… you know what, forget it, just give me my old phone back.”

Great service, huh? I decided to try my luck at another service center tomorrow. I have a suspicion they just took the phone, threw it in a drawer, and unwrapped a replacement phone for me without even taking a look at it. I’m hoping another service center might actually try to repair it, or at least give me a better phone.

Even though it really isn’t that big a loss (I could recover my contact list easily enough), the whole thing really chapped my ass for some reason. Maybe it’s the gall of them trying to force me to buy a proprietary battery over three times it’s actual cost. Maybe it’s because I was just having a generally bad day. Or maybe I just hadn’t eaten enough for the day. Or maybe all three.

Update: Since a few visitors are coming here looking for info on the “use genuine battery” message, I should note that if you swap the battery and it still doesn’t work, that message really means, “I’m broken, I need to be replaced, and if your warranty ran out, well too bad for you.” Ironically enough, after I got a replacement phone (with a few days to spare on the warranty), I also got a replacement for the battery that originally fried my old phone, and this one worked perfectly. Go figure. Long story short, if you want to try a third party battery to save money, make sure you back up your contacts, and make sure the phone is still under warranty. Otherwise you’ll be playing Russian Roulette with your cell. Before you do something like that, ask yourself: Do I feel lucky?

Tags: batteries, battery, cell phone, chip, ebay, error message, hell, poof, proprietary, receipt, replacement, shoulders, shrug, suspicion, third party, verizon, Verizon sucks, wt
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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