Outsourcing is the root of all evil
Oct. 27th, 2004 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteOr at least one of the roots of evil. Yesterday everything was just fine and dandy. It was pouring rain outside, but I was nice, warm, and occupied-- Stargate SG-1 on the TV, Internet at 100MB/s in front of me. I decided to reformat the Peach Girl 2-chapter fic I have yet to finish, "My Song," because the lyrics that the fic is centric on ("Wo Yi Ran Xiang Xin Ni Hai Ai Wo," or "I Still Believe That You Still Love Me") reminded me of the fic. Well, so I went to all this trouble of reformatting and everything, and right as I upload the docs to the Document Manager (thankfully, they're still there, so I'm officially uploading them to FFnet now) my 'Net dies on me. I figure the comp is just being whacky, so I try again... and again...
Eventually, I decide to restart. Still nothing. Maybe it's because of the storm? I run a check using the SBC Support Tool, and my comp fails all of the connectivity tests. I call Tech Support. A woman claiming to be something like "Sarah" or "Michelle" answers the phone, but her accent is 100% thick Indian. I have nothing against Indians or whatever, but OUTSOURCING!!! YOU CAN TELL!! Gr! After a long and drawn out conversation involving near-freezes, canceled virus scans, defaulting of my settings, and so on, still no luck. I'm supposed to call Dell and ask them what's up with my NIC card.
Dell (also in India) tells me that SBC must have installed this "Realtek" adapter card, and is not using the Broadcom 440x 10/100 one that came with the computer. But, it's verified, and I have to call SBC back. So I call THEM back, and this time someone named "Ilene" answers, but after she puts me on hold, I get cut off. The cheesy guitar music snaps out of range, and I'm left listening to silence for a good 3 minutes.
It was so late, and I was so frustrated by then that I just gave up. Apparently this all ties into my computer resetting my IP address or something, because ones that start with 0.###... or 169.### are "default broken" IPs. But because I'm not a "static customer" of SBC, my IP changes every 6-7 hours, and... I don't know what that means, but I still can't connect to the Internet, and I don't know why. It's pissing me off. If it doesn't work when I get home, I'm going to be very angry when I call SBC back.
Anyway, so I'm here at the Collabatory... taking a quick break before all hell breaks loose and I attempt to finish Media Notebook 2-1, on magazine specialization vs. radio formatting. I have to turn it in before I leave campus tomorrow afternoon. I've gotten Vilma to take notes for me in Geography, and Sarah to take notes for me in Journalism, so I should be all set. I'm going to take the short story quiz (on yet another morbid piece Davidson selected, this one called "Abji Kharnom") on Monday before class. Teh yay!
The rest of today will consist of a mall trip to get gloves, gold pins (if necessary at this point, I might just do the gold ribbon thing for shoulder straps), and see what the kiosks have in terms of bamboo potted plants (something Scott wants to give as a b'day present to someone), and maybe score a few books at Borders. HG#4 and BESM, if I can. Also, a manicure. When I go home, I'm going to highlight my hair, and... then yell at Tech Support more if the comp isn't back and ready.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to go home, make the cookies for Scott's family/mom, get my things together, and then wait for Scott to come over around 5ish. He's going to help me put together the last bits of my costume (snaps and wings and the like) and then we'll go around 7:30-8 to Hollywood, and then south to San Diego.
Yay!?
Eventually, I decide to restart. Still nothing. Maybe it's because of the storm? I run a check using the SBC Support Tool, and my comp fails all of the connectivity tests. I call Tech Support. A woman claiming to be something like "Sarah" or "Michelle" answers the phone, but her accent is 100% thick Indian. I have nothing against Indians or whatever, but OUTSOURCING!!! YOU CAN TELL!! Gr! After a long and drawn out conversation involving near-freezes, canceled virus scans, defaulting of my settings, and so on, still no luck. I'm supposed to call Dell and ask them what's up with my NIC card.
Dell (also in India) tells me that SBC must have installed this "Realtek" adapter card, and is not using the Broadcom 440x 10/100 one that came with the computer. But, it's verified, and I have to call SBC back. So I call THEM back, and this time someone named "Ilene" answers, but after she puts me on hold, I get cut off. The cheesy guitar music snaps out of range, and I'm left listening to silence for a good 3 minutes.
It was so late, and I was so frustrated by then that I just gave up. Apparently this all ties into my computer resetting my IP address or something, because ones that start with 0.###... or 169.### are "default broken" IPs. But because I'm not a "static customer" of SBC, my IP changes every 6-7 hours, and... I don't know what that means, but I still can't connect to the Internet, and I don't know why. It's pissing me off. If it doesn't work when I get home, I'm going to be very angry when I call SBC back.
Anyway, so I'm here at the Collabatory... taking a quick break before all hell breaks loose and I attempt to finish Media Notebook 2-1, on magazine specialization vs. radio formatting. I have to turn it in before I leave campus tomorrow afternoon. I've gotten Vilma to take notes for me in Geography, and Sarah to take notes for me in Journalism, so I should be all set. I'm going to take the short story quiz (on yet another morbid piece Davidson selected, this one called "Abji Kharnom") on Monday before class. Teh yay!
The rest of today will consist of a mall trip to get gloves, gold pins (if necessary at this point, I might just do the gold ribbon thing for shoulder straps), and see what the kiosks have in terms of bamboo potted plants (something Scott wants to give as a b'day present to someone), and maybe score a few books at Borders. HG#4 and BESM, if I can. Also, a manicure. When I go home, I'm going to highlight my hair, and... then yell at Tech Support more if the comp isn't back and ready.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to go home, make the cookies for Scott's family/mom, get my things together, and then wait for Scott to come over around 5ish. He's going to help me put together the last bits of my costume (snaps and wings and the like) and then we'll go around 7:30-8 to Hollywood, and then south to San Diego.
Yay!?
