30 August 2001
Last year: "That's not dinner! That's a snack!"
Many, many kudos to Apple's tech support.
My DVD-ROM drive has been acting glitchy for a couple of months now, and getting slowly worse and worse. I finally had the idea of testing Matt's drive in my machine, and it worked perfectly - which indicates pretty clearly that the problem is with the drive itself.
So Monday I called tech support, and the technician I spoke to listened patiently to everything I said, declined to treat me like an idiot, and agreed that it sounded like a hardware problem. She collected some information, and explained the policies and answered my questions. Yesterday - two days later, mind you - I got a package from them containing my new DVD-ROM drive and instructions on how to return the old one.
Even that reflected excellent customer service: The shipping label with my address on it peeled off, and underneath was a label with Apple's address on it, shipping pre-paid. All I had to do was wrap up the old drive and put in the box, re-tape the box, and call Airborne to arrange pick-up. (And I didn't even have to call Airborne, because they make regular stops at my office - I just added the box to the pile of things to be picked up.)
I don't regret, even a little bit, switching to Apple.
I realized at some point yesterday that Monday is a holiday. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. A long weekend. Thank goodness.
My project at work is still on a tight schedule, but I made a breakthrough yesterday in understanding how the pieces fit together, so I'm no longer as worried about getting it finished on time. Bits of it are frustrating, but this isn't the "bad" frustration of a customer who doesn't know what they want; this is the "good" frustration of a challenging project.
Which is not to say that I won't bitch. You'll just have to take my word for it that it's a much happier bitching.
The other good thing about Monday being a holiday is that something like half the office is taking Friday off, and a goodly number of them are taking today off as well. So things will at least be quiet.
We're going to K.T. and Kevin's for dinner tonight - tacos. As K.T. said: they already had the ingredients, and tacos are a lot of hassle to make for just two people. But it occurred to me last night that I've got a good four or five tomatoes from my garden in the refrigerator.
And I like a lot of tomato on my tacos.
Word of the Day:
diminution - the act, process, or an instance of diminishing : decrease
Song of the Day:
Lovely Rita (the Beatles)
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Hall stuff
- garden