Tails’ Blography

I’ve had a pretty grumpy day today. Let’s review:

Number one: my hair is unwashed. And I feel gritty and blegh which makes me grumpy.

Number two: its been cold today and my office (its a home-office type) is like a block of ice. Being cold also makes me grumpy.

Number three: its Wednesday, and that brings customers to a particular restaurant (across the road from my work) over lunchtime. Sounds tame and reasonable, doesnt it? Well not when they continuously park right outside the office so I have nowhere to park!
And not only that, but they park like idiots. One car will park just far enough away from the driveway to leave a gap, just not far enough to park another car in front, but far enough away that the car behind has a good metre or so extra to walk. Then the car behind that is even further away, and the car behind that is pretty much around the corner and down the street. Thats normally me in these cases.
In fact, I once couldnt even park there, so I parked on the large, grassy island in the middle of the road (where everyone else parks as well, mind you!) since there by chance happened to be a space where someone had just left….AND I GOT A PARKING TICKET! I wrote a pleading letter explaining that I had no where else to park because of the damn restuarant clients, but no reduction was granted :(
Since they’re coming for lunch, they also normally are parked out there for a good four hours (not kidding!). And they’re all big, swanky, expensive cars too, since the restaurant is a 5 star one. And to top it all off, there is parking RIGHT BEHIND the restaurant!! Lots of it! With a car-guard! Why, oh why, park outside someone’s house, making them and their guests park a mile away while you sit on your rich, ignorant ass scoffing your face full of 5 star food! See, just typing about it makes me mad! I ended up leaving (surprisingly polite) notes on their car, explaining our predicament with everyone parking outside our place. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they didnt realise what a pain it is to the local residents.

Number four: Vodacom’s 3G USB modems, and Vodacom’s help service! Had a customer bring their laptop in because their device had stopped working. Its supposed to be Plug-and-Play, but it wasnt having any. I tried various methods of trying to get it to work, a good three hours I’d say. Uninstalling, re-installing, different USB port, etc etc all with the same result. “Device not detected”. I install it on my machine, it at least prompts me for a PIN. I didnt bother checking further, plugged it back into the client’s own laptop, and eventually phoned Vodacom.

The first guy I spoke to, asked what anti-virus I was running, to which I replied, “AVG 8″. He said, “Aha! That’s the problem. AVG blocks the connection and we’ve had 130 or so calls in the past two months from people using AVG and having problems.”
“So do you guys have an update for the device to make it work with AVG?”
“No, unfortunately not.”
“But surely you’re not expecting your clients to have to purchase an antivirus program so its compatible with your product??”
“Well, you get what you pay for, and AVG is free…”
I start to see where he’s going with this, “Yes, I agree with that point, you do get what you pay for, and we’re paying for a Vodafone connection, and Vodacom isnt providing. AVG isnt making the Vodafone device, AVG is working perfectly.”
“Well its definately AVG and I dont know what else to tell you.”
“…”
I basically ended the call there. I felt like slamming the phone down and throwing the device out the window. Instead, I said, “Thank you anyway, I guess I’ll just try to figure it out on my own. Goodbye.”

I kept trying. Eventually I gave in and tried to phone Vodacom again. I got a different person on the phone, this time a woman and more helpful to boot! :) She explained it wasnt actually AVG, since AVG would block the connection, and not cause the device not to be found. Finally! Someone with brains! She asked a bunch of questions about the software being used, etc etc and eventually recommended a different “dashboard” program to download, and recommended a firmware update, both from off their site. Yay, looks like we’re getting somewhere!

I download the two apps, and run them according to the instructions. The installation gets to a certain point, and then does a rollback, saying it was interrupted. I try again, because I was fiddling on the machine while it was installing, so it might have been me. Same thing. What the?? So I try again, this time uninstalling the old app first and restarting. Same thing. I close all programs running that could potentially interrupt it. Same thing! So then I think, “AHA! It needs the firmware update first! Duh!” so I run that app. ERROR! I cant even remember the error it gave, just that on one line it said “error error error”. The only option is to click “Finish”, not that I even clicked “Next” at any point. So now I re-install the old app, and run it. It opens…. then closes immediately. I try again, same thing. A tear forms in my eye. Now the program wont even run, let alone tell me “Device not detected”. My hand starts reaching towards the device, and I start looking towards the window….I take a deep breath and control my anger. My teary eye starts to twitch. I look at the clock. Its 5pm. I’m going home.

And the rest, they say, is history. What a day! And it’s all going to start again tomorrow :(