This morning we had our first hailstorm since my arrival. The hail was small, about a quarter inch or so in size. I know a guy who does vinyl siding and he said all his work was repairing hail damage. Hmmm. I knew I needed an umbrella, but now I know I need one made with aluminum mesh rather than polyester.
Last night at midnight Baptist Keith turned twenty-one. He celebrated by going out and buying a single twenty-four ounce beer. The Captain and Tennille came out just to see him drink it. It was rather funny.
My car is halfway unpacked now. The interior is empty but I need to clean out the trunk, which can wait until everything I have dragged upstairs is put away.
I have been very busy with various things, some of them useful. First up, I now have a monitor for my computer. It is Dad's old Macintosh monitor. It used a cable with a DB-15 plug, which is to say it was a plug with fifteen pins in two rows of eight and seven. PCs use an HD-15, with three rows of five.
Why yes, getting them to talk to each other took a bit of persuading.
Running Gentoo Linux, as I do, I have had to run about two hundred package upgrades that have accumulated over the last two months.
The truly sad thing is that not buying a $30 used monitor may have cost me quite a bit more. I got nabbed by the police Thursday night.
As most of you know, I have been using the Activity Center computers to post to this blog, read and send email, what have you. I once saw a cop down there using the computer: badge, uniform, gun and all (everything but his hat). He never paid attention to me. Sadly, Thursday night he chased a bunch of non-residents out of the pool; not that I care, but I had just walked up with a cigarette and he asked me a few questions.
I was unaware that he was a resident of the complex, that he was, in effect, the "house cop". Mixing public law enforcement with private contracts is a bit of dirty pool, in my opinion. Had a manager grilled me, I would have cheerfully lied through my teeth but as it is, I try not to lie to cops.
So the policeman (who is not your friend) went and got a manager, who informed me that subletting was going to be expensive. I suppose that my sublessor and I shall split the cost, but it is going to be expensive.
Blast.
In other news, there is one heck of an ant infestation in the kitchen, because Certain People can not be convinced that ant colonies send out scouts who look for crumbs (or entire pizzas left on the counter) and that they invariably bring the whole worker colony along for the food.
Last week we had our first session on the phones. For my first call I got to help a guy take about twenty-five screws out of his laptop to yank the whole thing apart so the plug of the touchpad, the mouse-like apparatus, could be removed and reinserted. I was sweating the whole time, but it worked. Dell will be hiring up to a thousand people for our call center over the next year, so I am hoping for a permanent position here so long as I am not an outright danger to my callers.
Monday we take the final. Tuesday through Friday we take calls on the floor under the eyes of the trainers, then we get rotated out into our stations. I took the time to locate mine, it is right next to the windows. I am a bit scared but mostly looking forward to it. Today I will be typing my class notes into the computer, rearranging them into a far more coherent form, then I will be mailing them to myself at Dell. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment