Joining the 21st Century
It was a quiet weekend. I was laid low; recovering after a tough week with a client whose irritating first instinct is always to blame first, ask questions later and I spent much of my week in seethe mode having to prove to him that the issue was on HIS side, not mine. Diplomatically of course. I was exhausted by Friday. It was one of those ‘I’ve-had-it-with-this-crap-I’m-off-to-see-if-McDonalds-is-hiring’ kind of weeks and I felt the need to relax and recuperate sufficiently before the aforementioned pain in the arse client arrives for a full day visit on Tuesday!!
Ugh!!
Not a day of meetings I'm especially looking forward to.
The most exciting thing that happened to me all weekend was finally succumbing to the wonders of cable internet. Yup…before Saturday I was dialling in – I know, what a Luddite. I put up with it, because I don’t have a home computer so I only need the internet on weekends or occasions when I drag my laptop home from the office. I didn’t see the point in shelling out $45 a month for the privilege- and um….well on occasion I would naughtily glom off my neighbour’s unsecured wireless network – oh don’t give me that holier than thou look you’d do it - but no more. On Saturday morning I dragged myself down to the Time Warner store on 23rd Street to sign myself up.
I’d never been in there before and as I opened the door and saw the rows of ashen faced people slumped in uncomfortable plastic chairs awaiting their number to pop up on the screen my heart sank, ‘there goes my Saturday’ I thought. But of course, that wasn’t the case. I was buying something not complaining about service, so naturally I was seen straight away. Not 10minutes after walking through the door I was clutching my big orange bag of high speed internet accessing goodies as Mr Time Warner Sales Guy pushed a slip of paper towards me.
"If you could just sign that for me please young lady"
Young lady!!!
Whoop!!
That brought a smile to my face I can tell you. At 37years old I more often than not get the dreaded "madam" - I hate the word madam, it makes me feel matronly - than "young lady" these days.
Clearly my Estee Lauder Idealist skin refinisher is doing the trick!!!
Well ok, I'll admit, the lighting in the room was erring on the dim side, I had my hair pulled back into a ponytail, Croydon face lift style, and the guy barely glanced in my direction, he was too busy checking his computer screen to scrutinize my face for fine lines, but still…young lady!!
Gosh!! That's one way for Time Warner Cable to instill customer loyalty.
He made my morning ;-)
10 comments:
I held on to dial up for so long, for the very same reasons you did. When I started losing ENTIRE blogs because I wasn't smart enough to write them in Word first and then post them, I made the switch and can't imagine using dial up even if I'm visiting somewhere and that's all they have. Too spoiled, now. Yay for modern day conveniences! Sorry to hear about your all day client meeting tomorrow. Maybe something will come up and he/she will have to cancel. Of course, that would likely end up being your fault too, so....er.... :)
lol. 37 is young, dammit! (ok, I have a vested interest in the subject, but still).
hooray for the internets!!!
:-)
Heh, I haven't been called a young lady in a long long time :-)
Yah, I've smooched on someone else's network before as well. It's getting too difficult now. Everyone knows how to secure their network these days.
It's scary isn't it? I've been noticing how I'm being called Madam more and more. And it's always by skinny, young kids.
Hi Heather, it's the speed with dial up that finally drove me to pay $40/month for cable internet. I am LOVING it :-)
Hi Kitty, yeah 37 is still young - relatively ;-) - but I thought my 'young lady' days were over :-)
Hi Blur Ting, you are right, it is harder to mooch off someone else's network these days. I just decided it was time to pay up :-)
Hi Pawpads, I hate the madam thing. It would be one thing if I were French, Madame sounds quite nice, but in English...we need a better word :-)
'Croydon face lift style' Ha! Classic!
I used to hate those times with clients who simply failed to understand that a problem might well originate from their camp. Oh, how I don't miss the word of finance.
Tom
P.S. Sorry I haven't been by recently. My girlfriend and I have been out and about in the south of England. This is a beautiful part of the world!
Hey, you DO still look young, you know???? But you're right...being talked to as "young lady" is a NICE compliment HO HO HO HO...esp. after you had such a hard time with "the pain in your arse" he he he he...
Hey Tom, yeah being bashed by clients is no fun!! Have fun travelling through the south of England :-)
Hi Amel, thank you sweetie. That photo you've seen is blurry ;-)
I was called Young Lady recently (I am a year older than you). Like you, I was chuffed. However, he was in his 80s and researching coffins.
At least there's always Schwarzkopf hair dyes. I have a vast stock of Raven Beauty.
Hey, congratulations on your new "speediness" and joining whatever the hell century we're in--just kidding. You are far from a Luddite, Love.
Oh, and by the way...where I live (and because I'm on a smarty pants--too smart for it's own pants?--no, it's good) Mac, I'm currently sitting in a pub and getting "free!" floaty wifi. And it's high speed.
I can get the most odd signals! They're a lot more secured now but what I generally get are peoples' home lines. One showed up as someone's home telephone number! I can still get it in one location. I should call and say, "Thank you?"
Erm...no.
The most frequent one I get is simply called "default." I have no idea where that one comes from.
This happened when I moved into my flat over a year ago as well, of course. However, it's flaky. You never know if you can get a signal for sure and even then, how fast it will be. I've been out and it's been just as fast as if I'm working from home!
However, still need to be fasty-fast at home... So, pay the bucks.
*PA sips pint and hits send*
EDIT: Oh, we also have those "hotspots" in coffee shops and what not. It's ridiculous though, as they are supported by ISPs so you have to pay!
Screw that when baby MacBook can just source something for me for free!
And the new OS (Leopard as opposed to Tiger), does it automagically! It just keeps searching away...
Okay...enough geeking out--and I'm really not that smart re: computers. I just like to pretend I am.
Post a Comment