Everything must go, including this building and the Murray Hotel (also known as the Hurry Motel), to make way for another huge condo next door to my building. Work should begin sometime this year. Lots of dust and noise. Love those construction workers. Yeah!
OK, working at a federal government call centre isn't always easy. Monday is our busiest day and February to April is our busiest time. I'm usually psyched for it because I get my rest the night before and get up early enough to have a relaxing time over a coffee at my work station as my programs upload on my computer.
This morning I had done all the above but when I turned on my monitor... nothing. I wiggled the connections, rebooted the computer, booted the computer and slapped it around a little. Still nothing. The power light was on (green) but no one was home. I wasted no time in calling the National Service Desk, for even if the simplest thing is off-balance one must call 3,000 miles to Ottawa to ask someone who works 100 metres away to come over and look at it, and let's face it, without a monitor I wouldn't be able to help anyone. I explain to tech support that my monitor is completely dead, even though the power light is on.
No problem, Ottawa tells me. They will send someone from that room down the hall to look at it right away--HIGH PRIORITY! I tell my team Leader (government talk for 'supervisor'). I stay put and wait. I can't even play computer games. :o(
One hour passes. Their idea of high priority and mine obviously don't jive. I start to get antsy. Suddenly, I see a light on my phone flashing, telling me that I got a message. It must have come while I was speaking with my Team Leader. But I haven't had a message in several months and can't remember the password I need to retrieve my messages. I realize I need to call the National Service Desk again to have my password re-set, but that would mean they would need to send a message to Winnipeg. In half an hour Winnipeg would create a temporary password and send it to me in an e-mail so I could use it to create a permanent one and then access my phone message. But without a monitor I cannot cannot read my email.
I gave up on that idea and began going through all my drawers to find where I might have hidden my password. I find several, but have no clue what they are for. None of them work. Finally, I make a wild stab at what I think it might be and it WORKS. Happy, happy! I retrieve my phone message. It tells me there is a problem with my monitor and that a "ticket" has been raised (DUH!) and that someone will send me an e-mail with further details. Back to square one.
I call the National Help Desk again to explain there is no point sending me an email if my monitor is dead. They tell me someone from Regional Headquarters in Vancouver (not in my building) has sent the email and he wants to know what exactly is dead about my monitor. I suggested Ottawa might ask him what is dead about his brain, but they thought that might not be helpful. They suggested I call him instead. So I did. I explained that my monitor is what is dead about my monitor. I also told him that I work for the pensions and I take many death reports every day, and if I ever asked a caller, "What exactly is dead about your mother, Sir?" I probably wouldn't still be working here. He got my point and said he'd send someone over from that room down the hall to look at it right away. Too late, I said. Right away was over an hour ago.
Several more minutes passsssss. My morning break was approaching. My co-worker Neil, who quietly inhabits the work station on the other side of my padded divider, suggested I steal the monitor off an unused station nearby. Swapping components between work stations is something that drives the techies MAD and by that point I thought that was a great idea. Ten minutes later I had a working monitor, albeit a 15" one instead of my 17" one. Tech support never did come by, even after I responded to the email in my in-box saying that I had stolen a monitor to replace my own. As I was leaving work today at least a dozen people (some I hardly knew) said to me, "I hear you had a problem with your monitor today...."
"Reality is only an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein
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