Why HVAC Is Important

I'm in training this week. It's a nice classroom in San Mateo, with excellent internet connectivity and good tables and chairs. This is career-defining training, so I'm excited to be here. But I'm having trouble concentrating because the air conditioning has the temperature hovering around 55 degrees. That leads to a vicious cycle...

1) I'm drinking a lot of warm drinks.
2) I'm not able to focus because I'm shivering...even in my jacket.
3) The drinking and the cold leads to a shrunken and full bladder.
4) Even more trouble focusing because of the bladder.
5) Frequent visits to the bathroom, missing even more class.

They have a technician here trying to fix the problem, but it probably won't be done until the end of the day. Marvelous.

D-Link: Possibly the Worst Customer Experience Ever

I recently bought a D-Link 323 network-attached storage bay. I was psyched to get network storage...no more annoying USB cables, and I can access the drive from any computer. I ordered the unit, bought two 500GB drives, and set everything up per instructions. With the drives formatted, I was able to push 350GB of my data onto the drive. So far, so good. Until I tried to log in to the admin utility and get an ugly message:


"The hard drives have been installed incorrectly. Please power off and swap the hard drive locations."

OK, seems simple enough. I tried swapping the drives, but no dice. I got the same message. So I decided to open a ticket on D-Link's support site. Simple enough...I fill out the form, submit, and wait for an answer. Two days later, I get a reply:

This problem is better diagnosed over the phone. Please call our support center and reference ticket number XXXXXXXXXX to work through the issue with one of our specialists.

So far I'm calm...I nuderstand that some issues are better-diagnosed over the phone, with live interaction. So on Friday the 28th I dialed D-Link. What follows is a basic transcript of the call:

Minutes 1-8: On hold, waiting for a product specialist, listening ot a constant stream of advertisements for D-Link products. Yeah...I really want to hear about your products when I'm on hold, waiting to resolve an issue with one of them.

Minutes 8-13: Speaking with a first-line tech support person with a thick accent I couldn't place. She couldn't find the ticket I filed online. It took her 3 minutes and four explanations just to understand what was going on with the device. She put me on hold for another minute, then decided to transfer me to another support office.

Minutes 14-25: Holding for another support office, again listening to advertising.

Minutes 26-35: Speaking with a second-line support person. I again had to explain the issue 3 times. We eventually get to the firmware version and hardware version I'm using. He put me on hold while "researching" the issue.

Minutes 36-43: On hold, again listening ot advertisements, while the second-line tech was "researching."

Minutes 44-46: Tech 2 spends a minute and a half explaining to me that he needs to transfer me to D-Link's "business" support office. I reluctantly agree, and he transfers me.

Minutes 46-47: The answering machine for the "business" level support office explains that they're away for the holiday, and to please call back during business hours.

Minutes: 48-48.5: I throw the phone across the room in a rage, wondering why I spent part of my day off doing this.

I poked around D-Link's website a bit, and discovered that they have forums! Why, the community might help me out here! I posted a question, with full details and even a screenshot. Someone in the community offered up the idea to reformat my drive...but that requires getting into the very admin utility that's giving me the error. I may eventually resolve the issue, but I shouldn't have to. And the level of support should be much, much higher.

Tell me: if any of us ran a business that way, how long would we last? How is it that modern corporations can treat people this way and still sell enough product to stay afloat?

Hotel TVs...WTF?

If you travel at all, you've probably encountered the LodgeNet Remote. It's a TV remote that many hotel chains use to add pay-per-view movies and games to their TVs. And it's an absolute piece of shit that needs to die an agonizing death. It's clunky, it doesn't work right, and it slows down the TV. Tell me this: should a remote take 3-4 seconds to change a channel? Should it require you to wait a full second between pushing successive buttons (like when switching to a double-digit channel)? And most of all, shouldn't a TV remember the last channel you were on instead of resetting back to the annoying hotel ad channel? Yeah. I thought so.

I'm stuck at a Hilton in Austin, TX and the LodgeNet remote has been pissing me off. So has the ungodly slow internet access that requires me to log in via proxy every 30 minutes. All of this idiocy just so that Paris Hilton can make a lame sex tape and spend money she didn't earn...if ever we needed more evidence that the inheritance tax is a good thing.