The entire day on Monday is spent at the Campus Crusade for Christ - a regional office of the international ministry that deals with helping people to understand God - IT is IT, and not even the 'Great One' can stop a blue screen of death, I suppose!!
They have a permanent IT guy and his assistant, who's an "intern". I'm not entirely sure what an intern is, but I guess it's a trainee/ work experience/ apprenticeship-type role - I know Monica Lewinski was an intern - quite what she was training to do in later life beats me!! I meet a real-life version of South Park's Big Gay Al - "it's simply super that I've come here to help them with their IT problems" - I can't help but stifle a snigger every time this person speaks to me!!
Most of their problems are run-of-the-mill stuff, but their permanent IT guy doesn't have time to sort them out - that's why they've called me in - so I spend the whole day fixing the problems, and educating the guys on how to do things - it's quite an enjoyable day.
Jem's been down the beach today, so I go pick her up when I finish - I'm quite jealous really, as I've been here over two weeks, and am still as white as I was when I got here. She's been here just over a week, and is well and truly tanned - cow!!
Back to the hotel - via KFC - for a late-night spa - it's such a hard life!
Day 18
Tuesday takes me back to my first Service Plan customer - I remember how to get there without having to print a map off, which I'm impressed with - small things and all that! Then in the afternoon it's back to the Camp Crusader (Big Gay Al) to finish off some bits and pieces - I'm gonna try and get Chad to speak to them about having some more regular maintenance visits - it seems silly them paying $1,500 for one and a half days work as a one off (on a quarterly basis) when they could pay $500 a month, and have more regular visits to keep things properly maintained - well, that's the business mind speaking anyway!! Day 19 Wednesday is quite a chilled day - I'm in the office all day, rebuilding two machines - which is cool. Don't get me wrong, I love being out and about - but having some time in the office allows you to catch up on your email, and chase up things that you don't get time to do when at customer sites - like book a hire car for the weekend!! Day 20 Thursday starts with a quick client visit - the guys PC wont turn on! It's a power-supply failure - the smell of burnt-coils is a dead giveaway! Luckily, the PC is still under warranty, so a quick call to Dell, and a replacement is on it's way - well, that's what supposed to happen! You can't get a quick call to Dell support anymore - after five minutes of navigating the automated "press 1 to have your colon irrigated" phone system, I finally get through to a human being - in India!! It takes me a further five minutes to spell my name out to the dude at the other end!! Now I know why these big corporate's are moving their call centres to India - cheap labour - but the language barrier is soo frustrating. Luckily, my name only has 9 characters in it, otherwise I could've been there all morning!!
I managed to get to the afternoon visit just in time to logon to Gills World, and get the text-only commentary for the home game against Norwich - while updating the PC's, I'm able to take a sneaky-peak at my laptop to keep up-to-date with the game - everyone's a winner!! Except Gillingham that is - 2-1 it finishes to Norwich - bugger! That's two losses in a row - I sense some unrest when reading the message-board, but it's West Ham at home on Saturday, so the boys should be able to lift themselves for that one - I'm not too down-hearted!
After work, I rush back to pick Jem up, as we're off to the baseball again - it's cool actually, as Jem's quite into baseball, so I don't feel as though I'm dragging her off against her will! But it's a similar story to the first game last Sunday - the Angels give away 2 runs in the opening innings (they're playing Oakland). As the game goes on, Oakland stretch to a 5-3 lead - it's the end of the 7th innings, and half the stadium is emptying! Now, this is something that I've never understood - the Gills have played in some really dire games, where they've been absolutely battered, but I've never left a game before it's finished - you simply never know what's gonna happen. And that's exactly what happened tonight - in the last inning, the Angels have runners on first and second, when Spizeo steps up to the plate and hits a homer - game over!! And what an atmosphere (from those that remained) - joy turned to sorrow (for the Oakland fans) - dejection turned to euphoria (for the home fans) - and I find myself itching to high-five someone! I think I've been here too long!!
I don't really remember too much more about Wednesday - it was my early-morning meeting today, so I'm still recovering from my alarm clock going off at 6 - so here's a picture I received by email today - thanks Ian!!
After further frustration, we eventually get to the point where the replacement part is gonna be UPS'd overnight - that'll please the client! I make a mental note to email Dell Customer Service - everything else they do is top rate, but the amount of time spent (due to language issues) on the phone could've been better spent on other things - the client is paying for my time after all, and 45 minutes on the phone isn't easy to justify on a time-sheet!
In the afternoon, I'm over to the boss of one of inhouseIT's clients - I built his PC yesterday, and spend a couple of hours setting it up for him in his home office. He's not the most IT-literate person I've met, but I'm a patient guy - I humour him for about 30 minutes, showing him how to click on the start menu, then sell him the idea of half a day's training - "an introduction to Windows XP" I call it - he's hooked, and I don't feel a bit guilty about fleecing some silver-haired computer novice out of $440 - honest!!!
I get back to the hotel, and all my washing and ironing has been done for me - I'm pleased to see that Jem hasn't been getting bored with the lack of cooking facilities, and has made good use of her time!! No seriously, I don't expect it, so it's very much appreciated - what am I gonna do when she goes home?!?
END OF DAY 20