A lot of things aren’t working in my life right now, technology-wise, since I took on my new job and arrived in New York. I’m so utterly frustrated right now that I’m tempted to high-tail it back to an area of the country where I was comfortable knowing that technology was working for me - not slowly but surely driving me insane.
My new job required I get a cell phone. Gad. I finally had to break down and take the wireless plunge. I hate my phone. It broke down after the first month and had to be replaced. AT&T charged me for the replacement phone they sent me. They promised to reimburse me upon receiving the bad phone, which I shipped to them immediately. Unfortunately, they didn’t get the reimbursement amount right, and shorted me quite a bit of money. It took me 12 weeks and five different phone calls before AT&T properly reimbursed me for the phone I returned to them.
That was before I moved across the street to the Gershwin in January. My cell phone doesn’t work any better in this apartment than it did across the street. The reception is terrible. After over a half dozen lengthy calls to AT&T (now Cingular), I’m still stuck in a year-long contract with a phone I can’t use in my home office. Seeing as how I’m a field employee, my main method of customer and work contact is via cellular phone and Internet. When either of those goes down, I lose productivity. So I’m paying about 80 bucks a month for cellular service that doesn’t work the majority of the time I’m at work.
Why not switch carriers? Because Cingular will charge me $175 to release me from the contract. I refuse to pay this amount and have adamantly told them that I’m not paying $175 for a service that does not work. My employer refuses to pay. Somebody needs to pay. I haven’t met that person yet. If you see that person, please have him or her send up a flare to contact me.
Today, on my second call of the day to Cingular to escalate this issue, the representative I was speaking to attempted to transfer me to the “resolution” group, and I got disconnected during the transfer. I gave up for the day. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t call back. Later I discovered that the rep had in fact called me back - on my cellular phone – the one that I called to tell him DOES NOT WORK.
Each day I find myself repeating, “I am dealing with a bunch of monkeys.” And it only gets worse.
New York is the first city I’ve lived in where my home phone line is supplied by a cable company. When I learned this, it scared me. “What does a cable company know about phones?” I feared the worse. Sure enough, I’ve had a problem with an $8/month service since the day RCN finally hooked up my phone (which was three days later than they promised to – but we won’t even go there).
After nearly four months of lengthy phone calls with RCN customer service, my caller ID still does not work. Each time I call them, I have to go through this lengthy selection menu and then have to tell the entire story about my caller ID not working to whichever rep I get. They always end up transferring me to a troubleshooting technician. And – I kid you not – twice I’ve been disconnected during the transfer and had to call back in, go through the lengthy menu again, and start all over with a different person. I think the people on 10th floor heard my screams that day.
I’ve wasted hours and hours on this problem. I’ve tried four – count them – FOUR different phones, and still my caller ID doesn’t work. I told RCN this valuable piece of troubleshooting information, and still they said that my Caller ID should be working just fine because “it’s turned on on our end.” Ultimately they decided that (maybe) my Uniden phones just aren’t compatible with Caller ID. Hmmm, my Uniden phones worked fine with Comcast Cable, I told them. “Where’s your phone compatibility list? Is it posted on the Web?” I asked Jennifer on the last call. “Um, not anymore.” She was unable to find it but indicated that she’d never heard of Uniden.
That’s when I knew this was a losing battle and I’d have to try another tactic. Today I finally bought a caller ID box at Radio Shack - just for testing purposes. I already knew the end result. Sure enough, my Caller ID still doesn’t work! So, guess who I have to call tomorrow (after I get off the phone with Cingular customer service)? Another couple of hours of my already hectic schedule tomorrow are shot. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
Tonight I was online working away. (Have I mentioned that when I’m not fighting with Cingular or RCN, all I do is work?) I went for a walk to buy bananas and a caller ID unit. When I got home, my high-speed Internet connection had gone down. Again, I spent a good hour troubleshooting, trying different computers, different cables, resetting the modem, rebooting the computers – you know, the usual stuff you do when you lose Internet connectivity – and calling my ISP, RCN. After navigating their selection menu, a recorded voice told me that the wait time would be 19 minutes. I knew something was up. When I finally got a technician on the phone, all he could tell me was “Yup, we’re having lots of problems in New York that just started a few minutes ago.” I asked, “So I assume you don’t know the cause and don’t have an ETA?” “That’s right,” he said. I started laughing, “I am having the worst day,” I said jovially. He didn’t find it funny and hung up after some smart-aleck comment which I’ve already forgotten.
On to my new Toshiba Tecra M2 laptop. The system board lasted all of five months, and it’s been downhill from there. I had to leave my laptop with Help Desk for a day so that the system board could be replaced. This required wasting a whole day of productivity setting up a desktop computer at home for VPN connectivity (etcetera) so that I could continue to do my job.
When I got my laptop back, it was no longer my laptop. They'd replaced the shell with another Toshiba laptop case that someone had obviously pulled out of a recycle bin somewhere in Redmond. The case looked like it had been taken on a Mt. Rainier climbing trip and dropped repeatedly down the side of the mountain.
This really pissed me off. My team pays for me to get a brand new laptop, and when it breaks down, it gets replaced with a piece of junk? Not acceptable. Especially since I work in financial services in NYC. If my client was KOA Kampground, no big deal. But I sit down in meetings with managing directors of a large Wall Street brokerage firm - I don't want them thinking that I dragged my laptop across the subway platform on my way into the office.
So, when surveyed, I complained. A manager called me and promised me they'd track down my old laptop shell, replace the system board, and send it to NY for me. Today was my appointment to have the shell replaced. I walked six blocks in pouring rain to drop off my laptop at Help Desk late yesterday afternoon, hoping they could jump on it first thing this morning. By noon today they still didn't have an ETA. It was 12:30 when they realized that my old case had never arrived from Redmond.
Of course, this was on a day when my customer had a critsit (a critical technical situation) that I had to manage. Not to mention, I'd put a consultant on site for another urgent issue awaiting resolution. I couldn't go on site without a laptop, so I worked remotely on both issues most the day, only to find out I could have gone in to the client's office after all if only the Help Desk had checked their shipment.
So tomorrow I have to go without my laptop, once again, while they restore it to its original condition.
For the month of April, my laptop has been down more than it’s been up. And I'm pretty sure I've now spent more hours on the phone with my company’s internal Help Desk than I have spent sleeping since I got to NY. The sad thing about all of this is that the technicians I’ve worked with lately have only made my computer problems worse. There’s nothing more frustrating than calling someone for help and finding out you know more than they do about the technology you’re calling them for help about.
One day I called in to get help with a Windows Installer problem – a minor software glitch that was keeping me from installing the latest and greatest internal VPN connection software that allows me to do my job anywhere that has an Internet connection – i.e., at my home office and the client’s site, the two places where I usually work. I’d actually found my own workaround to install the software but needed to fix the problem long-term. I was on the phone with Help Desk for two hours straight that day, and by the end of the call, my entire operating system had been replaced, and I’d lost all service packs and security updates that had been released since Windows XP came out. Somehow, I'd allowed the technician to convince me that running "repair" on my Windows OS would not replace newer files. I was reluctant, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Never again.
On the survey I received and filled out later, I said I was never calling Help Desk again after this experience (and others of late). A nice manager called me back and convinced me not to take such drastic measures. A couple days later, I called back into Help Desk to say that my VPN connection kept dropping. That was April 11th, my 41st birthday. After 90 minutes on the phone with this other technician, I could no longer get on the VPN at all. My productivity, once again, was shot because I was in worse shape than I'd been in prior to calling Help Desk. I spent yet another day repairing my computer after allowing a technician to hose it up.
Really, never again. I mean it this time.
When people ask me what I did for my 41st birthday and I tell them that I spent it crying, they don't understand that it was a combination of technology and idiocy that had me in tears, not a mid-life crisis.
To this day, that ticket is still open, has been escalated, and no one has solved the problem with my VPN connection dropping. I even managed to narrow it down to my laptop and provide trace logs to the technicians. Unfortunately, the escalation engineer is still trying to figure out how to read the IP address from my IPCONFIG.
So I give up.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
A Visit to St. Paul’s Chapel
Saturday was a gorgeous spring day, so I decided to take a walking tour around City Hall Park. I took the 2/3 train to Park Place, where my tour started at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Broadway. The small church looked like its own little world, nestled amongst huge downtown skyscrapers like the famous Woolworth building. I hadn’t planned on going inside the church, but something drew me to its doors.
Other than the fact that this pre-Revolutionary War church still has a pew specially designated for George Washington, I did not realize the true significance of this little chapel until after I walked in behind a small crowd of tourists.
The walls and ceilings are painted baby blue and pink, and the interior is lit by sparkling Waterford chandeliers hanging from the arched ceiling. But I didn’t even notice the colors or crystals until much later. Instead, what caught my eye was an enlarged photo hanging on the wall to the right of the tiny vestibule. It was a picture of a tall, handsome priest, all dressed in black, standing in a lot littered with rubble and papers, and covered with the thick dust of the former World Trade Center towers. Wearing a white handkerchief over his mouth and nose, he stands with a hand on one hip, facing Ground Zero, an expression of resignation in his eyes. I stared at it for several minutes before entering the church.
As I entered, I saw that this chapel housed the memories of those lost in the 9/11 attacks and stood as a tribute to the FDNY, NYPD, and other souls who joined in the search for survivors in the aftermath. I was OK until I got to the first display on the left and came face-to-face with real pictures of “the missing.” Lots of them – old and young, male and female, fat and skinny - all with smiling faces looking into the camera long before September 11. Some were shown with spouses at their weddings, others with their children or friends. These “missing” posters had once hung on the fence outside the church. It was gut-wrenching looking at them. Seeing Ground Zero is one thing. Seeing the faces of human beings who were burned or pulverized in the fallen towers is another thing altogether.
I went from one display to the next in St. Paul's, trying to hold back tears. I didn't succeed. Before long I had to step outside for air. I went to the back of the church, walked out, and realized that the back yard – an old cemetery under a canopy of trees – was directly across the street from Ground Zero. I hadn’t realized just how physically close the church was to the site. Literally, the edge of its property sits 30 feet from the WTC site. I sat on a bench and found myself looking directly at World Financial Center 2 & 3. Looking at those two buildings (ranging from 33 – 54 stories high), I realized just how tiny they are in comparison to the twin towers, which were two to three times as tall.
In my visit there I learned that, in the aftermath of 9/11, St. Paul’s quickly became a sanctuary for disaster recovery workers, who would come into the church for a few hours’ rest on tiny cots before returning to the disaster site to continue digging through the rubble in search of survivors. There were none. The priest in the photo is shown on video later saying that first aid sites were set up to help the injured – but none ever came. The priest said that they waited and waited and just couldn’t believe it. Everyone was dead.
It was tough being in St. Paul’s. And remembering. And seeing the faces of the dead. That was the hardest part. I was touched by the numerous notes, murals, letters, and works of art sent to NYC by children all over the world on display in the chapel.
While I was there, a touring choir from a Wisconsin high school set up and began singing. Once again, my timing couldn’t have been better.
I left to tour City Hall Park and the municipal buildings of New York before returning to the chapel’s gift shop to buy a heavy 800-page book of photos called "here is new york," (www.hereisnewyork.org), and a DVD about the events of September 2001. I went through the entire book of photos last night. Some of the pictures are graphic. All are disturbing. It made me angry, and it made me sad. It made me wonder how the hell things like this can happen. Like most people, to this day I still can’t make sense of it.
I got through almost the entire book without crying. It was the little boy in his mother’s arms at his father’s FDNY funeral that brought tears to my eyes. His mom was obviously trying to be strong for her son. I could tell she was holding back sobs. The photo is reminiscent of the famous Time-Life photo of the young man standing in salute at John F. Kennedy’s funeral.
Like that photo known by so many, we must never forget September 11.
Other than the fact that this pre-Revolutionary War church still has a pew specially designated for George Washington, I did not realize the true significance of this little chapel until after I walked in behind a small crowd of tourists.
The walls and ceilings are painted baby blue and pink, and the interior is lit by sparkling Waterford chandeliers hanging from the arched ceiling. But I didn’t even notice the colors or crystals until much later. Instead, what caught my eye was an enlarged photo hanging on the wall to the right of the tiny vestibule. It was a picture of a tall, handsome priest, all dressed in black, standing in a lot littered with rubble and papers, and covered with the thick dust of the former World Trade Center towers. Wearing a white handkerchief over his mouth and nose, he stands with a hand on one hip, facing Ground Zero, an expression of resignation in his eyes. I stared at it for several minutes before entering the church.
As I entered, I saw that this chapel housed the memories of those lost in the 9/11 attacks and stood as a tribute to the FDNY, NYPD, and other souls who joined in the search for survivors in the aftermath. I was OK until I got to the first display on the left and came face-to-face with real pictures of “the missing.” Lots of them – old and young, male and female, fat and skinny - all with smiling faces looking into the camera long before September 11. Some were shown with spouses at their weddings, others with their children or friends. These “missing” posters had once hung on the fence outside the church. It was gut-wrenching looking at them. Seeing Ground Zero is one thing. Seeing the faces of human beings who were burned or pulverized in the fallen towers is another thing altogether.
I went from one display to the next in St. Paul's, trying to hold back tears. I didn't succeed. Before long I had to step outside for air. I went to the back of the church, walked out, and realized that the back yard – an old cemetery under a canopy of trees – was directly across the street from Ground Zero. I hadn’t realized just how physically close the church was to the site. Literally, the edge of its property sits 30 feet from the WTC site. I sat on a bench and found myself looking directly at World Financial Center 2 & 3. Looking at those two buildings (ranging from 33 – 54 stories high), I realized just how tiny they are in comparison to the twin towers, which were two to three times as tall.
In my visit there I learned that, in the aftermath of 9/11, St. Paul’s quickly became a sanctuary for disaster recovery workers, who would come into the church for a few hours’ rest on tiny cots before returning to the disaster site to continue digging through the rubble in search of survivors. There were none. The priest in the photo is shown on video later saying that first aid sites were set up to help the injured – but none ever came. The priest said that they waited and waited and just couldn’t believe it. Everyone was dead.
It was tough being in St. Paul’s. And remembering. And seeing the faces of the dead. That was the hardest part. I was touched by the numerous notes, murals, letters, and works of art sent to NYC by children all over the world on display in the chapel.
While I was there, a touring choir from a Wisconsin high school set up and began singing. Once again, my timing couldn’t have been better.
I left to tour City Hall Park and the municipal buildings of New York before returning to the chapel’s gift shop to buy a heavy 800-page book of photos called "here is new york," (www.hereisnewyork.org), and a DVD about the events of September 2001. I went through the entire book of photos last night. Some of the pictures are graphic. All are disturbing. It made me angry, and it made me sad. It made me wonder how the hell things like this can happen. Like most people, to this day I still can’t make sense of it.
I got through almost the entire book without crying. It was the little boy in his mother’s arms at his father’s FDNY funeral that brought tears to my eyes. His mom was obviously trying to be strong for her son. I could tell she was holding back sobs. The photo is reminiscent of the famous Time-Life photo of the young man standing in salute at John F. Kennedy’s funeral.
Like that photo known by so many, we must never forget September 11.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Did Gershwin Do Windows?
One of the first things I noticed when I moved into the Gershwin is that there’s something wrong with the water. Mind you, the water across the street at the Longacre was fine. Same supplier – the City of New York.
Anyway, I think the water is hard. I can run my hands under the water for less than a minute and my skin gets all pruney – like it does when you fall asleep in the hot tub for four hours. And it makes my skin all dry. I keep hand lotion all over the house.
I notified maintenance early on – back in January when I bumped into a guy in the elevator who was wearing jeans and had a radio on his belt. I asked him if he worked in the building. He said yes, and I told him about the water weirdness. His auto-response was, “We don’t treat the water. I know because I was here when they built this place.” In other words, “Tough.”
So I went to the front desk and filled out a maintenance request form. I was talking to the concierge about it when the maintenance guy from the elevator walked up and barked, “I already told you we don’t treat the water. What’re you talking to him about it for?” I stood firm and told him I didn’t like living in a place for three grand a month if I can’t take a shower. I asked who they get their water from, and he wouldn’t provide me the name of the utility company. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy, so I asked him nicely “Who is the building manager?”
“I am,” he replied.
Great. That’s just my luck.
I never heard back. After a couple weeks, I noticed a bright blue stain had formed in the bottom of my bathtub, next to the drain. I cleaned the tub, and the stain came off. A couple weeks later, the stain was back. So I ordered a $100 shower filter online and installed it. It didn’t help much at first. (I think it’s providing some relief now.) This was back in March. Still no word from maintenance, so I went down to the front desk and filled out a second maintenance request, indicating that I wanted the building manager to come look at the turquoise blob in my bathtub. I did note, of course, that my new expensive filter didn’t seem to help.
No one ever called.
Later I took pictures of the stain with my digital camera, printed a 5 x 7” copy and stapled it to a third maintenance request form. This one started with, “Ten days since my last request,” but I was polite – just as I was each time I saw the building manager in the hallway. I would always smile and say hello as if he’d never humiliated me in front of the doorman and Albert, the concierge…. To this day Albert asks me how my water is whenever he sees me.
A couple days later, my doorbell rings. The building manager is standing there with THREE maintenance guys. They wanted to come in and fix my bathtub leak. The look on my face clearly said, "Do you really need to bring in the Calvary to tighten a faucet?" I caught myself and welcomed them inside. All four of them were still working in my tiny bathroom when I had to leave to go downstairs and put clothes in the dryer.
That’s when I lost my laundry card. I blame the maintenance guys – for breaking my laundry routine.
Back at the apartment, the building manager told me he intended to have the water tested. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that. But he hasn’t been back since.
So whoever found my laundry card pocketed it. I had just put about 20 bucks on it. I certainly hope it was someone who needed it more than I did. I checked everywhere – rental office, building manager, and concierge, but nobody turned in a lost card. I even put a sign up in the laundry room asking whoever found it to please return it. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No laundry card. Time to buy a new one.
This week I bought my new card ($3.00). This time I plastered my name and apartment number all over it, in indelible ink. I was doing laundry with my new card when I bumped into the building manager who was also doing his laundry. We were chatting, and I asked him “By the way, when do the windows get cleaned?” The outside of my windows had gotten pretty dirty over the winter, and I just figured it was something that the building did in the spring. He told me they don’t. I gave him a bewildered look, and he explained that the Gershwin washes the windows when you move in, but the tenants are responsible after that.
“I live on the 9th floor,” I said.
“I know,” he smiled. Then we wished each other a great day, and I went home to put on hand lotion.
Anyway, I think the water is hard. I can run my hands under the water for less than a minute and my skin gets all pruney – like it does when you fall asleep in the hot tub for four hours. And it makes my skin all dry. I keep hand lotion all over the house.
I notified maintenance early on – back in January when I bumped into a guy in the elevator who was wearing jeans and had a radio on his belt. I asked him if he worked in the building. He said yes, and I told him about the water weirdness. His auto-response was, “We don’t treat the water. I know because I was here when they built this place.” In other words, “Tough.”
So I went to the front desk and filled out a maintenance request form. I was talking to the concierge about it when the maintenance guy from the elevator walked up and barked, “I already told you we don’t treat the water. What’re you talking to him about it for?” I stood firm and told him I didn’t like living in a place for three grand a month if I can’t take a shower. I asked who they get their water from, and he wouldn’t provide me the name of the utility company. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy, so I asked him nicely “Who is the building manager?”
“I am,” he replied.
Great. That’s just my luck.
I never heard back. After a couple weeks, I noticed a bright blue stain had formed in the bottom of my bathtub, next to the drain. I cleaned the tub, and the stain came off. A couple weeks later, the stain was back. So I ordered a $100 shower filter online and installed it. It didn’t help much at first. (I think it’s providing some relief now.) This was back in March. Still no word from maintenance, so I went down to the front desk and filled out a second maintenance request, indicating that I wanted the building manager to come look at the turquoise blob in my bathtub. I did note, of course, that my new expensive filter didn’t seem to help.
No one ever called.
Later I took pictures of the stain with my digital camera, printed a 5 x 7” copy and stapled it to a third maintenance request form. This one started with, “Ten days since my last request,” but I was polite – just as I was each time I saw the building manager in the hallway. I would always smile and say hello as if he’d never humiliated me in front of the doorman and Albert, the concierge…. To this day Albert asks me how my water is whenever he sees me.
A couple days later, my doorbell rings. The building manager is standing there with THREE maintenance guys. They wanted to come in and fix my bathtub leak. The look on my face clearly said, "Do you really need to bring in the Calvary to tighten a faucet?" I caught myself and welcomed them inside. All four of them were still working in my tiny bathroom when I had to leave to go downstairs and put clothes in the dryer.
That’s when I lost my laundry card. I blame the maintenance guys – for breaking my laundry routine.
Back at the apartment, the building manager told me he intended to have the water tested. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that. But he hasn’t been back since.
So whoever found my laundry card pocketed it. I had just put about 20 bucks on it. I certainly hope it was someone who needed it more than I did. I checked everywhere – rental office, building manager, and concierge, but nobody turned in a lost card. I even put a sign up in the laundry room asking whoever found it to please return it. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No laundry card. Time to buy a new one.
This week I bought my new card ($3.00). This time I plastered my name and apartment number all over it, in indelible ink. I was doing laundry with my new card when I bumped into the building manager who was also doing his laundry. We were chatting, and I asked him “By the way, when do the windows get cleaned?” The outside of my windows had gotten pretty dirty over the winter, and I just figured it was something that the building did in the spring. He told me they don’t. I gave him a bewildered look, and he explained that the Gershwin washes the windows when you move in, but the tenants are responsible after that.
“I live on the 9th floor,” I said.
“I know,” he smiled. Then we wished each other a great day, and I went home to put on hand lotion.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
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