Monthly Archives: August 2005

Aug 30

Okay..my employer’s finally lost it

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My day job is with a fairly large company (~4,000 people), and we have a decent-sized “IT” department.

Chew on this atrocity, received this morning (note: the business name is removed, lest I be dooced).

To ALL XXXXXX PC End-Users:

As you know, in an attempt to prevent viruses from entering the XXXXXX network, we have installed on both your local desktops and on the Email Server an anti-virus system. The majority of viruses that could affect our network are also blocked before they ever reach your computer system by our Firewall and Intrusion Detection System. However, when users use external email accounts via POP3, Webmail, or one of the many free email providers on the internet, those controls are circumvented and can lead to infection on the corporate network.

In order to protect XXXXXX computers and data, it is necessary to turn off the ability to access outside email services. Therefore, effective Friday, September 2, 2005, all external email services (as described above) will be blocked. Your XXXXXX email account will continue to function as it always has. There will be no interruption in service and you will still be able to send and receive emails from both inside and outside sources.

I’m not a network administrator, but it seems to me that most companies aren’t crippling access to Webmail in the name of viruses…

Aug 28

Where does the obligation start/stop?

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This is a question I’ve struggled with many times, and have good reason to be struggling with it again now.

At what point does a business have the obligation to compensate you for a mistake they made?

I’ve asked this question of several business whose service I patron, primarily of cell phone companies. AT&T did a piss-poor job of compensating me when they were unable to successfully port my number over (a year and a half ago), and had me waiting for weeks. So I left them, and T-Mobile has done an adequate job of answering for their mistakes.

When T-Mobile accidentally released my number back to Sprint (woops), and was unable to retrieve it (holy smokes), they gave me two months of service free, and a new phone…after all, I had a NEW number, and needed to share that number with my contacts.

That’s fair, and I’ve come to hold most businesses to that standard – rightly or wrongly.

This weekend I dropped a fair amount of money in Ikea, as we’re creating the nursery for Callista. She’ll be born in early October, so we’re running out of time.

Regardless, because Callista’s going to need a crib and such, Kia, our other daughter, gets a loft bed. After all, fairness is demanded in this house.

So I spent a few hours assembling the loft bed, only to realize that I was unable to assemble the ladder (the very last step) because I didn’t have the right dowels. My wife, who’s something of an expert at Ikea assembly, saw the problem immediately: there were two sizes of dowels, and I’d probably used all the wrong size in assembling the bed.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me.

So we began disassembling the newly assembled bed.

An hour later, when we got the entire bed apart (of course, the dowels were used in the first three steps), we realized that I hadn’t used the wrong dowels. No, we were given 44 of the same size – rather than 24 of one, and 20 of the other.

We put the bed back together, and as it was midnight by that time, waited until morning to head to Ikea.

Here’s my conversation with the customer service rep at the Ikea store:

“How can I help you?”
“I was given 44 of this dowel, but I needed only 24 of them, and 20 of a smaller size.”
“Let me look up the instruction manual..one second.”

I wait for it to download on her machine.

“Okay, here’s the manual. Which one are you missing?”
“This is not the same manual that I have. Our manual distinctly shows two different dowels, and the dowels that I have do not fit in the ladder.”
“Hmm…this might be a new version of the bed. Let me see if we’ve got some old manuals laying around.”

She heads in the back, and checks a cabinet.

“Is this the manual you’ve got?”
“Yep, and these are the dowels I don’t have.”
“Ahh…yeah. Sometimes they create new versions of furniture, and it looks like the NEW version has 44 of the same dowel, but the old one has two different kinds.”
“So they gave me the hardware for the new bed, even though I have the old bed.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Here’s your dowels.”
“That’s it? I spent an extra three hours trying to figure out what I’d done wrong…”
“…don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. Our fault.”
“Okay, I’ve gathered that. What does that mean for me?”
“You don’t have to pay for those dowels. They’re on us.”

I was too exhausted to waste any time on this, so I took my parts and went home to finish the bed.

But it makes me wonder: what is three hours of my time worth? I know what my employer thinks it’s worth, but what should Ikea think it’s worth?

Am I wrong to think I am due some sort of compensation for their mistake?

It’s probably worth noting that Ikea is a good 20 miles from my house, and it’s not particularly convenient for me to just “stop in.”

Thoughts?

Aug 24

You’re a Hate Monger!

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I was listening to the radio this afternoon on my way home, and the topic was illegal immigration. Here in Southern California, this is an issue that hits particularly close to home, and people have strong opinions.

My opinion doesn’t happen to be related to this post, though you might be able to guess what it is. :)

Regardless, there was a caller who accused the host of being a “hater” because he supports groups like Protest Warrior. Upon inquiry, it was evident that Protest Warrior is a hating group because they show up at various liberal protests, and protest their protest.

That’s hate.

Furthermore, it was clear (according to the caller) that the host was a “hater” because he disapproved of illegal immigration, and criticizes President Bush for not acting to address the issue. Again, on inquiry, it became clear that the caller believed that Americans had “stolen this land to begin with,” that the idea of borders was something “American bigots had just made up,” and that there was absolutely no grounds for an immigration policy to begin with.

Sadly, the host did – in my opinion – a piss-poor job of arguing with this guy, and the conversation ended with an insinuation that the caller’s misperceptions could be attributed to his having attended public school (cop out).

We can’t spend time fighting wars of centuries ago, or second-guessing the actions of our predecessors. That’s all done, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

What we CAN do is acknowledge the challenges associated with living in today’s world, and address them to our best ability. Nation states (countries, etc.) have been around for an awful long time now…in fact, Mexico would be considered a nation state. They’ve got an immigration policy, even if it’s nothing more than writing. The U.S. is a nation state, with its own immigration policy (that happens to be only slightly more than writing).

If you enter this country illegally, you’ve broken the laws of the United States. Similarly, if you were to patron a brothel in Mexico, you’d be breaking Mexican law. Neither of these laws have been particularly well enforced in the past, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re laws enacted by the people of the respective nations.

We’ve ALL agreed that having independent nations, with the ability to create laws independently of one another, is perfectly fine. To my knowledge, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot inhabited land out there that’s without a country (please, no Gaza Strip references here)…and that’s for a REASON.

To suggest that U.S. immigration laws are moot because the land was “stolen” from previous inhabitants is asinine. In today’s society, every foreign-born person is given the opportunity to apply for American citizenship/legality. Those of you who choose to circumvent the system should be held accountable – just as American citizens should be held accountable for visiting Tijuana brothels.

Of course, that’d be logically applying the idea to both sides…and we try not to do that. ;)