Month: August 2003

This morning, when I was getting ready for work and had my “schedule to keep to” I discovered a big (6″ across) spider in the bath tub. So I had to flush that down the plug hole before I could have my shower (and I swear the spiders around here are learning to walk on water – this one just looked like those little fly things you study in school when covering water tension in science). After I got rid of it, I got in my bath/shower to have my shower and I knew I had to make it quick to keep to my carefully worked out schedule (corresponding with the bus time tables etc).

Got in the shower, turned it on and turned it up a bit. Turned it up a bit more as it was really cold. It was on Max! Check the power to it (turned on). Turn the whole thing off and on again. No go. Turn it off. Notice water dripping from the unit and decide it’ll be quicker and easier to have a “jug wash” (use jugs of water as a shower).

When I got home, I had a look inside the shower until and it looks like the pump type thing has burst (basically water is coming out where it shouldn’t be – right next to the electrical cables – and it looks to be the pump/water heater unit: but I’m no plumber). I’ve now “made safe” the shower unit (power off and power cable put in place where it can’t be accidentally turned on) and it looks like I may have to get a new shower unit. Drat.

Pop down stairs to grab a drink, and the kitchen light is on the blink (a week after I had to replace the bulb in the bathroom). Why is it everything starts failing at once?

And anything thing whilst I’m at it? Who came up with the idea of an electric shower? “Hmm, how about we put high voltage electricity in the very very close vicinity of a naked wet human?” – I bet the initial reaction was a bit like the bloke who invented the submarine. “Here’s your new boat, Mr.Navy Commander sir – it’s designed to go underwater”. “You mean you’ve specially designed a boat that SINKS?” “Erm, yes…”

Just reading Slashdot about technical support (and some of the calls I have come through – kak!), and this comment with the remark: Although I think the funniest, in terms of "what was this guy smoking?" was this one kid who, during a reboot, felt the burning need to ask: "So, know any good warez sites?"
Reminded me of a telephone call the other week with one of our hosting customers (as well as internet web hosting, the company I work for is also one of the UK leaders in search engine optimization). We had this customer ask “Do you know any good sites about search engine optimization?” – now, if most of you time is spent finding good sites, forums etc etc about your main sector of business would you respond with anything else then “Yes”?

Obviously, they asked “Well, can you tell me a few?”, my response (knowing roughly how much this customer was spending on hosting: he’s in the top 5 spenders btw) was “Unfortunately not – but if you use a search engine you’ll be able to find them”. Bad customer support? Well, the tech support team supports our webservers and that’s it so it was a “correct response” plus the fact that a few days later he signed up with us for a mid range search engine optimization package so 😉