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February 28, 2008

Good people, good times.

Filed under: Life,Work — sherl0k @ 5:04 pm

I’ve been really enjoying work these past few weeks. Although the job is pretty mundane, the characters I work with are quite awesome and really make it more than just a typical job. When you’re in a somewhat enclosed area with the freedom to talk with each other freely, the time passes quickly. We all crack jokes at each other, talk about everything under the sun, and at the same time get compliments from management for doing a great job. We can wear whatever clothes we want, and listen to music via headphones or speakers hooked up to our stations (as long as it’s nothing too loud or offensive). I’m near the top in my department for numbers and today I got to audit everyone with my friend/coworker Chris to ensure they were doing everything by the books. Handed out suggestions to them to help them raise their numbers, which nearly all of them had appreciated.

Last weekend was spent with Liz, as usual. Running errands during the day mostly. Saturday night we made a pizza, watched the Goonies, and dyed our hair. I’m now a redhead.

Sunday night was the Oscars so we hung out and watched them, until I got too tired to stay awake and headed home. Lucky for her she doesn’t have to be to work at 7:30 in the morning… silly second shift.

My nights have been occupied with Mario 64, so far it’s the only N64 game to come in the mail since I ordered them all off of Ebay. I got my second controller though, and the expansion pak… not exactly needed right now.

Not sure what’s on the plate for this weekend. Liz is gone on Saturday night so we’re only hanging out part of that day, and maybe on Sunday. I’ll probably just do my homework to pass the time.

February 18, 2008

Hooray for Valentine’s weekend!

Filed under: Life — sherl0k @ 7:37 pm

I had a very awesome weekend. I spent it all with Lizzzzzz. She had to work on V-day and I can’t visit her at work anymore, so we postponed things until the weekend. We exchanged gifts on Friday and spend the rest of the weekend together.

Saturday we went out to Utica to visit some of her family, which was pretty neat. Liz got a laptop from her grandfather which was really nice of him, and then took us out to lunch afterwards, which was just as nice. We visited some other stores while out there, too. Went to Best Buy and Liz picked up an awesome Fuji FinePix camera. 7 megapixels. It takes amazing photos. Did some clothes shopping too, I picked up another pair of pants. I needed ‘em.

Headed back home, only to head out again to the mall to grab dinner and catch Jumper. Good movie. I didn’t go into it expecting it to be some OMG amazing movie, but it was entertaining.

Sunday we caught lunch at the bagel shop, and did some more shopping. Liz bought some shelving units from Wal-Mart along with some other various things. I put them together later that night at the apartment, and let me tell you, Wal-Mart sells some pretty cheap-quality stuff. Then again, you all probably knew that. The shelves weren’t even when placed next to each other, even though they were the exact same kind. And the particle board was pretty much ready to break. But, they’re put together and look presentable enough to use.

We also stopped at the local game store so I could check out the prices of used N64 games. Liz is letting me borrow her N64 since she doesn’t use it, but she doesn’t have any games to go with it. I’m really surprised at how much these stores are charging for Mario 64… $30. It’s pretty much the most common game, too. I checked Ebay for prices though, and I got it cheaper, only $20. I got a couple other games too – Goldeneye for $14, and DK Racing for $10. I think those 3 will keep me occupied for a good time to come.

Sunday night we just hung around the apartment while I put the shelves together, then ate at Denny’s – her treat for me putting them together. I wasn’t really that hungry, I couldn’t even finish a Sampler. I guess I was just more tired than anything.

So it’s back to the work grind for me, until next weekends hits and we can do it all over again.

February 11, 2008

Jobspam.

Filed under: Work — sherl0k @ 5:46 pm

I started my new job today. It’s nothing too difficult, pays as much as I was getting paid before, and there’s a lot of room to move up.

My responsibilities are very simple and straightforward. While the job is seemingly repetitive, and I have to stand the entire time, I really don’t mind it. I get a line of 4 Acer laptops that customers have shipped back for whatever reason, test a few things, recover it to its system defaults, and move onto the next batch. The only thing that really slows the process down is that these are all laptops that run Vista. Most of them weren’t even used by the customer for a week when they were sent back, some were never even turned on for whatever reason. So when turning the laptops on there’s all the trial software that loads, Windows bitches about security settings, and a few other pop-ups that obviously slow the booting process. Testing the laptops works like this:

-Reset the bios to defaults, enable the boot menu
-Boot from a CD to reset all passwords
-Boot PC normally, log into Administrator account
-Format the D: drive (Acer laptops use that as a DATA drive, where user data is stored)
-Check the webcam (if present) to make sure it works
-Check all the USB ports, just plug in a flash drive
-Open the device manager to see if there’s any bad hardware
-Reboot with factory restore CD

That’s pretty much the process for these, we’re expected to do like 60 a day and it’s quite easy to obtain. And if there’s any part of the process that fails, we just mark it with the problem and put it in a separate pile, let the repair guys deal with it. It’s no longer our issue.

There’s a chance to move around too, like I can move over to repair if I get sick of testing, or work in the warehouse section boxing or unboxing the PCs. And there may be a 2nd shift starting, which I would definitely jump on.

So I’m pretty content with this. Not to mention the dress code is 100% casual. Score.

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