I would like to say that much of my day is spent doing work and meeting with important people. That would give me job satisfaction and the illusion that it all means something.

Fortunately, these days, I work on a Macbook*, so that goal is within the realm of possibility.
*I occasionally hear about designers that will only work on Macbooks. When they get told that the Macbook specs are about the same as those of an Asus, the most entertaining response I’ve heard: “Yes, but I don’t want to hump an Asus every time I use it.”

However, this is mostly because I’m a corporate drop-out. When a large company is system-dependent, everyone has a Dell. Because of its long battery life or something.

A Morning In My Life With a Dell

  • Arrive at client
  • After untangling cables, turn on lap top.
  • Wait.
  • Windows spends 5 minutes telling me that it’s starting up.
  • Force Quit and restart.
  • Log in again. Success.
  • Attempt to connect to the internet via internal 3G sim card.
  • Enter the PIN code for the SIM card. Tick the “remember this” check box.
  • Enter my secure access code from my SecurID key. It fails.
  • Call IT. Get told to wait for the SecurID to start with a high number (preferably a “9”), because he’s “noticed that’s what works best with his computer”*.
    *True story.
  • Try again. Manage to connect briefly.
  • Open up internal company email client.
  • The email client freezes.
  • Restart lap top.
  • Enter the PIN code for the SIM card. Tick the “remember this” check box again.
  • Try to reconnect to 3G. The lap top, unmoved all this time, now cannot find any signal.
  • Call IT. Get asked if I’m standing near any aluminium blinds, as he’s “noticed that they can affect the signal by reflection”*.
    *Still a true story.
  • I say no.
  • I get told to “walk around the room with the lap top to see if it picks up signal.”
  • *walks around room with lap top*
  • Still nothing.
  • “Have you tried restarting the lap top?”
  • *restarts lap top*
  • Enter the PIN code for the SIM card. Tick the “remember this” check box for the third time.
  • Still doesn’t connect.
  • Attempt to use network cable to set up a hub.
  • Fail because I should never have tried that in the first place.
  • Decide to check emails later.
  • Open up Microsoft Excel.
  • Work for 30 minutes.

  • *swears*
  • Re-open Microsoft Excel. The recovered document has only partially recovered my work. I was creating formula links between 14 tabs of base data. I spend the next 30 minutes trying to piece together what’s missing. I click on the save button every time I enter a new formula.
  • Try to check emails.
  • Enter the PIN code for the SIM card. Tick the “remember this” check box AGAIN.
  • Wait for SecurID to start with a “9”. Connects.
  • Open mail client.
  • Check mail.
  • Mail client freezes while sending an email.
  • *throws hands up in disgust*
  • Force Quits.
  • Goes for lunch.

But, you know, fortunately Dell has a really long battery life.