dell

Since I started my Dell training here, I’ve been forced to not use the L-word when referring to portable computers, on penalty of a quarter for slipping.

If we use the L-word (don’t worry, it’s not the L-word that gets men excited over everything, unless they’re geeks who get their kicks on hardware), our instructor has a tendency to say, “The what?”
Many of them fall for it and say, “The l(censored) — Aw, sh–”, doubling their penalty for the day.

We’re required to use words such as “notebook” or “portable” when referring to these devices, and it’s just funny as all get out.

So far, I’ve been caught twice, but there are a few of us who are still in the old school era where you actually could sit these things on your lap and work from them, hence their accidental usage of the former term. But, a number of guys finding themselves at an impromptu sausage roast (heh heh heh) when they do that with the new ones, I can’t blame them for changing the verbage, and making sure we use it, too.

I could let the title of this entry be the entire content, but I think I owe you all an explanation. Hopefully, this one’s not against the old NDA I was under (hence the lack of real meat in my work posts).

Basically, the company I work for here, doing tech support for AOL had to lay all of us off, due to… extenuating circumstances. This was something I knew was coming two months ago, and I was prepared and ready. I was planning on using my time off to claim unemployment, and search for a job with similar pay, or even go back to my old job.

On our last week there, I get a phone call just before I could call in with my doctor’s note, telling me that there is an opening available for me with the same company, but doing support for Dell. They tell me it involves a pay raise, which I was pleased as punch to hear, so of course, I went for it.

Therefore, I’ve spent all of THIS week off from work, and will be working next week, by doing over a month of proper training.

I’m glad, too. It means I get to keep benefits, and might be able to make some necessary progress.

So, when I got paid, I tapped a little into my savings, and burnt off my entertainment budget for the month in a single shot:

I now have an old Dell Latitude CPx laptop at my disposal.

I can finally blog a little more, from more locations, without having to constantly abandon my computer because time’s up. All I’m limited by is where I can connect from at the moment via Ethernet (or by my phone).

This only cost me $200, and can seriously be reused over and over until I manage to break or lose this laptop.

Result: Getting connected often enough to actually download stuff for my personal entertainment, so that I can play offline = Saving money in the long run.

I am seriously happy.

[tags]laptop, internet, tethering, dell[/tags]