Oh lord, I had been begging for this for years. I’d been running a crusty old laptop, thick as hell; tiny, dim, shitty screen, slow as continental drift for 7 years now. And it was actually a hand-me-down from a departed employee. Laptop was circa 2003 or so. The damn thing - from hitting the power button, it was literally (I timed it) 10 minutes from when I started it up to when I could actually start reading email (4 minutes to boot, 6 minutes churning in Win XP (!) before anything was responsive.) I’d given up. I’d requested time and time again, always to be told no. I hadn’t asked for nearly a year now.
Out of the blue today, the IT fairies smiled upon me, and they delivered to me, to my surprise, a slick new (!) ultrabook. :eek:
I love this thing so much already. Boots fast, it’s got Win 7 and Office 2010 rather than my previous Win and Office XP, pretty screen, thin, light and wonderful. Completely made my day.
…now if I could just convince them that the iPhone 4 they forced upon me is old and also desperately in need of upgrading…
I can’t help thinking you might look back on this day like a junkie does on his first bag of smack. It’s a real rush at first but pretty soon you’re mainlining just to ‘get right.’ You made it 7 years without a fix last time but who’s to say you’ll make it even 7 months this time. Your comment about the iPhone4 tells me they’ve already go their hooks in you and now they’re just reeling you in. And as odd as it sounds, at least the junkie has a built in advantage. Its socially acceptable, nay encouraged to quit the habit. Just try to give up your tech habit. Ha! You may as well buy that log cabin in Montana.
The employer who takes 7 years to replace a computer doesn’t sound like the kind of employer who would ever even consider giving an employee an iPhone (or any other kind). Do they pay your plan too?
Congrats! I just got an upgraded work laptop as well. Mine was well past it’s shelf life. IT kept telling me that if anything went wrong they would not bother fixing it, wouldn’t be worth the effort. I finally convinced them that the 20 minute boot up time was costing more in productivity over the course of a year than the cost of the upgrade. Boot up time is now under 2 minutes!
If I could just get Notes to play nice with Win 7 I’d have it made.
They did give me an iPhone (4) and they do pay my plan. I wasn’t happy about it, though. They didn’t give me the option to keep the mobile number I’ve had for 8 years (kept it anyways through doper advice, google voice) and the iPhone 4 they gave me was a real step back from the slick (well, circa 2011) android phone I’d been rocking (droid bionic). Which was still way better than the iPhone 4 - no blame on the iPhone 4, it just happened to be a year older, and my employer only picked it because it was cheap. I’m sure it was a fine phone … when it was current.
iPhone 4 - smaller screen, no 4g, AT&T instead of Verizon (hell in my area), and the damn thing just feels slow. And I was so close to my upgrade, too. Was so planning to get a Galaxy S4. Now it will probably be 3 years until they upgrade me…to a 4s. At least I don’t have to pay the monthly bill anymore.
TL: DR;
Company pays for my phone and monthly plan, but it’s an iPhone 4 and its outdatedness (specifically 3g) and shitty AT&T coverage makes me cranky.
No offense taken, I actually remember being happy at my first job years ago (McDonald’s, 15 years old, mostly mopping and wiping as they didn’t want a 15-year-old at the register) when I would get the “good” mop. No shame though, that’s exactly the job a 15-year-old should have.
Now I feel kind of bad. Two weeks ago, I went into work and discovered our IT guy replacing my (perfectly good) Mac with a newer, slimmer, faster, generally cooler one. And the sound works on this one! It’s always good to befriend the IT guy.
Now that I think about it, though, I turned down a Macbook a couple of years ago because I didn’t feel I really needed to take home a computer and someone else could use it more (now that I use my own netbook to work from home at least once or twice a week - more during summer and early fall, I feel foolish). I suppose I was due, sort of.
At least I don’t have to pay the monthly bill anymore.