Monthly Archives: February 2003

Well, I took the car in on Friday to have it looked at and it turned out there was nothing wrong with it. Apparently the cooling system has a lot of condensation on it at this time of year and it was that which created the puddles I was seeing.

So now I know. Although I’m not 100% convinced, I guess since no warning lights or anything came on then it cant be something much more technical than that.

The aforementioned Wicked Witch of Kings Chrysler was on superb form – greeting me at the reception desk in a similar way to what you would expect if she was doing it at gunpoint. Not exacly gushing with customer friendlyness, but not being rude enough for me to cause a fuss.

I did ask the mechanic who took a look at that car “what’s up with Sue Marsden – is she always like that?”
“Like what?” The mechanic asked, with a similar attitude to that of the infamous servicing manager from hell. It was at this point I realised I was “on a hiding to nothing” (as uncle John would say – not sure what it means, but it seemed to fit the situation).

Why would an American company, from the land of customer service, employ a bunch of despondent clones to greet and face people who have come to them making the second most expensive purchase in their lives? (your most expensive one being your house, I’m assuming.)

Makes no sense to me. I may check the Chrysler website for an alternative dealer in the area. Even if it is further away, there’s more than a slim chance that the customer facing couldn’t be any worse.

Very little in the way of updates this week, so I’ll give a summary of what’s been going down…

At the weekend there Fliss and I watched the entire series two of Red Dwarf in one sitting. An exceptionally funny DVD with some good extras too. Cant wait to own the entire collection… well, except the dire series VIII.

During the week I’ve been pretty busy at work, discovering an Output Buffering bug in an older version of php. An absolute bugger that confused the hell out of me and Mr Exceptionally Patient Server Administrator. (This Bud’s for him!).

In the evenings I’ve been doing a little more C++. A lot of it is flooding back to me, and it’s so similar to php in places that I’ve been tempted to skip sections of the book that Graeme has loaned me. A bad thing to do, as I’ve already had to retrace my steps.

Tomorrow (Friday) I have taken the day off work, as I’m off to see the wizards at Kings Chrysler with the car. Hopefully this will not involve another frosty confrontation with Sue Marsden (the Wicked Witch of Kings Chrysler). The problem seems to be with the air conditioning, (or so I’ve been told) after noticing puddles of some liquid or other on the driveway for a few mornings. It did go away, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Fingers crossed it’s all covered under warranty – after being skinned alive for ?418 by the council tax people I cant really afford anything at all, including breathing almost.

I have signed up for the Freeserve anytime account in a bid to cut our internet access costs. Most startling was the fact that I connected at 52kbps right away with the new account, whereas BT OpenWound has had me handcuffed at 32kbps for the last two years. Freeserve, although not as ideal a solution as broadband might be, will at least save a few quid over BT, so the speed of connection was a pleasant bonus.

When I called BT this afternoon to tell them I was off to pastures new, the guy didn’t even argue with me, or try to convince me to stay with a cheap rate or something. Weird – I figured most corporations nowadays have a customer retention department. I guess not.