Defeating the purpose
Posted by Ceri Davies Mon, 21 Nov 2005 23:38:00 GMT
EuroBSDcon 2005 is nigh. The laptop that I currently have has the charging cable melted to the motherboard, in such a position that it is impossible to remove yet difficult to get to charge. I am not sure that I want to take it with me. So unsure in fact, that I ordered a Vaio from John Lewis on Saturday evening. I felt bad about that, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Sony aren’t particularly in the list of companies that I should be doing business with at the moment, what with all the rootkit business. Also, their (Sony’s) website didn’t work with my browser, and I normally make a point of going elsewhere when that happens. In the third instance, I can’t actually afford it and I don’t like to buy computers on credit. I was also rushing myself and paying for it, as the same laptop was up to 50 pounds cheaper elsewhere, but John Lewis was the only company who could get it to me by Tuesday, just in time for an evening of FreeBSD installation before leaving on Thursday (Wednesday evening is reserved).
I wasn’t particularly disappointed, therefore, when I received a mail on Sunday saying that my order had been held up by a random security check and that if I didn’t call customer services before 14:30 on Monday the order would have to be cancelled. Good news.
Since I’m currently waiting on a call from Dell regarding a faulty server they shipped us, when the phone rang this morning and the guy said that he was calling about a problem with my order, I was somewhat confused at the beginning of the call until he explained that he was calling from John Lewis regarding another problem with my laptop order: apparently they do not deliver to universities. When I suggested, this being the case, that he cancel the order, he kindly offered to have it delivered to my home address instead and seemed completely bewildered when I pointed out the futility of that, considering that I had chosen to take delivery at an address with someone in.
It’s a damned good job that I didn’t pay the extra 50 quid to have the laptop delivered on Tuesday, as it looks like I wouldn’t have received it in time anyway.
