So tonight, I write on my fancy-pants, shiny new laptop. Which I did not purchase, technically. And I haven't taken up stealing ...

See, a couple of weeks ago, a guy at work got fired. Some say fairly, some say unfairly. I don't know. Truth is, I don't think anyone knows the full story except for this guy. Anyway. His wife asked me to do up a new resume for him, and being the sucker that I am, I said yes. I went to do it one night, and my computer wouldn't turn on. Again. For the third time in thirteen months, my laptop had failed. Luckily, since it was a few years old, I had extended warranty on it. So I took the laptop back to the retailer I purchased it from, and asked that it be sent away and checked, but once it had been verified that it was a fault, I didn't want it fixed/repaired again since it had already failed twice. I wanted a replacement.
 

Naturally, they rang me the following week and said "we will repair it, end of story". I then wrote a formal complaint to the store, bearing in mind that even though the laptop was a few years old, I had paid a lot of money for it (almost $2000) and it was very well taken care of. I don't think it's acceptable to have it fail three times in 13 months.

So we went back and forth for a bit, then I got talking to a very cool manager at this store, who is one of the most genuinely nice people I've ever met. He talked to the repair people, and sorted out a solution that everyone was happy with. The replacement that I was given is a few months old and was sent in through their current warranty program, where they replace faulty machines on the spot with a completely new one, and fix the old ones, even if the fault is minor. In the case of this machine, there was a minor fault with the keyboard, which is why it was sent in for replacement and why I ended up with it :-)

(Sometimes it pays to be the whiny complainer person.)

 

Anyway. Two things of note happened today.

 

Today I went to the funeral of a 21 year old kid (the son of a workmate) who died in a car accident last week. He was speeding, and like all kids, thought he was invincible. Now a family is heartbroken, a mother and father have lost a son, and forever more their family photos will only have four in them instead of five. I hurt for his mum and dad, who are just the most beautiful and lovely people you've ever met in your life. I don't understand why this shit happens, and why it happens to good people. I know that kids will continue to kill themselves in cars until the end of time because they think nothing can hurt them, and it just seems so fucking unfair.

It was a beautiful service, a nice way to say goodbye to a good kid. It was a huge turnout. He will be so sadly missed by so many. May you rest in peace.

 

The other thing happened on the way to the funeral. I received an email telling me that I had progressed to the second stage of the recruitment process for the job that I really, really want. The second stage is a timed online test that must be completed within 48 hours. I did it tonight, and found it really, really frigging hard. I don't know why I'm so surprised, it's not an easy job, of course getting into it is going to be hard. But the test was MUCH more difficult than I thought it was going to be. The second part of the test was okay. Not easy, not hard, and I think I did okay. The first part, however ... I'm not so sure. Fingers crossed that I have done enough to pass and get to the next stage of the process!

 

Okay, after a big day, I think it's almost bed time. It's been ridiculously hot here the last few days, but tonight the cool change has finally hit and it's dropped to about 25, which is so nice. Actually, my new laptop tells me the temperature, so let me look ... It's currently 22. Tomorrow is the first day of the Australia Day long weekend, and I took a couple of extra days so I now have FIVE WHOLE DAYS OFF ... Yes, that's FIVE WHOLE DAYS WHERE I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK!!! Hahahaha. I'm very excited :-) I may even write again in the next few days!!!

 

Goodnight all!