The word according to Andrew (aka Dil)

Remember me?

2007-07-15T10:24:35Z

Hello again LJ. 21 weeks since I last posted the front page tells me, shame on me. If anyone actually remembers me enough to care I have a blog over at blogger that gets updated on and off.

http://dilir.blogspot.com/

So yeah, as always there is a lot going on, or has been going on I should say. Work is continuing to go pretty well. At the moment the way forward is murky because I'm basically employed by another company to do my old job for my previous employer, and my previous employer will eventually consolidate everything in Sydney, meaning my role at the new company will change drastically.

Recently I have have discovered the joy that is Battlestar Gslactica. It has distracted me enough to make me put down the new Robin Hobb book, and with HP7 due soon I need to get my ass into gear and get it finished.

At the momenht I'm listening to the Ronald D Moore podcast commentaries for BSG.

On a final note, I have been regular in reading my friends page, despite not saying much...

Catch you all on the flipside!

No time, no post

2007-02-15T22:31:18Z

In short, I've been promoted recently, my job security has increased because our centre will be taken over and life is otherwise good.

More at a later date.

Promise.

New Toy

2006-10-26T02:20:26Z

Veeeeeeeeeeery long time no post...

2006-10-15T01:28:47Z

Well I've been playing with the LJ talk a little, and seems to be all good. It's actually been a few months since my last post here, the perils of working a fulltime evening shift I guess.

Hmmm, first things first, I'm caffeine free for the first time in my life, haven't touched the stuff for several months now and am not regreting it.

I got a somewhat unexpected pay rise before I'd finished probation, and am now saving furiously for another car. Looking at another six cylinder family sized car, basically a newer version of what I'm currently driving, and given that it's 26 years old, that wont be hard!

This past week was somewhat interesting, we're now in the broadband queue after being upskilled, which involved two days training, followed by three days on model help desk taking calls. As soon as we hit the phones, we were flat out, not much free time between calls now. No rest for the wicked eh?

still it makes the work day go faster, and that means the time until friday when I'll have enough money set aside to start seriously looking at cars will come all the faster.

Right now I'm just kicking back and enjoying the weekend.

Adios for now!

So long to my twenties...

2006-07-08T01:45:07Z

Well it's official, as of wednesday I am no longer a twenty something, but am now dipping my toes in the murky waters of thirty something.

Not that I feel older, I just am. Mind you this in no way means I am going to grow up and be totallt mature. You can't be all serious in tech support. you'd go mad. Especially when dealing with tose folk who really should pack their computers up and take ity back to the place of purchase.

I was trying to get one person to bring up the task mananger yesterday and the couldn't even find ctrl-alt-del! Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhh. He was getting the devils number, error 666, which usually equates to the devil has had his way with the modem and it's most likely screwed. So in the end it was offering advice to see a pc tech.

No more news than that, catch you on the flipside!

dilir @ 2006-07-03T10:09:00

2006-07-03T00:09:48Z

Can you read tihs? Olny 28 people on livejournal can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I wuas rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a
wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be
in the rghit pclae.

Thhe rset can be a taotl mses and yhou can
sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huuamn mnid deos
not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?
yaeh and I awlyas tghuuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs
rpsoet it.

ONLY REPOST IF YOU COULD READ THE ABOVE. Please update the number at the header to include yourself.

Long time no quiz!

2006-06-25T01:26:13Z

Which OS are You?

The wheels on the bus go round and round

2006-06-24T03:14:45Z

Ah the weekend. This pat week has been pretty full on, it was the first one where we'd been scheduled on the phones all day. We finished model helpdesk last week. Every day you get difficult calls, and also good ones.

So five weeks in and all seems well.

Doing the job itself is becoming easier, but there still room for improvement, but that will come from experiance.

My current shift of noon to 8pm is set to change in two weeks time, and I wont know until monday what shift I'll be on. So we'll see.

I don't have huge amounts of time for the internet these days, but I try keep up as best I can.

No other news to report really from this week.

Catch you all on the flipside!

Windows Free Zone

2006-06-18T07:24:34Z

My PC is finally a windows free zone. There is nothing I do that I can't do under Linux, so yesterday I bit the bullet and nuked Windows 2000, and replaced it with Slackware 10.2.

Work has been going well, the past couple of weeks have involved 2 to 2 1/2 hours of training/briefings each day, and the remainder on the phones taking tech support calls. As of tomorrow we are on the phones all day, with training officially over last Friday.

For about the past week I have also had a cold, although I've been nowhere near as unwell as some of my workmates!

So I'm not going to complain, at least not too much. My current mission objective is to pull together enough money to buy another car. I have the use of my dad's at the moment because his health doesn't allow him to drive, but I want my own car again.

So yeah, that it's, my life in a few paragraphs at the moment. I'd just like to sau that although I'm not updating frequently, I *am* checking out my friends page at least daily, but most times I'm too busy or tired to comment much.

So you take care, and I'll catch you round in LJ land!

Life in Tech Support

2006-06-11T07:24:23Z

So tomorrow is a public holiday in most of australia, except WA because they cheated and had the Queens Birthday last weekend, and most people get a day off work. I don't though, and the strange thing is it doesn't bother me at all, I am enjoying going to work enough that working on a public holiday seems reasonable.

I love my job.

There are many things I need to work on, and much of what I'm lacking comes from experience, such as logging the faults into our system in an efficient manner. I'm already working on ways to make better use of my time and the resources available to me, such as trouble shooting information.

Already as a group we are collecting 'war stories', tales of woe and computer madness. As a team we try have a laugh and make the job a bit more fun, so as to stop insanity setting in.

So life is pretty good at the moment.

dilir @ 2006-06-01T18:54:00

2006-06-01T08:55:10Z

I am happy, tomorrow is pay day. Shallow I know but I've been on a tight budget for the first couple of weeks and it's actually paying off. I'm loving the workplace, and as of tuesday we'll be out on the floor taking calls. We had another session of call buddying today and it easier to follow now that I understand all the systems.

I even fealt that I had enough of an understanding of what was happening that I could occaisionally see the problem immediately.

So yeah, life is good. This weekend I'll be doing volunteer work on saturday and off to melbourne for the day on sunday.

I am content.

Update: Job

2006-05-29T08:46:26Z

Last week was a full on week of customer service skills based training. By friday we finally started to look at the systems we will be using on the job, and today we starting getting technical. So far I'm enjoying every day, and monday next week is the last day of my training.

So things are going in that respect.

Day One

2006-05-22T08:38:01Z

First day of my new job went well. Two weeks intensive training kicking off with a day covering OH&S et al. To be honest wit hyou I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but my nerves had abated last night enough to allow me to ge a great night's sleep, which is highly unusual for these momentous life changing events really.

I think I'm with a great bunch of people, and our trainer is of the non bnoring variety, so what more could you ask really?

T Minus 10 days and counting

2006-05-12T00:12:57Z

Well this week I sorted out all my paperwork. It's all nice and official, not to mention I have physical evidence ofthe fact that come the 22nd I will be in full time employment. So at the moment it's a case of the waiting game.

Sir Dil of the Tech Support

2006-05-05T02:43:23Z

Where to begin?

About a month and a half ago I applied for a job at a Telco, the job was customer service. Between then and now the telco decided to set up another tech support team in the area. Their HR person saw my resume and noted the technical qualifications and rang me to see if I'd be interested in going for a tech support job, I said yes, and proceeded through a phone interview.

A week after I attended an assessment session where they get a group of prospective applicants together and put them through some role plays and so on to see what sort of people they are. I left feeling that I'd let myself down, that I'd bolloxed it up.

Two days ago I got a phone call about the assessment, I was told that I'd successfully got through the assessment and was now being offered a position.

I sign a contract next week, and start on the 22nd of May with two and a bit weeks training. After that I'm working the helpdesk for internet customers. A nice job that I'm confident I can do, and that will put money in my hands.

dilir @ 2006-05-03T19:57:00

2006-05-03T09:57:12Z

As of the 22nd of May, this little black duck will be employed as telephone tech support by an ISP.

*boogies*

CAD

2006-04-14T08:43:14Z

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060414

Hehe

Tiger

2006-04-12T01:21:03Z

Yesterday we picked up our new cat, Tiger. He is only three months old and is named for the distinctive stripes that he has. So far he turning out to be a friendly and very sedate kitten, which is a pleasant surprise.

Tiger

2006-04-10T07:25:40Z

Well another cat post, this time to share that we collect our newly adopted moggy from the vet tomorrow. He has already been named Tiger by my older sister. It's going to be something of a shock to Missy and Lucky I don't doubt, but them's the breaks.

So yeah, that's tomorrow.

Out of my own insane curiosity here, what exactly do the tags on an lj entry do?

Charlie Blue Paw

2006-04-09T10:20:52Z

Well it is official. We are getting another cat. My older sister and I went to the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and we are adopting a six month old male kitten. He has to be de sexed before we can bring him home, but they pay for that. It was a sad day for all of us yesterday, to lose a beloved pet.

Charlie was a rascally cat, originally April's, we adopted him because they had no room in their apartment for him. I remember when we were repainting the house, he went into my bedroom which had just had blue paint applied to the walls and jumped into the window, the journey up involved gaining traction on the freshly painted wall and resulted in him getting blue paint on his paws. For a while he was then referred to as Charlie Blue Paw.

In other news I am finally exploring the potential of bittorrent, I'm using this fantastic little client called utorrent.

Charlie

2006-04-08T11:59:28Z

One of our two cats died this weekend. Poor Charlie was hit by a car. He hadn't come home friday night, and usually when he does that he's at the front door first thing the following morning. Today that didn't happen.

It looks like he was chasing something across the highway, because he didn't usually go anywhere near it.

The whole family is upset about it. We'll miss the little rascal...

Crtl+Alt+Del

2006-04-06T11:11:30Z

I have been discovering the joys of the Ctrl+Alt+Del comic strip.

Seeing as Angst Tech was discontinued I have finally found an online comic worthy of my geekage ;)

Birthday

2006-04-03T23:03:56Z

Happy Birthday April!!!!!

The monkey absconded...

2006-04-03T00:14:29Z

Long time no update. I'm taking being laconic to the absolute extremes these days. I am obviously still alive and kicking, although this year has not gone quite as planned so far.

I had applied to get my post graduate teaching qualification this year, and the fact that only half the people who applied got a place meant that getting in was always going to be difficult. The first few months of this year were all about me trying to deal with the fact that I didn't make the grade this time, that my teaching ambitions were somewhat put on hold for now. It was a big kick in the guts, and means that at the moment I'm not the most upbeat camper on the planet.

It was particularly difficult to face the fact that I'd been so keen, and so confident that I would get in, that failing to do so left me hollow and empty. I believe in myself, that I want to be a teacher, I have the confidence to know that I can do the job. It has taken a while to 'get over it' so to speak.

At the moment I'm trying to get into a certificate course that will qualify me to do workplace training, the drama is most places wont be offering the courses until mid year at the earliest.

So here I am, back again somewhat. I shall try update more often if I can ;)

Oh and yes, lanaya1980 this update was prompted by your reply to my comment on the hobblings journal ;)

ETA: One thing I didn't do, was stop reading my friends pages, so you all can rest easy on that score...

dilir @ 2006-02-21T09:46:00

2006-02-20T22:45:54Z

Happy birthday to the_reda

May all things shiny come your way ;)