From across the room he said, I think this router can be fixed if we just jumper this terminal and…(smoke rises), yeah, wow I guess sometimes just getting started on a project can be the most difficult step in the process. Today I tried to work using a box that was wanting for RAM so badly that I wasn’t sure which was worse, it or the constantly dropping Wi-Fi connection we were borrowing from the neighbors.
This article is titled “First Day of Work…” because it describes my experiences on my first day of work. A friend and I have decided to tackle a few consulting projects this summer. My partner in chaos has ever so graciously lent his house office to the purpose of a common area for our development needs.
The apartment is in an excellent location, falling at the cross streets of Main and Earle in the City of Greenville. In the past most of my IT work has been done on contract or working in an office where I pretty much did not talk with anyone. I found working with my new cohort fun and exciting.
We were both eager to discuss possibilities, share insights, and even argue, all while enjoying a hot breakfast of what must have been a pound of bacon and half a dozen eggs. All though we were still lacking some of the necessary tools to make our jobs easier. We were able to make due, all the time making sure safety was our first priority.
My office area consisted of a children’s desk I borrowed form my college room at home. I call it my college room because I haven’t gone in there since college. Now it remains an antiquated PC cemetery, storage for paper files, stacks of USPS shipping boxes and ebay stuff waiting to be sold.
My tower was an older Athlon 1.2 GHz with a meager 198MB(where’s my other 58MB Microcrap) of RAM. Needless to say she crawled to run the install of XP Home addition that existed on the hard disk. The monitor, was missing its swivel base and the outer case was pretty much fubar. Because the base was missing I had to prop the monitor up to viewing level with the aid of an old SCO distro and a shoe box. The monitors display adaptor cord showed signs of being used as a carrying handle or possibly used in some sort of monitor distance throwing event.
My mouse was an old three button no wheel. I didn’t mind the mouse so much, it was a nice break from all the usual wheeling. Since I had no speakers there was nothing to complain about there. As for the final element in my new work station environment was my keyboard. And yes it was used also, as most of the keys had worn off and now were only a dull manila color. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, since I was sitting at a children’s desk my adult size chair just wouldn’t fit under the table top. Jeremy ask hows it going over there, I reply, good, good, I think I got just about everything I need here.
