Unusual...

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

My boss got a call from a prospective client this morning. This client is eccentric, retired, rich, bored and apparently a semi-genius PhD type. He decided he wanted satellite internet at his "Villa in Costa Rica". He bought a bunch of hardware already and wants us to configure it so next time he's in CR he can plug it in and be all set. Guess who gets to do the setup? I'm dreading and curious...

Interesting conversation bits:
"You want help in Costa Rica. You know we're in Denver, right?" "Yeah, but so am I most of the year." (Fair enough, I suppose, but why not go local to the problem?)

"We'd be happy to do it on-site for you instead, though we'd have to bill you for the travel expenses." (My boss is awesome) "Hell, you can get a round trip ticket for less than a thousand. Bring it on!" (Wait, he took that seriously?)



Anybody else have off-the-wall people requesting off-the-wall services lately?

Comments

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

Because he doesn't trust people in Costa Rica not to frag up his computer.

And I bet your boss is the one who goes to configure the hardware.

--H

[digitalraven]

Step -1: Convince $BOSS this is a two-person job.

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

DR's Step -1 would be perfect, but my boss is already putting me on this job. :) I plan on doing an awesome enough job that I don't need to go to Costa Rica, but since I'm the only one here with a current passport...

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I do some consulting on the side, helping people fix their computers.

I have 2 people who just bought a retirement condo in Florida.

They want to fly me (and my husband) down to Florida to set up their computers and network for them.

Seriously, cut the cord already! Find someone new down in FL to help you! I'm NOT going to be giving you computer advice (btw, I live in Massachusetts and they live in Rhode Island). And I don't even care if they'll pay for it all!

I feel if I actually go to FL to help them, they'll never want me to stop helping them and I'LL NEVER BE RID OF THEM.

(plus, I don't have the vacation time to go down since I had surgery in the summer.)

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

Bill by the minute.

[sithanas.livejournal.com]

Trust me - they won't ever stop wanting you to come and help. And it will never be worth it.

That is, unless you do the $1000 call-out fee plus $large_sum an hour.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

I have a WoW guildy living in Costa Rica. Based on her epic connection issues, I know EXACTLY why he doesn't want to use the local guys.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

A free trip to Costa Rica? I'd be all over that. Jump on it with both feet.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

yeah, company is shipping me to Munich next month for two days, so I can do some intranet resource training...

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Austrian works from TLV, but I'll check, thanks :)

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

Aaaahh to be in Wein when the Lipizzaners are in bloom.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

Damn, now you've got me nostalgic for this little Italian restaurant off some Platz that I can't remember the name of ... about 4 blocks west of Belvedere.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

If I have my bearings correct [sorry, the mental GPS is on the fritz, or as they say in Hochdeutsche, Kaputt] it would be directly behind me [assuming i was in the same position as the photographer] about three blocks acroos Friedrichstrasse, but then it has been a few years.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

The proprietor is Italian, married to a nice Österreicher [as am I] and loves to sit and chat with his patrons, unlike "restaurants" here who's only concern is if you want fries with that. Best gnocchi I ever had there.

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you mean Belvedere? That's not exactly that near district 1... (well, it's south, not West, for one)

;)

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

Yes, I meant Belvedere. The restaurant I was thinking of is west ... I had to look it up, just to be sure ... in Mozartplatz. That's District 4 but pretty close to 1, n'est-ce pas? [pardon my French] We were staying at the Hotel Erzherzog Rainer on our way back from my wife's family farm in Reinersdorf and our rooms looked out over that Mozart-Brunnen fountain with the octopus. My son nicknamed it "Squidplatz" and that's what we've called it since, hence the inability to google it for the exact location. Anyway, it only seemed like a few blocks when we walked it.

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Hehe yeah, anything in the districs 1-9 in Vienna is pretty close, imho of course. :) And you're right, Mozartplatz is exactly where you described it.
*giggles* Squidplatz, hehe. I used to go to highschool very close to there, you probably passed it on your way!

;)

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

To be in wine? ;)
(Wien is my hometown. Love the place. I don't live there any more though... :( )

;)

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

You know, no matter how many times i think i've got the "ie" "ei" thing down, I screw it up ... in every language. Although Wein works too ;)

We only stop there for the airport. My wife is from Reinersdorf [Burgenland] and has an aunt in Graz, an uncle in Salzburg and cousins just about everywhere else ... or so it seems.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I am not too familiar with the restaurants in either Graz or Salzburg. When we visit, the family refuses to let us eat out and must cook us a feast of overly cooked something that used to be vegetables, meat that may have actually begun the digestion process prior to putting it on the plate and everything schnitzel. Mind you , I am not complaining. It's just a different cuisine, unlike Paris where the meat is so fresh that if you don't hold it down with a heavy sauce, it's liable to get up and walk away on its own.

Graz is a lovely city. So much of the Hungarian influence in the architecture.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

nice :) I got contacted once on ICQ, by someone who wanted an apartment set up with wireless.

ended up setting up a 22 room penthouse in the poshest part of Tel Aviv, to be covered by wifi (9 APs, + router), and wireless ip-cams, for a russian millionaire who is never there anyway

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

I would be FIGHTING tooth and nail to be this man's tech. If he thinks nothing of sending me to Costa Rica to set it up, hell, bring it on indeed!

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

Back in 2000 I worked for a Toff (a nice one, though). When the business eventually went sour, he had all the kit shipped to the family home in Northern Ireland, and flew me over there to hook it all back up. The server cabinet went in his father's secretary's office (and I bet she was pleased with that turn of events!).

It was about a day's work, and I had three further days to just enjoy the countryside, cycle round the massive grounds, and generally have a whale of a time.

[penguindreamz.livejournal.com]

My company has a client who is not getting wireless signal at his home. However since he is an executive with this company and this is one of the top 10 companies in the world, they refuse to tell us the address where the problem is occurring (not even city and state), or provide a name and contact number for the user so we can troubleshoot. When told we can not do anything if we don't at least know where the trouble is occurring, they chose to drop the issue and port their lines to another carrier.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Probably for the best. Unless they wanted to pay up front to install an entire monitoring subsystem for you, no amount of money would have been worth the resulting idiocy and hassle.

[dharkapparition.livejournal.com]

Expense paid trip to CR? \0/

[jamoche]

Damn. The only time I ever got sent anywhere to deal with an OMG!IMPORTANT customer, it was in Des Moines. And I'd already solved their problem before I even left.