On the beat

I waited for the traffic to calm down a bit before heading in to town to bring back the useless gear to Maplin's after yesterday's bother. I'd woken early and had got more work done in the mean time (dealing with client and printer communication, preparing full-resolution files in preparation for supply to the printer and so on). Just in case there was a further problem with replacing my broadband modem I decided to leave my gear set up in Carl's place, even though this meant I'd be faced with two cross-city trips before things would be back to normal.

While at it, I decided to check other possible outlets before going back to Maplin's. Peats couldn't help either when it came to providing a bog-standard modem rather than a wireless this or that or a router or whatever. One of the guys behind the counter advised me to contact eircom (my broadband provider) and ask then for a replacement. After Peats I tried PC World (formerly Dixons), though I didn't hold out much hope of either getting what I needed or finding anyone there who'd know what he was talking about. Sure enough, there was no sign on the shelves of what I wanted, so I went up to the Tach Enquiries counter to make enquiries. Despite the fact that the gut there was wearing a purple shirt, he told me to ask someone on the floor who was wearing a purple shirt. I did. He said they had what I wanted, and pointed me to the shelves where I'd already looked. 'Show me', I said. He was reluctant to leave his personal kingdom near the mobile phones, but eventually abandoned his pitch and came over with me. Despite the clear fact that what I wanted definitely wasn't there, he kept on insisting on selling me something I didn't need or want. 'But this wirless thingy is great value right now'. 'How many times do I have to tel you? I already have a wireless network; all I need is an ADSL modem -- ADSL in; ethernet out. Simple.' 'But this is really good. Just look at the speeds it says on the box'. So I walked out.

Before going back to Maplin's I called Carl and got him to look up the number for eircom broadband support. I spoke to a helpful and knowledgeable guy there. A few intelligent questions quickly established without any doubt that my modem was definitely dead. He immediately said they'd replace it without charge, no questions asked. He wanted my address, but I asked if I could possibly pick it up instead. Absolutely, he said. It'll be waiting for you at reception. Give me fifteen minutes. So I found my way over to the eircom HQ, the modem was there waiting, I brought it back home, plugged it in ... and everything came back to life, good as new. Talk about relief!

That still meant that I had to go back across the city to pack up my gear in Carl's and bring it back to 'the office' before I could actually get back to work. Once again half the day was gone by the time I was ready to get back to work, but at least things were back to normal again. It was 4.30 by the time I was all set, and I was feeling fairly exhausted, so took a short nap before tackling the final layout work which needed to be done: a centre spread of photos, which is notoriously time-consuming to put together. I was finished by 11.30 pm and uploaded a proof.