Misdirection and Failure at Every Step
Getting all my various services set up at my apartment was not the easy exercise that it should have been. Failure #1 came when the electric and gas company phone numbers on the sheet that the apartment complex gave we were wrong (the electric company was for southern California, and I have no idea where the gas company was). Failure #2 came when the website for the city of Redmond offered no direction at all for the company to contact, but luckily I was able to reach into my random memory banks to recall the name of one of the electric/gas providers for the area. Failure #3 came when Verizon’s website didn’t recognize my apartment address. Failure #4 came when the Verizon customer support guy I got was possibly in the running for stupidest person alive and thought that the city I was moving to was “Redman” and then (once corrected) proceeded to tell me that FiOS was not available at my apartment. Failure #3 was fixed when I went back to the website, typed in the name of my street wrong, and Verizon corrected me to give me the right address (where stupid guy was proven wrong and I was in fact able to get both FiOS internet and TV service). When both computers and people fail you, what can you really do?
All the Microsoft interns had been speculating about what their gift would be this year since last year everyone got Zunes. That seemed to be the consensus again for this year from what I had heard, but Andrew informed me that everyone actually got Xbox 360s that were specially engraved with some art and text to link them to the intern program. I found that to be a slightly strange gift since my guess would be most people who would want a 360 would already have one by now, but apparently that’s what Microsoft felt was the best present to give out.