Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Shit Work Computer- It's all cramping my style and stuff

This, or some iteration of this, is my work computer.  I found it on eBay.  You'll notice the sale price on it is $80.00


The condition is "For Parts or not working"

As I so eloquently put it to my coworker a few months ago:

"Why are we stuck with these pieces of primitive fucking shit?"  

Now, best I can tell, my particular work computer is only around 4-5 years old.

But 4-5 computer years = about 126 human years.

Like every PC I've ever come across, this POS seems to grow more and more useless with each passing day.

Today, it took 15 minutes to start up.

As in, I did absolutely nothing for 15 minutes.

Hypothetically, let's say that the average person in America with a shitbox like this at work makes $55,000.

(15 minutes/(60 minute/hr x 8 hr "standard" work day)) = .03125

That is, 3.125% of each and every day at work by the user of a R51 ThinkPad or similar is totally wasted.

You may say:  "Well wait!  Not EVERYONE with your computer experiences these problems and wasted time!"

You're wrong- they do!  I know it!  If it's not waiting for it to boot up, the hourglass is permanently displayed, windows are frozen, or applications are quitting.  Take this for example.  As I was finishing my morning coffee, I pulled up gunnerblog.com, a very awesome Arsenal website.  After breezing through the latest match report, I tried going over to the New York Times*.  The ThinkPad however, thought otherwise of that idea:

(Click to enlarge)


This shit happens constantly!

I won't even get started on what happens if you try to stream any media.  In fact, even scrolling through an all text document is likely to overexert this machine.

Back to the math, 3.125% x $55,000 = $1,718/year.

With not even HALF that amount, I could get myself a 5000% more functional computer that would increase my work satisfaction 10 fold.

But- These are the days of shitty economies so I don't anticipate any change coming...

One day though, I swear to God...


*Some readers may argue that visiting an Arsenal website or the NYT is in itself, a waste of time.  I disagree, and think that such non-work related detours play a crucial role in keeping one's sanity over the course of working the next 50 years of one's life.

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