yaleman.org

Ok, so I work for a call center outsourcing company on a contract doing customer care for a mobile company. The company’s been around for a while, and now it’s shutting down because their parent company Hutchison decided that 3g is a better bet (it is) and CDMA isn’t the way to go anymore.

I’d have to agree with them – most of the customers on the network were there because they got the cheapest service they could find, and it worked for them – most of the time. The phones sucked, the network sucked more, and while it was more profitable than 3g before they decided that the end was near, maintaining an old network isn’t a good business plan. The ability to focus your capital and human resources on a newer product tends to be the smart idea in business.

So, as of the 1st of February 2006, they decided that they would no longer provision new services, and that existing customers would be aggresively marketed to so as to push them to the 3g product. This worked well – over 200,000 customers moved in under three months – over 60% of the active number pool. They paid out contracts, they gave away cheap plans and phones, it probably cost them a lot of money, but in doing so, they locked most of those customers into contracts so they were less likely to change providers, thus retaining the revenue stream.

As for the affect on me – this is the sad part of my story. I started with Stellar on the 5th of August 2004, and the network’s due to shut down on the 9th of August 2006. Nice anniversary present! My contract’s customer care, and it’s due to end on the 31st of August 2006 as far as us, the minions, have been told. It could go longer, but not much further – by that time all the postpaid customers will have their final bill and will be paying it, and they don’t care what the prepaid customers do.

I don’t mind too much that my job’s likely to be over as I’ll get a redundancy payout of about two months’ pay, and I’ve already had two semi-reliable job offers. The plan now is to reduce non-vital spending, focus on paying off my debts, and efficiently work on getting the Gemini on the road so that if I do take up a job delivering pizzas, or any job where I need to drive to work, I won’t be paying $80+ a week on petrol like I am now with the PimpMobile.

The best option would be that we get another contract to work on, and I keep working for this company so that I don’t have to go through the garbage of starting afresh, but if not, I’ll just have to deal with it.

Well, that was an annoyingly medium-sized crisis tonight. Drove out of the carpark, got nearly all the way to Lauren’s house, and realised that my headlights weren’t working. The dash lights worked fine, the parkers worked fine (‘cept for the one with the busted bulb) but no headlights. Odd!

So, as I was leaving Lauren’s I decided that I would like to keep my license, and that having no headlights probably wouldn’t help that cause. So it was out with the multimeter, checked the fuses, checked the wiring, all the usual gubbins. One of the fuses had blown, but replacing that didn’t resolve the issue. I checked that the lights were still fine, no blown globes – something that would suck royally, since they are sealed beams and sort of expensive. Basically, no voltage was getting to the lights themselves. Poo!

So, it was out with the bottom half of the dash, and more playing. I pulled the connector off the switch that turns the lights on, and played a bit – blew a fuse because I shorted something I probably shouldn’t have, then played around a bit more. I could get the parkers to turn on, but not the headlights – so it wasn’t the switch that was busted. Looking around a bit more, I realised that when I was mucking around with the indicator stalk today (since I’d snapped it, and the araldite didn’t hold, I had to ghetto it up… stupid plastic crap!) I’d unplugged its connector, and not plugged it in right, so it’d fallen out again.

Since that connector also has the feed for the high-beams, it seems that disconnecting it had actually stopped any power from getting to the headlights. Plugging it made everything work. Hooray! Medium-sized crisis over, legal driving ability returns!

So the moral of the story is: Remember to check EVERYTHING works after you do work on a car, especially under the dashboard.

So, ages back when the car got broken into, whoever did it must have had a go at the key part of the ignition, the pins got all messed up and it didn’t work properly. I replaced it with a rather dodgy switch and button on the end of a wire run that I had lying around, and most of the time when I indicated, or used too much power the stereo would turn off, the lights would dim and stupid stuff would happen. This got rather annoying, and eventually I worked out that the cause of it was the long wire run itself was causing too much voltage drop in the system itself.

Before I left for positronic I made it so the thin-wired switch that I was using was as close to the original wiring as possible, reducing the voltage loss and hopefully fixing the problem. It fixed the voltage problems, but it was still hanging out in the open and the long wire run to the button and relay that I had setup in the past was still there, dropping out of the little shelf it sat on, and looking rather dodgy. I bought myself another momentary button and some crimp connectors the other day, meaning to fix it all up that day, and as usual the CBF kicked in and I lost interest.

Tonight I was out for a smoke and decided to do it, so I did. Fatter wires for more current flow, soldered connections and the switch + new button are now firmly mounted into the dash. I’ll get a pic later/next time I have the camera out to show what it looks like, but for now just feel safe in knowing that it’s in a position where it can’t be kicked, it’s well wired, and hopefully should work fine from now on… hopefully fixing all the voltage problems in that part of the system on the van.

Next thing to do on the van is hook up some relays for the headlights, it seems that the dodgy standard wiring isn’t allowing enough power to get to the lights, so what I’ll do is use the exisiting wiring that runs to the lights to activate some relays that feed power directly (through a fuse, of course) from the battery through the relay and into the lights. That should correct a few of the “can’t see shit at night” problems, since I think the bulbs are good, but not getting enough power (8-10v most of the time).

So, summer’s here again, and with it comes the crazy temperatures on the blacktop. It’s bad enough sitting in traffic in winter in the van – the temps slowly creep up then, with the engine-mounted fan barely pulling enough air through the radiator to keep it from boiling over. This year it’s even hotter even earlier than last year, so driving to work along the highway with massive amounts of air pushing through the front of the van is enough to make the temp gauge climb.

Coming off the highway, or even slowing down for a slow car in the daytime brings a noticeable increase in temperatures now – enough to be dangerous to the long-term wellbeing of the engine. This is bad! I work in the city! Stopping for morons and traffic signals is a way of life!

I had two choices, get a radiator shroud and a better engine-mounted fan, or install an electric fan on the radiator itself. Being the lover of electronics that I am, I decided that an electric fan would be better, along with the fact that when I’m sitting at the lights it’ll still be burning along at hair-dryer speeds, pushing those coolant temps down to a useful temp.

$60 got me a 12″ fan, along with all the mounting gubbins from Super-Cheap Auto, that always-lovable cheap car part supplier. I installed it tonight, hanging a switch under the dash so I can turn it on and off at will. It came with a fat relay, and a fuse block so that’ll protect it from any dodgy shorts or if the wiring rubs through on a sharp piece of bodywork if it happens. It’s nice and fast, and blows shitloads more air than the stock fan, so that should be good. It only has to last as long as it takes me to get the gemini on the road, then the fan will probably get installed on it for good measure.

It’ll get a really good workout on the weekend when we drive up to Positronic, and it’ll be good to be able to stop and have the engine get some decent airflow, rather than stop and have it heat up – we’ll see how it goes

Geez, I think last night makes about six times in twelve months I’ve been picked up in the PimpMobile. Driving out of Lauren’s house last night, down the hill towards the t-intersection at the bottom, a police car drives past. I stop at the bottom, making sure to look around because the van runs like crap when it’s cold, and that corner’s a bit hard to see past.

Looking to where the police car went, I notice that it’s stopped across the road and down a bit – funnily enough, half out in the road, and across a laneway – nice and illegal, officers. I move on, making my merry way home. Looking in the rearview mirror, I notice – not surprised at all – that they have done a quick U-turn and are buried up my tail.

Taking note of my previous instruction to make sure I indicate, I do so, slowing from my already-miniscule speed just enough so that I don’t stall it around the corner. It’s at this point – as soon as I hit the brakes – as usual, that they turn on the flashers and I stop.

Passing over my license, as usual, I’m asked where I’m coming from tonight. “I just finished work” was the response. He takes interest in the back of my van, having a look in the back with his torch and looking at me questionably. I point out that I work in a call center, which is true – and he’s satisfied. I get the fact that having an expired registration sticker stuck to a spare window is something a “really bad traffic officer” would pick me up on and give me an $80 fine.

I’m told that this is a random breath test, could I please blow into the tube, and I do. As to be expected, I blow clear – not that he would tell me – but I hear the beep that I know beep that I know all too well is the all clear. He wanders off to speak with his fellow officer, and they do a lap of the car – here I go, canary for me I think – but no, they just look at something on the side, and look around in the passenger side with the torches again.

Off they wander, and as usual, I’m waiting for them to do their bit on the computer – I think that if I was to get rich, I’d pay to upgrade their computers and link technology so they don’t make me wait all the time. Finally, I get my license back and I’m off – no have a good night, no “no worries” or anything like that. How rude! Bored cops shit me, picking me up because they like my van and hope to see something cool. It happens too often, and I’m sure it’ll only get worse when the gemini is on the road *sigh*