From: James H. E. Maugham (CaptJHEM_at_waterw.com)
Date: Wed Dec 01 1999 - 01:21:55 EST
"Jonathan Berry" <jberry_at_islandnet.com> wrote:
> In London, at the Tottenham Court tube (subway) station,
> going north from there along Tottenham Court Road, there are
> lots of electronics shops.
Yep, been there. Not unlike Canal Street in Manhattan many years ago before
it was Yuppiefied.
> The same stores can sell you a power adaptor (transformer not
> needed if your brick says 230 V / 50 Hz as input). Don't
> remember what that cost, as it was years ago, but it seemed
> reasonable at the time.
I went into a shop to buy a grounded kettle cord. Clerk asks me what it's
for, I tell him it's for my laptop and he asks me what type. I tell him a
TP600, he reaches under the counter and pulls out an IBM part no. 76H3524 UK
style power cord. Fits the brick for my 600 perfectly. Price 4.50 Pounds.
My wife, who coincidentally is over the pond this week in London, called her
company's helpdesk about adapters for her 600 before her previous trip over.
They made a big to-do over my offer to pick up the adapters she needed at
Radio Shack and said that she could _only_ use company approved items.
Next day she gets a FEDEXed package containing one of those US$200.00 Port
sets containing adapters for Mars and Venus and just about everywhere else.
Even has the Norwegian phone adapter, which looks like something that may
have to do with the low birth rate over there! (Although I _did_ admire the
windup phone extension cord and have liberated it for my own use!)
As a stockholder, I took umbrage at this waste of funds and questionned the
intelligence of the helpdesk employees. Which is when she informed me that
the company now outsources the helpdesk to the same outfit that provides
their laptops, desktops and accessories.
What a surprise.
Regards,
James
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