Coffee break- HP get your employees better gear
We’re all extra lucky today, at least I am because we get another Coffee break post. One thing I like about the local Starbucks I frequent is there is often a lot of HP employees having "meetings" here. You see, this Starbucks is around the corner of a huge HP campus that used to be the Compaq world headquarters. I mean it’s so big it spans acres on both sides of a major freeway here. SInce this Starbucks is less than 5 minutes from the campus there are often groups of HP employees in here having some java and invariably every one of them at their meeting will have HP laptops out and working as they have their chat.
Invariably if I’m carrying an HP device with me like today (2710p) it will get their attention and one of them will come by my table like today and ask me what laptop I’m using. That turns into a funny discussion about how my HP gear is better than theirs and they will lament that it will be another year or two before they’ll be eligible for a new one. I shouldn’t laugh at them but I just can’t help it. Am I a bad person?
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No James, you are not a bad person ! You need to point out (in your own defense) that HP employees (as any other person) are perfectly elegible right away to get a 2710P as long as they fork over the cash, like you and I have done !
They do need to wait though if they want to get it for free or at a substantial discount. I have a close friend that works for Nokia, and he keeps complaining that he is elegible to get new phones almost a year after their release (but he gets them for free). When I asked him why he would not buy one, he looked at me in dismay :-(
Hey, I can’t complain; I am elegible to buy whatever device I want as long as I pay for it. Weird, huh?
Fernando: chill. It’s not as if they were angry about it. They were probably more like, “Gee, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could get new stuff for free shortly after it came out?” Hell, *I* think it would be pretty cool.
Coffee puts the system under the strain of metabolizing a deadly acid-forming drug, depositing its insoluble cellulose, which cements the wall of the liver, causing this vital organ to swell to twice its proper size. In addition, coffee is heavily sprayed. (Ninety-two pesticides are applied to its leaves.) Diuretic properties of caffeine cause potassium and other minerals to be flushed from the body.
All this fear went away when I quit, and it was a book that inspired me to do it called The Truth About Caffeine by Marina Kushner. There are five things I liked about this book:
1) It details–thoroughly–the ways in which caffeine may damage your health.
2) It reveals the damage that coffee does to the environment. Specifically, coffee was once grown in the shade, so that trees were left in place. Then sun coffee was introduced, allowing greater yields but contributing to the destruction of rain forests. I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else.
3) It explains how best to go off coffee. This is important. If you try cold turkey, as most people probably do, the withdrawal symptoms will likely drive you right back to coffee.
4) Helped me find a great resource for the latest studies at CaffeineAwareness.org
5) Also, if you drink decaf you won’t want to miss this special free report on the dangers of decaf available at http://www.soyfee.com
You’re not a bad person, you’re just a geek!
Same goes for their employees out here in Silicon Valley, not only is their gear old, but mediocre specs.