The hotel I was staying in had a really cute receptionist. Sadly, this would prove to be almost the only redeeming feature of my whole week.
Last week, I was dispatched back to France for another very important task. This time, the task was not directly connected to my areas of expertise. However, since I have a decent working relationship with our French colleagues, and since the arrangement with me onsite and my Scottish colleagues supporting me remotely works better than the opposite arrangement, I'm probably the best choice for that sort of remote working.
So, off I went to France on Monday morning. It was an early flight, then another flight (delayed), then four hours of work. Then an adventure in finding food (which I will blog separately). By this point, I wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep for a week.
However, I found myself reading the book of hotel services that came with the room, and found a note that wireless internet access was free! All I had to do was ask for a WEP key from reception. Huzzah!
So, I rushed down to talk to the cute receptionist. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried asking for a WEP key in a flirtatious manner. Let me assure you, it is not a good idea. The desired effect seems to be replaced instead by a vibe which says "I'm a total geek, and I'm dog tired, and my clothes have the stink of long travel about them... but life is short and you're really hot, so how about it, eh?"
The net effect was that I found myself the possessor of a WEP key. I think she might have liked me, but I'm not sure (if so, then there were a good many French ladies found me attractive... which rather suggests I'm not).
Anyway, I retired to my room to get online, and checked the ticket, only to find a note on it saying "Cost: 1€". Interesting definition of 'free', I thought. Still, 1€ for 4 hours of internet access, especially when the company were paying anyway, is nothing. So, I connected.
Or, rather, tried to. It turned out that, far from having free internet access, I instead was paying to not have access.
This was rather representative of my whole week. I came home on Friday exhausted, and indeed have still not recovered fully (I really need a holiday), and with the knowledge that the day off I was getting to have my car go through its MOT tomorrow has had to be cancelled, and I'm back off to France on Tuesday for another week.
On the one hand, it's nice to be sufficiently recognised that I'm being sent to deal with a very important issue at a crucial time. On the other hand, I need a holiday.
2 comments:
I am a little jealous of your French exploits, although they sound stressful. What part of France are you in? Somewhere fun?
Oh and were you caught out by free as in libre- just meaning you can do it whenever you want, as opposed to gratuit meaning you don't have to pay? When I was in Biarritz I was told I had to pay but they were too crap to work out how (and it took them 15 mins to find the key thingy) so it was free. In such situations I am aided by knowing quite a lot of French. It is not so good in Spain. (Today at the post office I was reduced to saying that I would not buy the big box today because there was 'agua', because I couldn't remember the word for rain. Duh!
I was just south of Rennes.
And it's possible that that was the cause of the problem - the book had English translations, and that's what I used, so it's possible the French was using the other word.
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