Thursday 23 March 2000

Pic of the day: This screenshot has nothing to do with today's main topic, unless you count stealing of hearts. I just wanted to show you what daydreams I've been acting out in The Sims today. :) (And those hands didn't wander any further than that in the game either.)

After I got the portable computer back, I used it on the batteries for a while. I was surprised by how quickly the batteries emptied. And I was even more surprised the next day when they did not recharge while I used the machine, as they have done in the past. I turned off the Toshiba before I went to bed and left it recharging all night. This drove up the battery from 3% to 5% recharged. Woo hoo.

I know that on older portables, you could "cook" the batteries by continuing to keep it plugged into the wall after it was fully loaded. But this is a modern machine; there is supposed to be circuitry to prevent cooking. All you need to do is to occasionally use it till the batteries are almost empty, and then recharge. But suddenly this does not work anymore. How peculiar.

I must admit that I think it is reasonably probable that the batteries have been taken out and replaced with some much older battery pack, perhaps belonging to one of the workers at Telehuset. The change is very dramatic and my computer is only from last summer. And it would not be the first theft in the world, exactly. But I am certainly not going to go back and complain. It's not like I have the serial number of my battery pack somewhere. I guess if I ever need to take the computer on a travel again, I will buy a new battery pack from the competing shop. But it won't be this month. This month, as I'm sure I have mentioned, I am virtually broke.

It is hardly surprising if employees help themselves when no one is looking. At my workplace, there was a steady loss of soaps back when we used dry soap. Then we got liquid soap in unwieldy containers. Presumably people are reluctant to put those in the bag on their way out, for the soap seems to be left alone for the time being.

I once started up a simple sale of chocolates at our office's coffee room. People would take a chocolate from the fridge and put the corresponding money in a little box. We started quite small, which was a good idea. Because one or more of my colleagues not only took the chocolate, but the money too. Today we sell ice cream from a freezer, and people write on a list what they have taken, and I collect it months later. That way the cost of honesty is less visible. Even so, there is a steady unexplained difference between the number of ice creams sold and the number left behind in the freezer. Or in short, there may still be some of my coworkers who think it is OK to steal from their colleagues. (Or who persistently have a one-way memory problem.) But not enough that we have to shut down the sales. It is probably just one or two or three.

Less than one in twenty employees stealing is an incredibly high morale, but then again we are supposed to have that. In retail the loss through employee theft is a fact of virtually every balance sheet except for small family shops. I am sure you would find eunuchs stealing of condoms if possible, just because they could. (Then again, they probably need some excitement, too.)

In utterly unrelated news, my oldest brother is in town. He called me at work today, and we agreed that we would see each other after he was finished with today's course. (He is attending some kind of seminary or conference.)

Too bad I did not bring my digicam. I was shocked to see how much he looks like me now. We always were somewhat alike, but he used to have loads of curly red hair. Now he has short reddish-brown hair like me, and a moustache slighly larger than mine. He could be me from an alternate reality. In fact, after a while I found out what it was that made me uneasy: He reminded me of the me I could have been if I had been a normal human. If I had somehow been led to accept my humanity, the way he seems to have done. I guess it may come partly from his wife and kids. Functional families tend to normalize people.

We went to a nearby cafe and talked for a while. I learned among other things that the human-ethics society in Norway (a nicer word for organized atheists) wants the same rights as muslims have to call out for prayer with a loudspeaker, or that churches have to ring bells in the morning. My brother did not know any details of what their "prayer calls" would consist of, but I could see from his grin that he had some ideas.

After a while we parted as friends. "See you again in some years" my brother said. Yes, let us hope so.