It's been a long time since my last regular post. Lots have happened since - we moved into new offices, almost went to court and got a pet that slowly learns how to talk. To recap...
Centrro moved into new offices around November-ish. Still in Jack London Square about 4 blocks from the old office. Cool building with interesting architecture. Below are some pics...
And a very inventive shelving system we built with the help of Ikea and the USPS.
As for the court thing. Our old landlords over at The Commons were refusing to return our security deposit for damages. Interestingly, not for damage to the actual suite itself but for scuff marks on the stairs. What's even more interesting is that we didn't use the stairs to move our things out since we're on the 3rd floor and would be crazy to haul our stuff down two flights of stairs when there's a perfectly good elevator. After some back and forth including a filing with small claims, they sent us a check minus some bullshit minor charges. I'm still pissed but have spent way more time on this issue than I wanted to so we're dropping the claim. For future reference, I do not recommend doing business with Equistone Partners or their building management firm LCB Associates, which showed a total lack of integrity throughout the process. Oh well, live and learn.
Lastly, when we moved into the Ironworks Building, we were a little miffed to learn that Comcast wasn't available as a data option. Basically only AT&T came into the building so we signed up for AT&T phone lines and DSL. BIG MISTAKE. First, the DSL service was horrible - completely unusable. 6MB down and less than 1MB up for 8+ computers brought everyone's connectivity to a crawl. We were using Ooma VOIP phones at the old office but switched to plain land lines to avoid data congestion but even without VOIP across the lines, the service was just way too slow. On top of everything, AT&T service is not cheap. DSL came in at about $29 a month and each of our 8 phone lines costed us about $55+. With tax and fees our monthly bill was running about $550. After much begging and pleading with our new landlords, we were able to get Comcast into the building. Nice fat 50MB down and 10MB up data connection and 8 digital voice lines. Total monthly cost? Less than $300. It blows my mind why AT&T's landline and DSL business are still around. Not only am I paying half as much for better service, AT&T customer service has got to be one of the worst I've encountered. Once my wireless contract is up, I'll be moving that over to Verizon, as well. Farewell and good riddance, AT&T.