When Things Don't Work in the Computer Age

(Did I just make myself sound terribly old by calling this "the Computer Age"?) (Don't answer that.)

It is currently the middle of the workday on a Tuesday. Tuesday, for the record, is usually one of my most productive days at work. After all, we've made it through the crush of work that accumulated over the weekend, and we're not to the doldrums of the latter portion of the week, yet.

Today, however, I am not getting things done. In fact, today I have been spending most of my time trying to find things I could do. Wait. That's not quite right. I know of a bunch of stuff I could do. I've been trying to find things which are do-able.

You see, our main computer database went down yesterday morning. So for the past 28 hours or so we haven't really had access to most of the data I need to do my job. Sure. I can send and receive emails with our clients. And anything that happens through our Administrative site is fine. But anything that actually needs me to work on a file? That stuff is currently AWOL.

Send a book to print? Nope. Can't access the print-ready files.

Create the documents for the Distributor? Nope. Can't access the marketing plans or the modified covers.

Pay off a print order? Sorta. I mean, I can process the order in the Admin system, but I can't make a note that it was paid on the invoice that is sitting on our missing server.

I would enjoy the "nothing do-able" day, more, if I didn't see the emails stacking up in my inbox which I'll have to deal with tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever the server comes back online.

Especially since, whenever it all comes back, we'll have to all save whatever we have on our desktops into the correct files on the server. Gee. I can't imagine what could go wrong with that. Could you?

Kinda makes me think the transcribing monks might have had it right.