Unplugged

Monday was a bleak, bleak day. I arrived at work in a timely manner, booted up my computer, made a quick cup of tea in the kitchen, then made my way back to my desk only to find I had no access to ANYTHING!

That's right. Nothing. No Internet access, therefore no email access, and not even access to our file server, which houses every single file and database and program needed to get anything done around these parts. I promptly emailed, Bryan, our go-to guy for all things IT.

Thank god for smart phones was all I was thinking at this point. What if I didn't have one, with his number already in there, how would I have even contacted him?!

His reply was less hopeful than I'd hoped for:

Yeah, something got screwed up there. Steve is supposed to get a tech in there.

Wha?? That's it? It's beyond your help? We're calling in a tech?

I took things into my own hands, as there were no other hands around, and promptly got the file server to come online. Doesn't anyone know that you need to unplug the thingymabobber before you do the hard boot of the file server? Well, I do. So I did. I unplugged the thingymabobber, restarted the server, and viola, access to all of our files was restored. (Audible sigh of relief.)

Next I called the local cable company, our Internet providers. I requested they ping us to see what was what. They did. There was access o'plenty, the problem was on our end.

I unplugged then replugged the cable modem a couple of times. No change. I'd hit a pretty big wall. There are way too many server boxes and cables and monitors and other techy stuff in the server room for me to even guess where to start.

I had to face hard reality.

I'd just have to attempt to survive without it. I forged on. But I'd start a task, get one fourth of the way through, then realize I need to get just one web address, or check our website for just one fact before I could go further. We're an online publishing company, for goodness sake,  we are online for, well, everything.

It was hellish. Seriously. I know that sounds dramatic, but it took a lot  of creativity, and copious sticky notes to myself, to remember what I would need to check online before every single task would, in fact, be complete.

Add to this the fact that our authors, who had no access to our online submission system, were calling to let us know that they had no access to our online submission system, and that I couldn't even get any personal business done, being as I was, totally cut off from the world (okay, I did have my phone), and you'll know why I barely survived unplugged Monday.