Ghosts in the Machines

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003
7:58 AM

Yesterday was the day of random computer glitches at work. Nothing that couldn't be solved by restarting the application or rebooting the computer, but it was weird. For a while Bosslady couldn't print from her laptop; it said access was denied to that printer. WTF? I went to look at Properties and couldn't even see those. Reboot - hey, look! Prints just fine. I was a genius for that one. (Don't worry, I still had some minor idiot moments...) Then I had one where I started a new email and I couldn't type anything in it. Restarting Outlook solved that problem. I hate it when things fail for no known reason. Seemed like I spent a lot of time waiting for things to come back up yesterday. Must have been gremlins messing around with stuff during the night.

We had one glitch that couldn't be fixed, though, so I get to call IT today and try to explain it over the phone. At least it's more of a pain-in-the-butt glitch rather than a stopping-all-productivity one. Calling IT is generally a huge time commitment, because they're in Maine and we're here. I always wind up with someone who first talks to me like I'm another IT guy, and then when they figure out I'm not, they talk to me like I'm an idiot. (But hey, I'm used to that!) I know enough about computers to be slightly dangerous (unlike Bosslady, who knows just enough to be really dangerous), but I don't need to have it all explained to me like I'm four.

I'm really glad that I just have to get through today and then I have tomorrow and Thursday off. I might even get to leave early today, since Bosslady's going to a meeting in Cincinnati. Yesterday was a long day and I'm really hoping today won't be quite so much. Here's to everything working smoothly today.

Ciao!