In preparation for moving, we did some computer backups and re-arrangements (don't you love my technical jargon?) yesterday. Overnight, while the computer was defragging itself, some apparently-key bits of the Windows OS got, um, misplaced.
So breakfast was a sad meal. All seemed lost - email address book, all email, all bookmarks (including the ones I'm using for my paper on Atlanta's economy, due this week). But B was able to fix everything, and I'm back up on the Web.
Please don't email me about backups. I actually DO have multiple copies of important documents like research I'm doing, and I DO archive finished products. It's the daily stuff I don't really do much with.
During my last day of work, almost two years ago now, our IT administrator "thought" I was finished for the day/month/year/forever, and "for security reasons" deleted all my stuff remotely. He finished by changing my passwords so that I couldn't use my computer at all. Since I was still working on my final status report and had planned to save selected emails/addresses for future reference, it was pretty upsetting. People in my office told me they heard language they'd never heard in all the years they'd worked with me.
After I went ballistic with him and then with his boss, he was suddenly able to restore my password and ordinary files, but he insisted that email and email addresses and bookmarks were irretrievably lost. (Do you think that would've been the answer if an FBI agent had been standing there with a subpoena?)
But I have to say that the event erased all possible future nostalgia and fear of regrets of having quit my job. Six hours later, I walked out the door, and I have never for one minute regretted leaving the place. Losing all that stuff was the techno-analog to "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
Ah, "good times," as Phil Hartman used to say when he played that smarmy talk-show host on Talk Radio. Funny how today's near-crisis brought back all the emotions of that day.
Posted by otto0114 at April 25, 2004 12:32 PM