There was an extra spring in my steps as I made my way to work as it was the day before I leave for a much-awaited holiday. I cheerily greeted “good morning all” as I found my way to my desk. Little did I know that I would have an unwelcomed visit by Mr Murphy.
My first attempt to log on to start work failed; and up to the third time I got the message: “The system cannot log you on. Central Domain is not available”. Adrian, the guy in the next workstation suggested unplugging and plugging on cables to the computer. While we placed a call to the IT department, Craig, from the other end of the floor came over to do the same.
Ten minutes later, Warren from IT came along. After a few minutes trying to convince the computer to work, he declared: “Sorry, the motherboard is dead”. I thought how inconsiderate of that pc not to wait one more day before it decided to go to cyberspace heaven!
Ann got the spare office laptop for Warren to connect to the network. It turned out that the laptop has not been used for awhile. He said that there were 31 updates which had to be uploaded before I could use the laptop!
By now, I could feel my blood pressure rising. May be I should have taken something stronger than a cuppa tea while waiting for the laptop to be ready. I tried to control my nerves while finishing the status report which I needed to give my Audit Manager.
I had to do a last minute errand at lunch time so I left the laptop on, purposely not shutting it down so as not to annoy it. After the errand and lunch on the run, I eagerly went back to the unfinished report. However, the laptop was frozen!!! It took some time to convince it to work again.
The meeting with my Audit Manager was set at 4.45 p.m. Five minutes before then, I sent the status report to the printer. I rushed over to collect my print job. What print job! The printer was flashing the message: “Paper jam!” I had to get the admin ladies to clear the jam and after a few more minutes, I got my report printed.
By the time I went over to Len’s office, I was running five minutes late. I felt elated as I started talking through what I have covered in the audit. Five minutes into our discussion, the office was plunged into darkness! There was a fire alarm wailing and we tried to continue going through the report under an emergency bulb! But no good, we were told we had to leave. It was scary but I felt assured as a Pinay colleague, Jackie and our Director, Bill stayed to wait for me. We had to walk down fifteen floors!!!
What a day!! It certainly featured Murphy’s law: “What can go wrong, will go wrong”! Oh Mr Murphy, the crash course on your teaching was certainly not appreciated. I couldn’t say it was nice meeting you. I sure hope we don’t cross paths while I am on my holidays!
