getting my second wind

So, my unofficial title at work is “The Tech Person”, which means that any time anyone has a computer question (i.e., “How do you save a file?” to “My residents downloaded p_orn, what do I do?”) needs to buy 10 computers for a computer lab, or needs to create a new “user-friendly” form, I’m called upon. Now, I’ve never taken a class in computers - although I was blessed with a father who was an early adopter of computers and knew/knows what he talks about - but probably 25% of my work day is spent working on someone else’s computers. And then there are days like this one …

Let’s see - last night the server went down and along with it went email, our website and VPN. On the way in this morning I heard from several coworkers that they didn’t have email and the phone systems were wacky. So, as soon as I got in, I went through the normal computer repairs. No, not kicking the server - although I thought about it - but the normal stuff - reboot the server, check the internet connection and then do it again. Nothing worked, so I called the guy we pay to do this stuff. he comes over, says it fixed and i head off to our all-staff meeting. At the meeting, another staff member has brought in her laptop, which has “too many pop-ups”. Yeah, we’re talking about the pop-ups that pop up one on top of each other - more than 100 in 3 minutes. In other words, she’s downloaded something she shouldn’t have and she now has a full-blown virus and malware (because of course, she never installed her antivirus software)

And then I return to the office 3 hrs. later to find that nope, we have email internally but none of our off-site staff has email. Great. Call Tech Guy and ask him to fix it. He says that he’ll call them and I ask if it’s possible at all that it could be the new server back-up system. No, he assures me, not at all. All of those problems we’re having are completely unrelated. Yeah, not so much - they’re completely related. The network card doesn’t like to reconnect to the internet after a reboot or, heck, whenever it feels like it. While I’m at a meeting, he asks me when I’ll be back so he can come by the office again. Fantastic! I get to wait to leave while he fixes the computer until I can go home. He finally tells me its fixed and leaves. And then on my way home, 3 people call to say “hey, I still don’t have email.”

Top all of this off with that freakin’ laptop. The owner calls me and asks me to make sure to back-up her files and her music, because for some reason, she doesn’t back her computer up like most people do. So, almost 6 hours later, I think I may have it almost fixed. almost, I’m running the last hijackthis! scan. But seriously, everyone out there - please, please, please do NOT download files at work that are suspicious that ask you to install something or in any other way ask you for information. Also, please, please, please use antivirus software. Because really I had other things I wanted to do tonight!

Can’t wait for tomorrow, I tell ya. Maybe then I’ll actually get to get some of my work done. maybe…