D'oh! Oh Network, where did you go?

Around a month ago I came into the office, started my computer, ho-hum just another day.  Computer boots up with no welcome screen.

You know the one, serene blue color, saying, Good morning Stacey.  How's it going?  Is the coffee good this morning?  Did you bring me a cup?  Two creams, one sugar.

Yeah, that one.

Except, it's not there to ask for it's coffee.  The computer takes me straight to the desktop.  An unfamiliar one.  No pretty wallpaper.  No icons of programs that make my world go round.  No various projects that I've saved on the desktop.

And, as I start to hyperventalate because I cannot even access the network, I hear a faint screaming of my computer profile trapped inside the tower.  (From it's shaky account it was blindfolded, poked with searing hot objects and force fed liver)

My profile was sucked away and held hostage for around six hours.  The computer hostage negotiator had to come and boy did he have his hands full.  He had to sweet talk and threaten the evil demon that was torturing my good friend.  I don't know what all went down those six hours except that there were various passwords given and promises made.

In other words, a full work day gone because of technical difficulties.

But that, unpleasant wasteful day was like a hang nail compared to the computer armageddon we experienced this week.

That's right.  A full week.  Five work days.  WITHOUT THE NETWORK. 

The computer that houses the NETWORK was going through black screen convulsions.  "I was not properly shut down last time.  Shut down now? Safe Mode? Resume as is? If you don't touch me within the next five seconds, I'll do whatever I please." 

Turns out, it did the last option no matter what we tried to choose.

It was a crisis situation, so we called in the reserves.

We had email, we had Internet (after some prodding on my part to the so-called-computer-expert) and we had whatever what was located on our individual C-Drives.  Which, my friends, wasn't a whole lot.

One coworker went gangbusters and cleaned.  Which meant she was done with that usually long drawn out task by 2 p.m. on Monday.  (Say it with me folks, F.U.C.K.)

It was an interesting little experiment of who could hold their sanity longest.  (I'm not sure if I won.)

One of us would start something and get cocky.  "Hey, look at me!  I'm working and being productive without the precious NETWORK.  Now I just have to load this Update to the Web site and send out the email ... and .... dammit ... web updates are on the NETWORK. .... WHY GOD, WHY?!?"

La la la, working on something, oh wait, I have to check that figure.  BAM. It's on the NETWORK.

And on. And on. And on.

The busy work and random tasks we could find really didn't task our brains ... and by Wednesday we were all getting a little punchy.

However, our office is now cleaner than when the cleaning Nazi walked our halls.

Friday at two the computer "expert" came back with the computer that houses the NETWORK all new and shiny and working.  The only problem with this is he didn't know where the NETWORK was on the new computer.  He wouldn't listen to the file paths I was giving him.  But oh well, what do I know?

With around one hour left in the week, the NETWORK was restored.  I was so disoriented at all the different options of folders and files that I didn't know what to work on first.