Jan 31, 2008

Awwww, Freak Out...

OK, so I'm no good at not panicking. I thought I'd made some progress through the years. And I guess I have when I look at the things I used to panic about that I don't anymore...but the capacity is still there. And the extent of my panic tends to be inversely proportional to the degree of control I have of the given situation. Which actually doesn't seem all that remarkable to me...of course I tend to panic less when there's something I can DO about it. But today--today was a day of panic and banging my head against a wall.

It began several weeks ago, when I was temporarily farmed out to another project at work. It involved true technical, analytical, nerd work, which I don't get to do all that often, but is both fun and unnerving when I get the chance. Fun once the problem is solved; unnerving during the process leading up to the solution, which is like 80% of the time.

So in the process my turn came up for a replacement computer and I was really excited because I thought "Hey, a new computer!" and I thought a newer, faster machine would help the nerd work go a bit faster. So I got my new computer and was all excited to fire it up, but then I had a major software issue. The software wouldn't work. So I sent my new computer to be worked on. Then the problem didn't get better after the first couple tries, so I started to panic about the growing time crunch on my nerd work...amazingly, people are actually counting on my results, so I want to do it well and on time.

So I had a brilliant idea--while my new machine was being worked on, I would use my OLD machine to keep up with the work. Brilliant! But when I went to fire up my old machine I couldn't connect to my company's network. And therefore couldn't do the work. My panic grew ever so slightly, but I asked some folks for their thoughts and decided to call in some tech support. My company's tech support is good--they've always taken care of me.

Until I called and the automated system told me that they were in a STAFF MEETING. All of them. In the middle of the day. While I had no connectivity and my panic levels were reaching epic proportions. The nerve! I was seriously freaked out...not quite afraid of getting fired, but definitely nervous about what my team and my supervisor would say. I thought & thought and racked my brain, and I really was doing everything I possibly could, so I had to wait it out and occupy myself with other things for 3 hours (3 HOURS) until the help desk was back online. It was torture. So finally I got hold of them, and it took all of 5 minutes to fix the problem and get myself back in working order. Still frustrating to know that my new machine was stuck in a lab waiting for some TLC and probably some reinstallations...but I'll take what I can get with the old one. At least it works now.

Then my adrenaline levels started to recede, so I felt better...then I got home, took a jog with His Highness, and ate some chocolate--and I felt much better. Now if I can just get the Cat Daddy to watch something other than the political debates, just for tonight...wait, wait...yes, I've been able to tune them out completely. All I hear is "blah blah blah"--aaaaahhhhhhh...

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