I learnt two important lessons today.
This’ll get a bit geeky, but when I got into work this morning, my PC was off. Odd, I left it on. With the screen turned off (that’s the manual power saving feature in Windows NT 4) but definitely on.
So I booted ‘er up. But I couldn’t logon – all it would do is display a very cryptic error message. Eventually I noticed somebody had been fiddling with my logon settings. Whoever it was obviously didn’t notice the computer had already been on, so they rebooted it, fiddled with the settings, then shut it down. How kind. It feels like I’m in The Three Bears – whose been sitting at my PC?
Changed the settings back (lucky I had them written down) and logged on. It worked, but the marvellously helpful Corporate LAN Standard setup that is the bane of my existence, decided that obviously logging on is good grounds for re-installing Microsoft Office, followed by another reboot! T-smeggin’-riffic.
It made my morning somewhat less productive than it should have been. To be quite honest, it pissed me off quite considerably. The lesson? Next time I leave work early with the PC left on but the screen turned off, it might be a good idea to leave a friendly post-it note saying "Bugger off!" on it.
And the other lesson? I’ve discovered that turning off your mobile phone is definitely a good idea when you go to the toilet. Sitting on the can and suddenly hearing your phone echoing The Liberty Bell around the cubicles isn’t good.
