Today starts as any other day. Get up early, get the older boys off to school, then Luke and I go to work. With a few extra minutes, I drive through Dunkin' Donuts and get a coffee refill. In hindsight, it was a good decision because I would need caffeine today.
Since Luke began walking, our entrance into the office these days is always like horses released at the starting gate. To set up the scene properly for you, Luke runs from my car through an empty grass lot to our side door entrance. My arms are loaded down with my full work bag, coffee cup, sippy cup and my other hand holds my 50 pound dog, Izzy. Yes, the dog goes to work too. It really is a family business. I could probably write an entire series about Izzy, but not today. Let’s just suffice it to say when we rescued her, she had probably been abandoned and has some serious attachment issues. As long as she’s with people, she’s a great dog. My customers and staff love her like their own. And she’s become sort of a stress reliever for some of the staff when faced with a challenging day. Today, I’ll need her to reduce my stress.
Anyway, we knock on the side door and the dog and Luke go bounding into the office. Luke knows that Izzy gets a cookie and usually watches while she eats her treat. But today, the gate to the front office is open. Uh, oh. And I’m so busy getting my laptop set up and our lunch put in the fridge, I do not realize that Luke has wandered up front to the main office. You see, we work in the back part of the office. All of his toys are in my office and a spare open office next to mine. My brother’s office is across the hall, and another employee is across from the spare office, then a conference room, kitchen and bathrooms. I had to gate the other end of the hallway because there’s steps leading downstairs to the warehouse, which a few times, he’s managed to get down to without my immediate knowledge. So, yes, gates everywhere.
As I’m setting up my computer, one of the employees calls back to say the program that holds all of our ordering, accounting, pretty much everything we do on a daily basis is down. And along with handling all of the company’s finances, I also do all of the computer stuff. Any problem I can’t fix I either Google or call my husband who works in IT.
And then I hear the giggling. Giggling too far away from my office. Shit. The baby. Where is he and what has he done now?
Because anyone who has a toddler knows that if he take your eye off of him for one second, he will find some activity he thinks is awesome, but is not necessarily Mom approved.
Giggling and quiet are not usually good signs.
I walk up front and Luke has found exactly the right buttons to shut off both of my servers. Anyone who has ever worked with computers knows you shouldn’t simply hit the buttons and turn them off. And you should especially not do this with servers. My servers are older and super temperamental. I had a college professor once for a broadcasting class who would talk nice to the old television equipment because it would break down often and not work properly. This is how it is with my servers. Now everyone is complaining (except my dad who dislikes the computer, except for email and writes his orders up on paper). He is the only one not affected by the system being down.
The baby is giggling and now trying to climb the server tower. He knows he’s done something wrong. I cross my fingers and power up both servers, hoping they’ll boot, but of course they won’t. Black screen, blinking cursor, failed drive, blah, blah, blah. I take a picture with my phone and send it to my husband who of course is in a meeting and is not answering my cries for help. Luke is still climbing the towers and has already hit one of the power buttons before I could stop his lighting fast fingers.
I unplug everything. For whatever reason, sometimes, these servers overheat. When I unplug them for a while, sometimes they’ll boot after an hour or so.
I get Luke settled down in my office with a snack. Listen to the bitching because no one can work. Say a few prayers that I can get us back up and running soon.
After enough time has passed, I plug everything back in, cross my fingers and wait and wait. Finally, the windows screen appears, Hooray!!! The day is saved today. At least for now.
My co-worker Terri constructs a cardboard shield over the battery supply power button and has duct taped the doors to the servers shut so little hands cannot get in so easily.
But for now, we’re back in business, Baby!
