Yup, I have 3 computers now. Not including the 2 hubby has. These 3 are mine to use. Two on my desktop, and one laptop. Kinda overkill, but there are good reasons for all of them. The first is my old 2000 machine, which needs to be laid to rest soon. The 2nd is my XP machine that hubby built for me to replace the 2000. The 3rd is my laptop that I use when I'm sick of sitting as my desk. Now with 3 computers at my disposal, you would think I could get lots of work done. You would think that I should be multi-tasking like crazy and zipping thru work. Right? Wrong.
On Monday, I had a set of reports to download and print (about 700 pages worth) and get to FedEx for overnight delivery to NY. This requires a good internet connection and a printer. That's not too tough for me though--I have 3 computers with internet connection (via cable) and 2 printers. WRONG! Over the course of my 10-hour workday, my internet went up and down on all my machines so often that I could start a download only for it to disconnect and stop downloading every 10 minutes. I spent all day switching from pc to pc to laptop like a worker on an assembly line. Then our internal network with the printers went down, so I lost access to both of the printers. And just as I crawled under my God-forsaken desk to unplug the printer cord and replug it directly into one of my pc's, the network tried to revive itself...but I couldn't print because I had just unplugged it! AHHHHH! Nothing went right. You can imagine my stress level at 4:00 when I realized I had only gotten about 2/3 of them printed, and had just 2 hours left to make it to FedEx. (For the record, I only cursed once all day...and I immediately asked for forgiveness...thankfully no children were in my presence to repeat it!)
In the end, I called Boo's Grandpa and asked him to pretty, pretty please get Boo from daycare because I didn't have time to stop, bundle up Grace, load the van, drive to daycare, load up Boo, and drive back. They're small, but somehow babies and toddlers take lots of time to load up! So he helped me out in a HUGE WAY and I actually made it to FedEx a half hour before their final pickup of the day! A sheer miracle! Hubby got the networks and cable internet working smoothly when he came home, and I thought my problems were over.
Wrong again. Tuesday my fax machine just stopped working. No sending, no receiving, no nothing. Now the irony here is that my fax is not usually too critical. I don't get too many, and I fax stuff every day. I use it about twice a week. But on this particular day, I really needed it. My boss was at a big meeting this week and unable to download these reports for himself and had specifically asked me to fax them to his hotel every morning. And it should've been no problem....but it's ME, so of course it WAS a problem. For one hour I tried faxing. I called the hotel and tried 3 different fax numbers, but nothing went thru. Finally I realized it was completely schnoodled (a newly coined word by yours truly, meaning "totally crapped out").
Now there's some history about my fax machine. It's not really mine, you see. Neither the machine nor the line. If you'll recall, my neighbor is also my coworker, the one who's on maternity leave and forcing me to work all these horrible hours to cover I'm covering for her of my own free will. So before she had her baby, our husbands "jimmy-rigged" the fax line so that we could relocate the fax machine to my house for a while without having to inconvenience everyone at corporate with a new fax number. This "jimmy-rigging" really meant running a phone line across the grass between our houses, which I don't think it illegal (anyone calling the phone company on us?), but is surely insane. In the midst of this "jimmy-rigging" process, the phone line was nicked by a stapler. (This becomes important in a minute.)
So phone line in the grass and all, the fax has worked like a charm for 2 months now....until Tuesday, when it died. So once again I waited for my tech support (hubby) to come home (I couldn't call the phone company for help--they would uncover our dark plot!) and he and the neighbor's husband checked the line. They think the aforementioned nick in the line did not like the rain yesterday. So they did more "jimmy-rigging", no one was electricuted (I think phone lines are pretty low voltage anyhow), and my fax machine is working again. Life is good!
Then today came, and thankfully I didn't need to repeat Monday with printing 700 pages of online reports, because my printer is printing nothing. Notice I didn't say it wasn't printing at all. It THINKS it's printing. The little printer queue says it's printing, but the pages that come out of the printer are blank. As in as white as they were going on. Nothing on them. Nada. Internet pages, Word docs, emails--nothing will print. I just get blank pages. Maybe it's out of toner, you ask? Well, that thought just occurred to me too, and I will check. But add to this the problem with my outlook again, and you'll understand my paranoia. A couple weeks ago my outlook was freaking out with duplicate messages. This week my messages APPEAR to be all there, but when you open them, they are blank. Yup, another blank issue. As in, no text on the page, no pretty little html pictures or links, EMPTY EMAILS. Now I'm pretty sure everyone didn't get together and play a nasty little trick on me and send empty emails to me all at once......did you guys?
Hmmm, I better check that toner....I am blonde you know (mentally).
Does anyone else have a psychotic life like me? (And Mel, don't answer b/c I know you do, but you don't count. We're practically twins, so it fits that you'd be psychotic too.) I always say, "It could happen to anyone", but I'm starting to believe that it's only me. :-)
You two must be related somehow to Scott and I because our motto is "Life is always an adventure when you're with Scott and Becky!" We ALWAYS have wierd stuff going on. I always knew you were a kindred spirit!
Posted by: Becky | January 20, 2006 at 02:41 PM
I totally hear you, sister! It could only happen to us...
Posted by: Mel Bradley | January 19, 2006 at 10:30 AM