Clean Slate

Last week, I arrived at work, coffee cup in hand, just like I always do. I hung my coat up and turned on my computer in the same breath, just like I always do. The computer seemed a little slow to start, but I didn't pay it much mind. Aren't there times when we're all a little slow to start? I went ahead and put my lunch in the shared refrigerator in our common area, filled up my water bottle. Still no running computer. I shuffled some papers on my desk, reorganized those piles that always seem to remain a pile on my desk no matter how often I shuffle. And still, a blank screen on my computer.

IT was called, someone from their department was sent up from another floor, whisking my laptop away. A very large portion of my work day, every day, is spent on a computer. Without it? Well, let's just say my desk sparkled and shined. When the IT department finally called me back to give me a diagnosis, things were far, far worse than I'd even allowed myself to suspect. Turns out, my hard drive had died. Totally and completely. It would not turn on, it would not cooperate, it would not pass go, it would not collect $200. Everything and anything that was on that hard drive? Gone. Vanished.

Of course the next question - or statement, more likely - is usually "but you'd backed up all of your stuff, right?" Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Unless, of course, you haven't backed anything up. I remember once, I'd idiotically left my wallet on the roof of my car when I'd stopped for gas in Connecticut, on my way to Boston for a job interview. When I called my mother in a panic, asking her to call and cancel my credit cards for me, she said "Really, Kel. You should never leave your wallet on the top of your car." To which, I oh so gracefully replied, in my stressed out and panicked moment: "No shit, Mom." If I'd say that to my Mom, you can probably imagine the internal reactions I've been having this week when people mention the importance of backing up data on an external hard drive. I get it, I get it. Everyone is a saint and on top of things like backing up their work except for me. Lesson learned.

Seriously. 5+ years of documents, power points, spreadsheets, emails, and all the rest of it, gone. Wiped. Everything was there at the end of the day on Monday when I logged off and everything was gone on Tuesday morning. (If you haven't taken a moment to pause while reading this post to go and grab your own external hard drive and back everything up? Well get on it already! At the very least let this be a cautionary tale! Or are you one of those people that's already backed up everything? Do you back up every day? A tiny part of me hates you right now if that's the case, just so we're clear.)

The other day I was on a conference call with some coworkers and they asked how things with my computer were unfolding. I answered: "I feel like I've started a new job that I already know how to do." Which pretty much sums things up, right? My position is the same, I know all of my co-workers, I'm right in the heart of several projects. And yet I have zero documents or emails to show for it, and with each day that passes I think of another piece of information I need that I can no longer just pull from my saved files on my desktop. All that work, vanished forever in the world of cyberspace.

Here's the part where I feel obligated to look at the silver lining and thank my lucky stars that a) it wasn't my personal computer where all of my photos, writings, music, and the like live and b) that the majority of my reports and all of that worky work stuff have been emailed at some point. SO if I get really desperate for a document I am *hoping* I can have someone email it back to me...assuming I remember who I sent the darn thing to in the first place.

When the IT guy called me to relay the bad news, my first reaction was to laugh. "At least you're taking it well,"he said. To which I replied, "Well, what can I do now but laugh, right? " Which reminds me of a line from an old Indigo Girl's album 1200 curfews; a line I find myself thinking of often these early weeks of 2012: "You have to laugh at yourself. Because, you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't."