A life less irritating...

So, about a month ago I started receiving phone calls from several subcontractors that provide educational programming and various special events at the museum where I work. The problem was that they had not been receiving my emails.

Actually, they hadn't been receiving my emails for quite awhile.

This was, of course, news to me. I send a ton of work-related emails out in a day, and - on a good 90% of them - I never get a response (unless I specifically ask for one or there is reason for follow up). Part of my job is to coordinate booking, so - when it comes to the subcontractors - I email updated schedules out approximately once or twice a week. Most of the time I don't hear anything back (unless there is a scheduling conflict, and then I generally get a phone call).

Luckily, this electronic glitch didn't cause any insurmountable problems, and all of the scheduled educational events were completely unaffected (Thank God).

However, this didn't change the fact that my computer still was seemingly picking and choosing which emails it was going to send out and which ones it...well...wasn't. For about a week there seemed to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to this, either.

And then it dawned on me.

My computer wasn't sending out any of my emails with attachments. Apparently, it was on strike or something.

So, I went to my coworker that is in charge of computer based issues and problems, and he promised that someone would be out to see about it soon.

Yet, "soon" apparently really meant that someone would be out to see about it in the next month or so (which, quite frankly, isn't soon. Tomorrow is soon. In a month or so is eventually).

Therefore, I spent the greater part of June hand delivering and/or snail mailing everything that should have gone out in an electronic attachment. This was, to say the least, very frustrating and meant that I spent a lot of extra time doing things that should have been done in a mere fraction of the time (not to mention effort).

Finally, during the last day of the last week in June, the computer guy shows up. We will call him...uh...Karl.

Karl comes into my office and asks me to explain the problem to him. So, I tell him about how my computer is apparently having problems getting emails with attachments to their final destinations. The emails are never returned to me, though, so I wasn't even aware of the problem for probably close to a month (which means that I cannot remember any event, server issue, etc. that could have precipitated the problem in the first place). According to my email provider, the messages that I am sending out are, indeed, SENT. On my end, there is no symptom of a problem. Yet, they are my messages and attachments that aren't ever reaching their final destination, and I find it hard to believe that the problem somehow lies with everyone else's inbox.

So, Karl sits down at my computer and opens my email program. He checks on a couple of things, and then clicks on the COMPOSE NEW MESSAGE button. Karl proceeds to send himself an email from my account. He then checks his watch and counts how many seconds it takes for the message to leave my outbox and arrive in his inbox.

Since I was standing there, I know it took 33 seconds.

The message he sent himself from my computer did not have an attachment. It didn't even have a subject, for that matter. I felt that - for sure - he was only conducting a simple test. A simple test that, of course, would only be one of the many that Karl would have to perform in an effort to diagnosis and fix the problem.

So, image my shock when he stood up and announced that my computer was fixed, and that I shouldn't have any more problems with it.

"Don't you want to send yourself a message with an attachment," I inquired?

"No need. It's working fine," He answered.

"But I can send emails. I've been sending emails. Just emails go through. Emails with attachments don't go through," I argued.

"Well, it seems to be working now," He said as he walked out of my office.

Later that day, my coworker came in and said, "So, Karl said he fixed your computer. That didn't take long, now did it?"

I thought seriously about throwing my stapler at him. But, of course, that would have been wrong. I managed to refrain from doing so. Somehow.

So, is it any wonder that at my meeting today I found out that no one had received a single email from me this week with an attachment? I honestly wasn't surprised.

I know you aren't either.

This whole scenario has really challenged me to rethink my future career goals and aspirations. Karl is very well paid for what he does (or doesn't do as the case may be). Most computer geeks are, I've discovered. Therefore, I'm seriously considering a quarter-life career change. I think I would like to become a computer geek, too. I'm relatively competent with computers, and I'm even better at not fixing things. This might just be the calling I've been waiting for all these years.

Yeah. So, I'm a little bitter, I guess...