Technology Fails

What a very strange week it has been.  When I began my work week on Monday, I was not expecting to be dealing with a total absence of technology at work:  all week, no phones, no computers, no internet access.  I've been impressed with how quickly faculty have been able to pivot.

I've been reminded of how important it is to back up electronic data, and to back it up in a variety of places.  At work, I've been saving documents on a shared drive and on the hard drive of the computer.  I often e-mail items and assume that I could reconstruct documents from e-mails if I needed to.  But those e-mails are to other employees, not to my private e-mail file.  Once in awhile, I've backed up to my personal files in the cloud.  But I've rarely backed up to physical drives that are portable.

I'm realizing that I had been working on an assumption that at least part of the system would be operational.  Someone might wreck the files in the shared drive, but I'd have access to my personal files and my e-mail.  I've assumed the server was fairly permanent and backed up.  

When I was younger, I was more conscientious.  I often backed up onto floppy discs, and I did that at least once a week--and I printed all the work that I did in any given day.  I was so aware of how easy it would be to lose that data.  I was often working on large projects, like writing a novel or writing my dissertation. 

Am I sloppier now because I'm working on smaller projects, like poems?  Perhaps.

But I think I'm sloppier now because I have data crashes and failures less frequently.  Computer platforms used to be much less stable, and computers themselves seemed more prone to failure.

It's been interesting to observe how the rhythm of my work day has changed with less technology available to me.  I've gotten a lot more reading done, but less writing done, because I have some time, and I have some hope that our access will be restored soon.  I've had to leave the office to come back to my house, where I have internet access, to be part of meetings that update us all.  But I can't really work from home, since we have so few people with keys. I've been going to campus, opening up campus, hanging out to make sure that classes get going and everyone has everything they need, returning home for a few hours for meetings that require internet access, and returning to campus to make sure everything is going smoothly and to lock up at the end of the day.

It's as exhausting as it sounds.

Today, I'll also tend to technology issues, but I'll hope to also return to older technology.  I have sourdough starter that needs to be used.  It might be a good day for homemade pizza.