Sod's law

There is a well known maxim that states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Today has been a perfect example of that maxim.

We have been having some training on our new accounts module today. We asked the technical support group bods to set up a room with some pcs that we could use, a not unreasonable request. However, when everybody tried to log in we noticed that everything was going slow and eventually the server ground to a shuddering halt. We called the TSG bod down to have a look and eventually we worked out that he had given us a 10Mbs hub to use rather than a 100Mbs switch, and that the resultant slow connections and timeouts had overloaded the server. Cue a reboot, and a swift replacement, and we restarted the training running only an hour late.

By the time lunchtime rolled around we decided to work through to make up the lost time. However the training room was rather hot with eight pcs, a switch and a projector running in a confined space. A prolonged discussion of invoicing periods on top of the early start this morning was all I needed to nearly send me into a coma, and I found myself nodding off until I found an excuse to open a window and drink several cups of strong coffee.

When the training for the day had finished the next task was to install the updated version of the query add in for Excel, so I went to get the disk from the TSG cupboard of software related delights upstairs. I picked one up and asked if it was the right one. 'Should be' was the response. However, the consultant looked at it and realised it was the old version not the new one that we needed, so at five to five I headed back up to look for the right one.

No sign of the TSG bod, and the cupboard was locked. Back down to find my boss and the spare key for the cupboard. Open the cupboard and find the case for the correct disk. Great. Unfortunately the case was empty. Damn.

Back downstairs and I eventually found the backup copy of the disk which had fallen down the back of my bosses desk drawer, so we set to installing from that copy, finishing most of the clients by a quarter to seven.

Epilogue - the missing disk was eventually found by a shame faced TSG bod in the drive of the server where it had been for several weeks. Very useful if we'd had a fire and needed to do a disaster recovery procedure.