My computer told me "Do your filing"

Every Tuesday morning for the last three weeks my computer at work has lost all access to the internet. This in turn means I can't access the shared drive we have set up or the printer. So basically I'm screwed. And of course it's just me, not anyone else in the office. AND, I'm the office person, so I'm the most in need of a functioning computer amongest all my colleagues.

By now, I'm familiar with the routine and straight away get on the blower to head office, who in turn call our IT people - MINT technology. I then sit around twiddling my thumbs until someone calls me and they talk me through resetting my IP address or some such nonsense. Usually taking only a couple of hours from when I arrive in the morning until I get back online.

Today I told them I wanted it fixed. Not just "let's do this and see if it works" but properly fixed. I don't like spending Tuesday mornings without my computer. So, the IT team spent from 8.30am until 2.30pm going through my computer, resetting and rejigging, installing and whosewatsing around. And here's what I did in that time:

- Two months worth of my own filing
- Made up 15 client files
- Filed 98 letters
- Went to the post office to get the mail
- Opened all the mail
- Took a hundred million phone calls
- Updated a very out-of-date spreadsheet
- Audited new files

So all in all, what was a rather annoying day was also a rather productive day. I had the time to do many of the things that usually get left at the bottom of the priority queue. I wonder if it was the computers way of telling me that I needed to do my filing?