In my previous post, I outlined a conversation I had with my IT department because my computer would not let me log in.  The help desk, as usual, couldn’t figure out the problem.  I reluctantly walked over to my manager’s office to let her know about this situation.

“Hey Shari…not to worry you but I have a slight problem.  I can’t log into my computer and the help desk can’t figure out why.  It’s almost 5 so I’m going to just call it a day.  Hopefully they get my computer fixed soon because I haven’t put in any journal entries yet. My laptop at home doesn’t have the software I need because just remote into the desktop computer that currently won’t let me log on.”

“Really? Um, here’s Mike’s old laptop. I think it has BPC Objects loaded because it was his only computer. Here you go Nicole. Try it out and let me know if this will work.”

“Yeah okay, I’ll go try it now.  I just need the power chord.”

“Oh, I don’t have that. He didn’t turn in the power chord when he resigned.”

“Well, I’ll bring my chord from home and let you know.”

I walked out of my manager’s office slightly annoyed. How the hell do you keep a computer around without a power chord? How does this not get reported to IT? Also, my manager has used the old “my laptop and/or computer doesn’t work” excuse 3 times this year!  The whole time she had an extra computer sitting in her office!

The next morning back at the pod, I walked into chaos before I could even sit down and try out the laptop.  My co-worker right away started telling me that one of the analysts upstairs has been trying to contact me all morning (it’s barely 9am at this point) and she just told her I wasn’t around. Fab. I asked  my co-worker if she bothered to offer up the info that my computer is down. Her answer, of course, was no.

I quickly started to set up my laptop. Tara, who sits on the other side of me immediately took notice and began to ask questions.

“Hey Nicole, why are you using a laptop?”

“Hey Tara, my desktop computer won’t let me log in.  I had to find a power chord to use this laptop because the one I have doesn’t have the software I need to do my work.”

“Oh, we have a docking station…plug it in here!”

Several minutes later…

“I don’t understand, Clint used this yesterday and was able to pull up the internet.  It’s logged onto our network..”

“It’s okay Tara.  Look, at least the Wi-Fi works – I can access web applications via Wi-Fi.”

It took me 45 minutes, but I was able to use the borrowed laptop on the docking station to access my documents.  Meanwhile, I had a few emails from the IT guy that was assigned to work on my computer. Go figure… I can’t log into my desktop so the IT guy emails me.

 I emailed him to let him know where I sitting. He showed up about 30 minutes later. 

“Hi Nicole, where is your computer?”

“Right over here.”

“Okay, let me take a look and see what I can do.”

Two hours later…

“Okay, your computer is good to go.”

“Well, what was the problem.”

“Oh, your workstation was deleted from the directory. Don’t know why, it happens sometimes. But, it is all fixed now.”

“Okay….thanks?”

At this point I was happy to be back at my own desk, so I didn’t press for further explanation about my computer getting deleted from the directory. I drew my own conclusion that someone in IT hit delete on the wrong thing and voila… my workstation doesn’t exist.  It’s days like this I wonder how I made it this long in this company without developing an addiction to some type of substance.