Tales from the Interns Desk: COMPUTER HELL

     Today was my first day of interning! Not only was I excited, but I was a bit anxious also.  In another blog, I addressed some of my concerns about working with others, and well... working at all! But I was ready to go, go, go today!!! So this morning I got dressed up in my office attire and put on my new shoes;  I was about as rested as I could get! Traffic was really bad headed down to the Health Department, but still I was up in my department by 8:03AM waiting patiently for someone to show up and let me in. (As an intern I'm limited on my ability to even scan myself into my office!)

     I was surprised when my director didn't answer her phone and the floor seemed empty, but I figured maybe I was just earlier for work than everyone else was supposed to be. In any case, "being able to work by oneself" and coming up with my own task list was part of my job criteria. I knew that I needed to get into my computer and read up on the work that was done before me so I could get to work. I had everything I needed to get started in my tiny cubicle!

     Unfortunately, just as soon as my day began, so did my trouble. My computer booted up kind of slow, but I chalked it off to being a slightly old system and, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But... then I couldn't get Novelle to load.... for 30 minutes! I'm not kidding, and agonizing 30 minutes into my day, I was still fighting with the damn computer to just log in! I think I did a hard boot, which still didn't fix things, and then called our IT guy who didn't answer his phone and never called me back. When my computer loaded after the hard boot, I noticed there was a virus scan update alert. I allowed the updates and it seemed like things began to move a little faster. I also ran a scan just to see if something was running that shouldn't be.Well that didn't really help because I could not access Microsoft programs without waiting 3-5 minutes for EACH document to load (if it would load at all). By 10AM I hadn't accomplished anything. I wanted to yell and scream and cuss, but that's not exactly work appropriate behavior. I was looooong out of coffee, maybe 2 people had shown up in my part of the department (who wouldn't have been able to help me anyway because they're not with the PR people), and I couldn't get any answers.

        In a desperate attempt to do ANYTHING, I finally got Excel to work so I made a spreadsheet of translators we have on file. It took more time to open the files than compile the data. Think an average of 2.5 minutes per file at about 15 files... that's almost 40 minutes. the word document I worked to1 open during that time didn't open until 5 minutes before I had to leave to pick up my little girl from Pre-K and when I tried to print (because 5 minutes SHOULD be enough time to print) the program froze.

     I was about to lose my mind, I mean my work day is only from 8-11:45!!! I can't waste this much time waiting; this was the penultimate Computer Hell... I have not had, nor seen a computer run that slow since the early 90's. I don't know if it's going to be fixed or if I have to live with this. I can't bring in my own equipment because flash drives are banned (potential HIPPA violation) and I can't access their network on my computer. Don't even get me started on the printers!  Maybe this is my fault for fearing the DILBERT side...

That's about how I felt. I'm going to need some serious help because even my prayers seemed limited by the functionality of this machine. So if I were to come up with a metaphor for today's experience (Dr. Gibson loves for us to make these up)... I'd say it was like being locked in a room alone in the dark with a broken arm trying to find the key to let myself out. Tomorrow: more caffeine, more patience, and god willing, some people there to help me!!