It's a residence hall NOT a dormitory - 11

I remember my first computer. It had one of those big disk drives for the disks with the holes in the middle. It also had a printer that used the paper with the edges that you tore off and threw in the trash. I think it had Word Perfect. There was no internet. I wouldn’t join Facebook for another 10 years…

These days, I can’t imagine life without a computer. I have a prehistoric laptop that has a floppy drive and no wireless internet capability, so I use the desktop computer in my office all the time. I use it to check and write emails, follow up on incidents in the building, do occupancy, keep in touch with friends and family, the list goes on and on and on. I’m even typing this blog on the computer right now.

Lately, however, my computer has become a pain in my butt. First of all, the computer turns off at 2 a.m. every morning so it can back up files. I get that this is important, but so is my late night scramble to finish homework for the next day. Don’t even get me started on what I’m supposed to do if there’s an incident after 2 a.m. in my building full of 1,000 18-20 year-olds. And then there’s Norm, the IT guy for our department whose name I have changed to protect his true identity. Think of Norm as a mama bear and all of our computers as his baby bears. Norm gets pretty upset if anything happens to his cubs. Norm also has his babies protected from letting us download any useful programs (like Adobe Acrobat to help make forms or Real Player so that we can watch videos in the office). Norm also won’t let us use flash drives which is consistently inconvenient.

Recently, Norm has taken it to a whole new level. Anytime I forget to log off my computer, Norm will send an email about my environmentally-unfriendly incompetency to my supervisor, my supervisor’s supervisor, and my supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor (is that confusing yet?). It may sound ridiculous to you but sometimes it’s seriously hard to remember to log off my computer. Sometimes, I am interrupted with serious situations and don’t end up returning to my computer until much later or the next day. As far as being green, the computer is still in sleep mode so it could be more wasteful. Anyway, the bottom line is that I don’t think my success at work hinges on whether or not I sometimes forget to log off my computer. I’m also almost certain that all of these supervisor’s have more important things to do than worry about my less-than-perfect log-off track record. Well, except for the one who keeps giving my direct supervisor helpful suggestions to remind me to log off (none of which have worked).

I’ve thought of several smart ass ways to respond to Norm. One involves emailing him (and carbon copying all the supervisors) every time I log off correctly. One involves giving him a piece of my mind which includes asking how he would like it if I rubbed all of his mistakes in his face. Yet another includes telling Norm that I would be more likely to log off if our out-of-date computers didn’t take three hours to reset and informing a certain supervisor that perhaps I could remember to log off if I wasn’t working a million hours a week. None of which I actually have the guts to do.

I’ve decided to be an adult and call Norm to talk this one out. I’ll see if maybe he can put a timer on my workstation that logs me off after thirty minutes of inactivity. In the meantime, I’ll just leave this on while I run to the gym…