It's naughty to be late. They've trained us to that from kindergarten, on.

At least, they tried. With some of us, it didn't quite 'take'.

Me, I'm casual about times when it comes to work. I make a reasonable effort to show up on time but I don’t always succeed.

(It's always been my opinion that an employee whose main claim to fame is that they're "never late" isn't worth an employee who strolls in a bit late from time to time but is also available to work through lunch or on weekends or in the evenings when necessary. Those who punch the time-clock in in the morning are likely to be the same ones who insist upon punching it out promptly in the evening.)

This morning was not a success.

That was a long, boring, and unnecessary way of saying I was late to work this morning, wasn't it? (I'm not even sure why I felt the need to tell you.)

This week has been Technology Hellweek.

A software program we use (proprietary, need I add?) that lets a DOS-based program on a portable box interface with an internet-based .asp reporting program ate about 35% of a client's data this week.

Bernie assures me this has happened before (I remember hearing about it in my training) and that DiamondGirl can wrest the data from the server, but....

DiamondGirl doesn't work here any more and while she said she would have done it for us, free-lance, she's going to be out of town for the next four days for her actual job. The client not surprisingly wants their data now, so I turned to Moe and send a half-begging e-mail. He would know how to do it.

In the meantime, the "just in time" data that the clients are supposed to be able to see within 24 hours of doing their jobs has now been AWOL for five days.

The servers have been acting up, one of them won't let us in at all, the machine we use for the really, mind-numbingly boring process of scanning business cards has the sulks, our internet access is like molasses, our e-mail has been and continues to be giving us fits, and something in the server closet beeeeps in an alarming way at least once a day.

The last two jobs we did for one client spawned a flurry of e-mails and phone calls as they tried to decide if it was our tech or Human Error that caused some odd problems (it was tech, but their tech, not ours), and the oh-so-eager-to-help "help desk" at the new email provider's office disappeared abruptly as soon as they got our check.

I dunno. I'm thinking there might be some kind of connection between these events and my unwillingness to roll out of bed this morning. What do you think?

Yesterday was the capper, though. Bernie was in here discussing the Mysteriously Eaten Data with me and looking at the boxes (under the assumption, one presumes, that I was too stupid to read the screen and recognize that it actually said, "Responses: 37" instead of, "Responses 00").

He asked if I'd tried a different button in the reporting program (yeah, because that's going to magically fix it) and if I'd tried a different software program entirely (what part of, "Responses: 00" sounds like the box is just kidding?) and various other well-intended but idiotic things.

Eventually he picked up the box, looked at it, and asked me, quite seriously, "Have you tried looking at the chip?"

It's not an engraving, okay? I can't get out my magnifier or my little chip-reading glasses and see the data on the chip.

Eventually I figured out that Alvin, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, a Masters in statistics, and an I.Q. of something like 175, was able to access the data on a chip through other means occasionally, back when the program was all DOS-based. (Alvin invented the boxes. There is little or no magic he cannot work.)

I, with my degree in English Lit, find myself unwilling to attempt to duplicate this feat. Even if my own I.Q. does go into triple digits.

Bernie's next suggestion was that I ask Poodle Boy, who has a degree in Marketing, if he could look at the chip and do whatever it was that Alvin used to do. (Bernie and Alvin don't speak any more.)

To be entirely honest, I find myself unwilling to call Poodle Boy and ask him to do "whatever it was Alvin did eight years ago to magically retrieve data when we used a different software program and using a full set of electronics gadgets and with physical access to the box, none of which I can offer you."

Moe's little company helped design the on-line part of this software, which is the part that's giving us trouble. He says he might be able to help me tomorrow.

In the meantime, the server that isn't responding to our attempts to communicate with it? Bernie finally decided the problem is there's no picture. He decided to hook a monitor and a keyboard up to it so he can look at it. He was, yesterday, entirely convinced that all the problems would magically disappear if he could just see a picture.

I solved that one by asking him to "wait a second." Then I walked out of the room.

Eventually he called after me to ask what I was doing and I said, "I don't want to be involved. If you're pushing any buttons on that machine, I don't want to be in the room at the time."

Since I had previously forced him to view the e-mail trail from last fall of what we not laughingly call "tsunami day" when a server error causes us to spam a client's list with millions of duplicate e-mails, he took me seriously. He grumbled, but in the end he didn't push any buttons.

It's hard to be sure if it's the tech or the attitude of the other people in this office toward the tech that makes my head spin the fastest.

Update:

DiamondGirl took pity on me and walked me through the hour-long process of getting the non-responsive server to respond.

We did, at least, get it to boot up and now we can access it from the 'net. I can't actually get into it (Bernie's all-important "picture") from the server closet, but that's because the box has decided that keyboards are the devil's playthings.

I just don't care any more.