What do you do when the power goes out?
by Jonathan Dale, Fiberlink
Yesterday I walked into the office building and knew something was just not right. Not many lights on. Once I entered the second floor things got worse. I noticed the emergency lighting. Now, this was more of an inconvenience as once my laptop battery ran out (which felt like 20 minutes), I needed to relocate to an open conference room which contain generator-fed outlets. After working in the conference room for 47 minutes, I was interrupted by our security officer stating that the building needed to be evacuated as the building’s emergency lights were out of juice and the power company was not able to provide an accurate time for the final resolution. Although we had power, from our generators, we don’t own the building. So out we went!
That being said, there was a moment of joy for most people at the office as they thought about going back home and arriving before 11am. Then reality set in. Everyone had a laptop, everyone had the ability to connect from coffee shops, doughnut shops, fast food restaurants, bookstores, or anywhere else a quality Wi-Fi or Mobile Data signal could be found. Heck, we even had a list of the available locations so I didn’t even have to drive around guessing. Thoughts of canceling a couple of conference calls were erased as I felt the BlackBerry in my pocket. All of a sudden, my rolodex of excuses left my mind at about the same rate as we left the building.
I did what almost everyone else did and it happened to be the same thing that our executive team expected. I drove 5 minutes away, ordered a bagel, sat down and for the next hour and a half took 2 conference calls, responded to countless e-mail messages, joked with the friends around me, made a critical decision about a software defect that needed to be fixed that day, and waited to get the all-clear e-mail to return to the office. What could have been almost 2 hours of down time was actually filled with complete and utter… productivity. I actually did not want to get up and head back to the office.
I was not the only one. My peers were all doing the same thing (granted some were only using their BlackBerry or iPhones). Boy, have times changed.
What do you do when the lights go out?
about 1 year ago
I was home when the electricity went out in the middle of my work day. I live in a house that is down a hill, and doesn’t get any cell phone reception, but I do have Internet access. I do have a land-line connected to cordless phones.
I do not have a backup generator, so I didn’t have any power when the electricity went out. My laptop had 10% of my battery life left, so I had time to save what I was doing, and shut down. With the power out, I lost my Internet connectivity. I then thought about connecting over Mobile data, but because of poor reception, it failed. Then I tried to join a conference call I knew I had, but my phones are cordless, so they didn’t work either. I thought about driving to the closest hot spot, but saw my car under a pile of snow, and decided it wasn’t such a good idea.
So, I put my snow shoes on and ran up the hill to call the electric company. An hour later, I was back up and running. I have since called the phone service to improve the mobile data connectivity but they tell me there is nothing they can do. It was kind of scary not being on-line for that long. It makes me think back to what we did before everything was so connected.