Well, this has been an interesting week to say the least. There was a fire on our floor (6th) of the building my company is located in. Apparently a computer at Mary Kay Cosmetics caught fire and it demolished their entire suite. Something sounds fishy about a computer getting that hot but thats their story and I guess they’re gonna stick to it. We were not there at the time, however there was no real damage to our offices other than smoke and soot. The firemen destroyed our front door to get in and thats when most of the damage occurred.
Regardless, we have not been able to work in the office at all. At first I thought this would be a nice couple days off while the building management cleaned up. The first day I was able to stay in PJs and just get everything done by phone. Instead I’ve spent the whole week driving to homes and making sure everyone can access crucial applications from home. As luck would have it we recently outsourced our email, website and CRM database to external providers. The only thing they’re really missing is print functionality and the phone system, but even that could be worked around. We have VOIP and it’s possible to give everyone VPN access; then they could make/receive calls at home using the company phone system. I’m not sure I want to go down that road…actually I’m positive that I don’t. It’s been a real PITA already because some of the people apparently have computers purchased during the Reagan administration. I’ve worked harder this week than I do when I’m actually in the office.
At first the building management said we’d likely be back to work on Monday, if not Friday. Well, I found out this evening we won’t be able to go back for TWO MONTHS!!! We may end up moving since being being out of our office for 30 days gives us legal cause to break our lease. My boss hates the management anyway so thats been debated for a while now. This could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
On the plus side we have been able to do business extremely well considering the circumstances. We have hardly lost a step so far. Our disaster recovery plan has worked better than we could have imagined. As the Network Admin I’m feeling like I really earned my keep this week. It’s almost unheard of for a company of ten people to have a full-time Admin but they have had one for over ten years and right now they are glad they do. I still need to get a portable drive as a secondary off-site data backup. I may take everyone’s computer to their home along with a CD/DVD containing the shared files.
Very important to shine right now since my annual bonus will probably be decided within the next ten days. Keep your fingers crossed.