BSOD

There are many nice ways to start the day. Waking up next to Tina Fey would rank high on the list, failing that high thread count sheets on a balmy summer’s morning are nice, or even being stirred from slumber by the opening of the Archers Omnibus.

But this morning was one of the bad ones. No, nothing as major as arising to the sound of the anti-terrorism squad kicking in the door or waking up next to Anne Widdecombe wearing a wedding ring but pretty bad nevertheless.

The cause of the morning’s ire was the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). The standard morning routine if I’m without company is to slip out of bed, make a cup of tea (and Marmite toast if I’m hungover) and then fire up the laptop to see what news has broken overnight. This allows the wake up process to be fairly useful, letting you deal with any urgent problems and clear the email backlog before heading into the office.

This morning started well. Hearing Charlotte Green collapse into giggles on the Today programme (around 8:47) was a good start to be sure. But then the laptop died. BSOD no matter what I tried – safe mode, boot disk, whatever. After spending 45 minutes trying to sort it out I admitted defeat, headed in and handed it over to the office IT problem to sort out.

It’s amazing how crippling a laptop loss can be. I keep the important stuff on a small USB key ring but passwords and login details are too sensitive and you miss all those little tweaks that make using the machine easy rather than a chore.

Thankfully the problem was sorted, and S from IT is getting a bottle of organic lager to show my appreciation. Three groups you should always stay on the good side of in work; IT, reception and HR. It’s a good rule of work.