In a rush

Have gone through a phase, when you come to the office, sit down ready for work, and phone starts ringing. As you answer the call you switch one the computer and make small talk with the client while taking their purchase orders. Call ends, computer is ready, you start clicking on the mouse, opening files and typing on the keyboard. Then your boss calls you from your desk and informs you, there are documents which is top priority, needs amendment and sent out by afternoon.

Okay boss, will get right on it. After documents are done and just as you are about to print, you colleague comes by the desk and ask whether you are able to help on the big pile of documents needs sorting and filed. Okay, you replied and thinking to yourself, I will print my boss documents afterward, still have lots of time till dateline to send out. Its lunch time when the sorting is done and you colleague said, lunch is on me.

Now, when you get back to the office, you remembered that the boss documents still need to be printed, going back to your desktop computer clicking on the file to open it up. But nothing, nothing was showing on the screen. Okay, will try again, this time close all the application on windows. Then going back to the file and double click but no application on screen, this time you are getting worried. Phone starts ringing. As you answer phone call, you try to troubleshoot the problem. Cleaning up temporary files and did a virus scan took almost an hour.

Tried opening the document file again and still application will not start, this time the worry becomes panic mode. Nobody in the office was able to help too, so a call to the computer technician is the best thing to do.

I went to the office, and my client told me what had happen as above, while I was troubleshooting the application that won’t open the document. I tried most of the standard procedure, other applications is working fine, had me puzzled as another hour pass by and it’s almost 4pm now. Then as a last resort, I informed my client that I’m going shut down the computer and asked if anything needs saving. Answer was no, go ahead and do the shutdown.

I open up the side casing cover to check the hardware inside the computer and everything looks good and tidy, so I put the back cover. I let the computer cool down for a few minutes and power it back on again. This time when I open the file document the application starts readily without a problem and quickly printed the documents. Really can’t describe the expression of relieve from my client face. It’s like being sad, worried and happy all mixed in one.  Now that the documents are done, I again shut down the computer and did the same process, no problem, can open application file. So eventually, the only explanation I could give was a glitch on the application.

My point of writing this article is because, I have seen computer getting banged and kicked at for reasons of being unresponsive to command. Maybe they are in a rush or maybe they are stressed out due to pressure to complete certain task with dateline. So the computer becomes the target to vent their frustration.

Another point is, computers are mostly built on logical principle, and the input/output is only either yes or no, but logic sometimes is very hard to define, like air. We breathe in air, we feel the air on our face as wind blows but we cannot see air with our eyes. So I will try my best to troubleshoot computer always following the logical procedure first and if all fails then the illogical.