When Technology Fails

I’ve written previously on the subject of technological dependence. But I am revisiting it today because something happened at work recently that brought it all back to me.
It happened very suddenly. I was writing a post-it note to a colleague at the time, so I wasn’t paying much attention. I heard a keyboard slam, and my supervisor (who happened to be more stressed than usual) began to swear and huff. He leaned back in his chair, red faced and clearly very angry. Eager to help diffuse the situation, I asked if he was having computer issues again, as the previous week he had been unable to access his emails for almost half a day (as he is the senior secretary, you can imagine how much this affected the entire office).
At that exact moment, I heard frustrated giggles from across the office. Next to my supervisor, the bookkeeper stood abruptly. “Yeh, mine’s down,” she said, clearly confused.
I turned to see a tsunami of accountants heading for the IT guy’s desk. He looked faintly amused though – as it turned out, his computer had frozen. I tapped a few buttons – yep, mine was gone too.
Then the shouting broke out – most people were laughing as they discovered that it wasn’t just their desktops that had frozen but also those of their neighbours. Mouse-clicking, keyboard-tapping, mouse-shuffling – nothing worked.
The entire office computer network was down.
A few moments later, our IT man wandered past the administration desk, where we sat, talking shit, sure that in a few moments, we would be able to get back on with the working day.
“I can’t do anything, I can’t access it either. Just give it time.”
And with that, the day was ruined.
The system came and went, for a few minutes at a time. People clicked madly when it looked like things were coming back online. But the clicking only made it worse. So people went to do filing instead – always the last resort.
2 and a half hours later, the system came back and work resumed – but the backlog was enormous.
And it made me realise how much we depend upon the computer system for the normal functions of the workplace. Without computers, there wasn’t much for anyone to do.
This is what concerned me – the fact that a modern office couldn’t work without computers. Even worse, the eventual plan for this particular company is to move to an online filing system. If that had been the case yesterday, there would have been nothing for anyone to do in the interim while the off-site IT consultancy righted things.
Obviously, the benefits of computerised worksystems for modern organisations are enormous. Efficiency, speed, reduction in human errors. But when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong, leaving those who depend upon the systems in the lurch. This results not only in lost time, but also wasted money and stressed workers who now have to catch up on work that should have been completed earlier.
So the question becomes: is it worth it?
As technology progresses, maybe we will have less of these sorts of issues. In the meantime, perhaps we should hold off on that online filing system.