A rather pointless waste of a morning
Aug. 27th, 2020 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12So, for various reasons (namely: I have been using my personal laptop since I began working from home in March, and do not have the relevant software installed), there is one research skills class which I have not taught for more than six months, and instead two of my colleagues have taken it in turns to teach it. However, next week, there is a scheduled session for this specific class, and both of my two colleagues are on leave, meaning that there is no one but me to teach it.
Thankfully, this has coincided with a partial return to work premises for my colleagues and me — I was not actually yet due to return, but all the various procedures and documentation was in place for me to do so, and I got permission to come in today to install/test various pieces of software on my work computer, in preparation for the class I would be teaching next week.
And so, for the first time in many months, I made the 45-minute walk to work. It was a bit strange: I was pleased to see there were far fewer cars on the road than was typical in the past, and I enjoyed walking through the allotment and seeing all the plots heavy with harvest. It was a bit tiring, as although I've obviously been exercising during lockdown, I have not had to walk while carrying heavy bags for a very long time.
My troubles began when I arrived at the library: there was a complete failure of all IT hardware across the entire building and network. I could log onto my computer, but I couldn't connect to the internet (and therefore couldn't install Teams and Zoom, or test the other software I needed to test, as it requires internet access), no email was working, and all websites were down. This has been going on since yesterday afternoon, and shows no sign of being resolved.
After hanging around for half an hour, it was clear that the problems were not going to be fixed in a timely manner, and so my manager told me to go back home. And as a result of not having been able to install/test these various things, the class I was meant to come into the office and teach next week is not going to be able to go ahead (this morning was my only window before then to do all this necessary preparation), and the students are going to have to get the prerecorded video of my colleague teaching it from last week.
So the whole episode was entirely pointless. At least I got to see the allotment, I suppose.
Thankfully, this has coincided with a partial return to work premises for my colleagues and me — I was not actually yet due to return, but all the various procedures and documentation was in place for me to do so, and I got permission to come in today to install/test various pieces of software on my work computer, in preparation for the class I would be teaching next week.
And so, for the first time in many months, I made the 45-minute walk to work. It was a bit strange: I was pleased to see there were far fewer cars on the road than was typical in the past, and I enjoyed walking through the allotment and seeing all the plots heavy with harvest. It was a bit tiring, as although I've obviously been exercising during lockdown, I have not had to walk while carrying heavy bags for a very long time.
My troubles began when I arrived at the library: there was a complete failure of all IT hardware across the entire building and network. I could log onto my computer, but I couldn't connect to the internet (and therefore couldn't install Teams and Zoom, or test the other software I needed to test, as it requires internet access), no email was working, and all websites were down. This has been going on since yesterday afternoon, and shows no sign of being resolved.
After hanging around for half an hour, it was clear that the problems were not going to be fixed in a timely manner, and so my manager told me to go back home. And as a result of not having been able to install/test these various things, the class I was meant to come into the office and teach next week is not going to be able to go ahead (this morning was my only window before then to do all this necessary preparation), and the students are going to have to get the prerecorded video of my colleague teaching it from last week.
So the whole episode was entirely pointless. At least I got to see the allotment, I suppose.
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Date: 2020-08-27 10:40 am (UTC)It sounded like a lovely walk.
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Date: 2020-08-27 10:50 am (UTC)The university did provide laptops for some people, but it was by no means guaranteed that if you asked for one you would get one, and priority was given to people who had no computers at home, were competing with children/spouses for use of a shared home computer, or whose personal computers were insuffient for the needs of their jobs. I didn't even try to investigate this, as everything worked fine on my own laptop, and if I had really wanted to I could have installed this software — I just didn't want to.
(The other element that influenced my decision was that if I want to install software/updates on my own laptop, I can just do it, and I am pretty confident when troubleshooting. I wasn't certain that I would be given admin rights to a work laptop, however, and the thought of having to contact the IT team any time I wanted to install or update something, or when something went wrong was incredibly offputting.)
It's a really beautiful walk, apart from the last ten minutes which is along a very busy main road, and it always puts me in a good mood.
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Date: 2020-08-27 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-27 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-27 03:32 pm (UTC)I did get to see my favourite colleague today at least, though.
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Date: 2020-08-27 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-29 09:24 am (UTC)