Chapter 13: A Day without the Network

Disaster always strike you at the back of your head when you least expected it. In this case, it had selected one fine Monday morning. The moment I stepped into the office, I had a feeling that something was amiss. Rose, Ju and Choi were talking loudly on their phones, Nicky was typing furiously on his keyboard, Dawn and Sally were nowhere to be found, and even the usually calm KZ was flipping anxiously through a document file.

Preferred not to intervene into such chaos situation, I sat at my desk and tried to start my day. After my notebook was booted up and Windows had started, I discovered that something was not very right. I could not get myself connected to the network. I looked up and asked Nicky: “Hey Nicky, can you log into…”

“The network’s down!” Nicky shouted at me before I could finish my question.

That gave the reason for the unruly behavior of the team, and the reason for me to start my day with a disagreeable mood.

I had three conference calls scheduled for the day. With the network down, it meant that I could not use the Netmeeting application for my presentations. And that translated to, I need to arrange for proper sit-in meetings to replace those conference calls. I launched my browser only to realize that I could not access the online meeting room booking system when the network was down. Damn. Without losing a second, I walked over to look for Jessie, our department secretary. For the first time in my work life in this company, I saw a queue forming outside her cubicle.

“When is your meeting?” Jessie asked the first guy in the queue, with her eyes fixed on the monitor screen.
“Er… I’ve got two meetings, one from ten to eleven, and another from four to five,” replied a chubby colleague.
“How many people are attending?”
“Six for the first one, four for the second one.”

After a few clicks on the mouse and a few taps on the keyboard, Jessie turned and said to the chubby colleague: “Caesar One from ten to eleven. No more small room for four to five.” The chubby colleague scribbled on a post-it note, mumbled a ‘thanks’ and left hastily.

Three other colleagues later, I had to cancel off the two morning meetings due to the unavailability of meeting rooms. When it was finally my turn, I crossed my fingers behind my back as I said: “One meeting room for ten people, from two to three.”

“Okay, Pompeii Two from two to three,” replied Jessie monotonously.

I rushed back to my desk and launched my Outlook just to be reminded that I could not access the company phone book when the network was down. Damn. I searched through my drawer for the name card holder. Nearly having to overturn the whole drawer, I eventually found it sitting comfortably below a stack of useless papers.

“Hello, Sam? This is Beng. It’s regarding the conference call we are supposed to have this afternoon… Yes… Yes, the network is down… Yes, but don’t worry, I’ve managed to book a meeting room… Yes, it’s still from two to three… Pompeii Two on the fifth floor…Yes, can you do me a favor? Could you tell Soon Teck and James as well? Okay, thanks! See you then!”

I then flipped through my name card holder again to call the others, including one colleague from Hong Kong and another from South Korea, about the postponing of the two conference calls. When everything was settled, it was only ten o’clock. With my morning conference call postponed, I spent the time looking through some presentation slides.

“Yes! Please help me to monitor FTech for the day, my company’s network is down and I can’t access the internet! ... Yeh, I know it has been dropping but I thought I could wait till today after it announced its results… Yes… Yes, let me know if it falls below sixty-five cents! ... No, I’ll need to cut loss! Okay, sure! Thanks pal! Thanks a lot!”

The flustered Nicky put down his phone, stared at the monitor for a while, then typed furiously on his keyboard again. The inability to monitor the stock market had dealt him a blow. I looked over to Sally. She had already arrived at the office and was on the phone as well.

“Yes, we need to send the brochure for printing by today… Yes, you need to send the draft to me by this morning so that I can vet… No! Don’t email me the draft, fax it to me! ... Yes, I know there are thirty over colored pages … No, we don’t have another choice. Just call me before you fax, okay? Thanks!”

Without emails, the vendor would have to fax Sally the brochure pages so that she could vet and scribble her remarks on the faxed pages before re-faxing them back to the vendor. This same process would have to be repeated for an N amount of times before the brochure could finally be sent for print. It was going to be a long day for Sally.

A fazed Ju brisk walked into the office with her notebook. Apparently she was returning from a meeting. She put down her notebook and checked her phone for missed call, and then she picked up the phone.

“Hi Veronica, you were looking for me? … Yes, we’ll need to create three pull-up banners for the coming event… Yes, fourteenth of December … Yes… Yes, give me a minute while I check my computer…Oh my God! Oh no, I’m afraid I can’t give you our hi-res logo. No, it’s stored in the network drive and our network is down today… No, I don’t think so… Okay, I’ll send it to you as soon as the network is up… Okay, thanks! See you!”

Rose seemed to be out for their meetings. Without the capability to do conference calls, she would have to rush to our other office locations for their meetings. However, Choi did not seem to be affected by the inability to launch the Netmeeting application. Against all odds, he was still on a conference call.

“Yes, the graph on the report showed that India had the least amount of loans… Yes, I know, I know you guys can’t see the graph. Why don’t you try to sketch one out as I speak? ... Yes, Australia fifteen, China twelve, India eight, Indonesia sixteen... no, not fifteen, sixteen. One six. Yes… Japan twenty, Singapore twenty-six… no, not twenty-eight, twenty-six. Two six…”

The other survivor from this disaster was KZ. He had dug out some old and dusty document files and was flipping through them while typing on his notebook. Without the access to the databases, these document files were all he could find to do his research report. Fortunately he had insisted on keeping hard copies of those documents.

Dawn seemed to be the least affected of us all. She had been making casual calls on the phone and flipping through the newspaper. When she had enough of those, she walked over to Ju’s desk and took a few cookies, then walked to the pantry for coffee. She even walked over to Sally’s desk and tried to talk to her, but was rejected coldly by Sally who told her that she was rushing her brochure and was too busy to chat. Dawn then made a couple of calls to her friends to arrange for an early lunch appointment. By eleven, she was out of the office for lunch.

I was getting rather bored looking through my presentation slides, so I launched the iTunes application to catch some latest podcasts, only to remember that without the ability to update my iTunes, I could only listen to the old podcasts already saved on my hard disk. Damn. Luckily I brought along my MD player.

Then my mobile phone rang.

“Hello? Oh, hi Babe… yeh, the movie today, of course I remembered… Yeh, I think it’ll be crowded because it’s the first day of screening… No, I’ve not booked yet… yeh, I’ll be booking online… Damn! No, sorry, not damn you… no, my company’s network is down so I won’t be able to book the tickets online… Yeh, sorry Babe. Why don’t you book it then… Yeh, luckily you called… Okay, call me after you’ve booked the tickets… Okay, bye!”

After I had finished the call, I found Nicky standing in front of my desk. I had never seen his hair in such a mess before.

“Beng, let’s go for lunch.”
“Hey, you don’t have to walk all the way here. You could just have messaged me through MSN Messenger… oh… I forgot that’s down.”
“Yeh, everything seems to be down today.”
“Well, looking at the bright side, at least it means we could have a long lunch today,” I jested.
“Can we go to that Internet café a few blocks away after lunch? I’m worried for my FTech shares and I’m thinking of checking out its price and volume.”
“Oh… sure! Let’s walk over to call KZ, Choi and Sally.”

After lunch, the network was back to working order and all of us were as happy as striking a lottery. Through this incident, I came to realize how the Internet, which we had taken for granted, could be so important in our lives.