As I write this, there is no Internet in our office. I don’t know why, just one of those cruel quirks of modern life I guess: Whenever you have a literally measureless volume of work to do, the silly-yet-hopelessly vital technology that you’ve based your entire career on will absolutely die and be unresponsive to your prayers/pleading strings of curse-words for at least two hours.
This is not a good situation to be in.
There is as an upside to the Internet’s gut-wrenching connection fickleness though: like a bad girlfriend or debilitating back pain, your Internet connection will always come back. Comcast sends a truck, your I.T. guy does his thing, the stars realign. Whatever needs to happen, eventually it does and the Internet is back and providing you with cat gifs, email access and all the other things you need to get your job done. Until that happens though, there are a couple things you can do to pass the time:
- Drink Coffee
This is always the first thing you should do when you need to stall for time. Caffeine is a scientifically proven mood-elevator, as is drinking hot things that you can put sugar in. If you’ve made some poor life choices, you can substitute in tea, though I wouldn’t personally recommend it. - Check In With Your Coworkers
When’s the last time you talked to your coworkers? What about your family? Take a few minutes to see how your coworkers’ weekends went or why your daughter keeps getting suspended for “stealing cars and generally inciting anarchism.” (There’s a small chance the latter might be your fault, so it’s probably worth at least checking on. You know, to protect yourself legally.) - Try And Fix Your Internet Problem
Is fixing the Internet your responsibility? If so, that sucks, but now’s definitely the time to get on the phone/into the guts of your computer and start fixing things. If the Internet isn’t your prob, hooray! Pass that bad boy straight to the correct person like it’s a promotion wrapped in hundred-dollar bills and move on to step four. - Is There Any Work You Can Do Offline?
Even though the answer is probably “No, you idiot, that’s the whole problem here” really make an effort to find something you can work on. Were you farsighted enough to keep anything offline? Some accounts books? A catalog? A business plan? Whatever you can find, be it a neglected side project or just a silly blog post, enjoy your “gift” of free time to get a little work done on it. Also, now would be a good time to make a list of things that should have an offline backup, if and when your internet goes down in the future. - Wait
Repeat steps one through four until your Internet is back. If you get bored, consider adding secret step 4a: Driving to Starbucks and buying like 16 cake pops/starting a fun and self-destructive habit, like chain-smoking or reading the newspaper.
That’s it for this week guys. Our Internet is back, so time to get back to the grind. As always, thanks for reading and see you all next week!
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MONDAY MIKE FACT: My girlfriend somehow knows everything about coffee, and is really good at ordering crazy fun drinks at Starbucks.
