The dictionary defines procrastination as: “the action of delaying or postponing something.”
Ironically, since much of my work life is tethered to deadlines, I am pretty good at procrastination.
That proved to be a double-edged sword recently, when we had not one, but two, computers crash and burn on the same day. It was a couple of Fridays ago; my co-worker Kaylee, who works the front desk and handles everything from legal notices to customer service, found herself without a computer to work on. Her computer at first was very slow to respond and then just fizzled out on her. It was at about this time that I was signing on to my computer and found it having difficulty connecting to my email. Long story short, and without getting technical because I really don’t know what exactly happened, mine conked out too. For Kaylee, it was determined to be a matter of having to install a new power source but it took some trial and error to figure that out. Consequently, she went all that day without a computer to work on, kind of in limbo. For me, it was a half-problem, if there is such a thing, as our tech support and everything else guy Rich had warned me that mine was on its last legs and we had already transferred much of my ‘stuff’ to a new laptop.
Rich had been trying for weeks to get me to utilize the laptop but, procrastination, I didn’t want to change things up because I am comfortable and familiar with the desktop model. But sometimes your hand is forced and we had to get me set up on the laptop and (gasp!) using TWO monitors side by side, with the smaller laptop screen on the right, the traditional larger desktop monitor that I am used to on the left.
So, some of my ‘stuff’ remains housed in the tower that Rich took with him in hopes of extracting the information; we’ll see if anything is salvageable. If not, I will just have to get along without what was lost and that’s where the procrastination issue comes in.
If I had done as Rich suggested and switched totally over to the laptop when it was presented to me, I would still have all those photo folders from the last few months that were just hanging out on the desktop. I would also have access to our most recent past issues when I need to get a little background info.
On the flip side, the meltdown occurred on the Friday of an incredibly busy week for me; I had been at a graduation on Wednesday night and a graduation on Thursday night and had procrastinated about downloading those photos. I had planned to do it first thing on Friday morning as I had another graduation and Sober Grad on Friday night, plus a couple of weekend events to cover. But the computer issues started before I had the chance to download the photos and that’s a good thing. If I had dropped them on to my desktop first, before trying to check emails, I would have lost those photos, too. As it is, they were safe, I was able to get all the photos from the week’s events safely downloaded on that Sunday after all my running around was done, available on the new laptop that has plenty of space. However, photos from a couple of events I had covered the week before but hadn’t used yet got lost – we may get them back but that remains to be seen.
So, my procrastination was good in one sense, bad in another, but ultimately it’s just another lesson in trying to navigate through an increasingly technologically advanced world. I’m getting the feeling that, like it or not, I might have to create a whole new cloud for my newspaper photos and files. Maybe that way they would be safe from meltdowns and user error.
Marg Jackson is editor of The Escalon Times, The Oakdale Leader and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 847-3021.
