After enjoying a wonderful Christmas weekend, I returned to work to discover that my computer was still off duty. I pushed the usual buttons only to find that the usual start up process feebly sputtered and stopped. Since I’ve been a remote employee for years with what kindly could be considered “limited” techie skills, I instantly panicked. Remote desktop assistance was not an option in this situation, so I realized this little crisis would involve unexpected downtime as well as expensive shipping. To complicate matters, the East Coast had been crippled by a major blizzard that closed airports and made any overnight delivery guarantee next to impossible.
How dependent we’ve become on our PC’s! Luckily, I had printed a semi-recent phone listing so I could call and alert a few key coworkers to my plight. Gone were my plans to research several projects, update spreadsheets for 2011 and test a new software release. No email, no internet, no fax.
Permit me an Andy Rooney moment: I remember computers the size of refrigerators sequestered in heavily air-conditioned rooms and programmed by incomprehensible little keypunch cards. Self-correcting electric typewriters were the office workhorses. We trooped into conference rooms for meetings after being summoned by paper interoffice memo. Legal research sometimes involved a trip to the local law library, where one hoped that the bound volumes had been updated with the most recent “pocket part” so that the law was actually current.
How times have changed in just a couple of decades – we have all of this functionality literally at our fingertips. In just a few years, email, interactive web meetings, social media, and ever expanding databases and streamlined production tools have revolutionized the workplace. With the advantages of specialized online research tools, we can not only access up-to-date compliance information with a quick search, but also have daily data feeds into our electronic “inboxes.” More and more of us work “remotely,” either full or part-time, while staying completely connected to the workplace. (Whether this is a good or bad thing is a subject for another post.) As I ruefully realized that Monday morning, I took my virtual workplace for granted until it was suddenly not available. It made me wonder – How different will our workplaces be in another 10 years?
3 Days Later: Snow and distance did not keep my PC down for long. After major surgery and a 3200-mile round trip, my virtual office was once again open for business.
Editor’s Recommendation: Virtual or not, easily stay up to date and research current law with NILS INcompass , NILS INsource and AuthenticWeb.
Ahh memories of the past – typwriters with carbon paper for correcting mistakes rather than deleting and retyping. I have been to that Law Library as the books I needed were not avialable or someone had them out. Heaven responded with access to NILS – it is always there and access to what I want is keystrokes (not hours of reading through a book) away. Your service makes my life oh so much easier and pleasant. Now all I worry about is the electricity going out!