2001-08-23 - 6:46 a.m.

You know, there's nothing like coming home from work at sunrise, riding a bicycle damp with morning dew, knowing that you have to be back to work in seven and a half hours, and there's no way you're going to be able to sleep when you get home.

Now, I say there's nothing like it, not because it's a good or bad thing, just because there's nothing like it. It's a completely unique feeling. I tried to think of something cool to compare it to when I finally made it home, but the whole bike ride back, as I watched pink clouds against a yellow-blue sky over the green-trees and white-buildings horizon of Rockport, I couldn't think of anything it was like. The light fog with the ocean smell pouring over the road, cooling me down as I rode through it just added to my complete inability to compare it to anything.

Now, you may be confused as to why I would be riding home from work at sunrise when I work for a bank. If you've been paying close attention, you know I normally get out of work at about 10-10:30 PM. Well, today, or rather, technically yesterday, I hadn't actually even started working at 10:30, though I had five and a half hours of paid hours logged by then.

Okay, here's the story. About two weeks ago, one of the major files that was saving all of the information for one of the branches' work for the day was corrupted. We still don't know if that was a hardware or a software mistake. But every day since then they've had to try to fix it, and it's gotten consistently worse, because each "fix" alters something else for that day, which goes wrong in the middle of the night and becomes a bigger problem for the next day. Each day they say "This is probably the last time we'll have to do this," and the next day it takes even longer.

So today, they finally *actually* found the long-term fix to everything, rather than the short-term fixes they'd been trying in the hopes that the problem would just go away. Unfortunately, it was going to take a very long time. They didn't know how long when I got there at 1 PM, but they knew it was going to be at least a couple of hours. So we found things to kill time. While the people with good handwriting worked on, you know, handwriting things that needed to be handwritten, Ben and I went to clean the company kitchen. Because the janitors don't do that, so employees are supposed to if there happens to be downtime in their department. So we went and cleaned.

At about 3:00 we came back to the department to find there is still nothing to do. Joan goes on lunch, a few more people disperse to go on breaks, or find something to do. Ben and I stick around in the department and just talk about Stuff. That's when Sharon, our boss, comes in to tell us to find everyone so we can have an Important Meeting. So we do, and at 3:30, Sharon tells us all to, basically, go home. They've found the—hopefully—permanent fix to our problem, but it's going to take about 5 hours to do, possibly longer. So there's no point in us being here. So we were to go home until 8:30 PM. And we do. Simple as that.

Eight thirty rolls around, and I arrive back at work. Assuming everything is working, when I open the door to the building, I should be able to hear 1)check sorters, 2) people typing, 3) work being prepped, and 4) people talking throughout the department. I opened the door and heard everyone in the same general area, just chatting. I heard nothing else. *This,* was a bad sign.

I walk into the department and see everyone, and I mean *everyone* from my department, including Sharon, sitting around in their chairs in a circle just talking. Obviously, things were not working properly yet. It turned out they were waiting for Gary, the guy who was trying to fix everything to come and tell us everything was, you know, fixed.

So fifteen minutes rolls by, and Gary walks in. He comes up to the group, and this is how he starts:

*pause* "Okay, here's the story…" *pause*

At this point, everyone kind of gets this defeated look on their faces.

"Unfortunately…" *pause*

Now, after this, he should have just said how long it was going to take. He felt the need to go into an explanation, but frankly, I didn't care any more, I just wanted to know when we could get working, hypothetically.

(I'm paraphrasing now, because I'm sure you care less than I do what happened.) "That thing that I did before? Turns out I have to do it two more times when this one finishes. This one has another half hour to go. Then the other two will take another hour… each."

So basically, what he was telling us was that it was going to take until somewhere around 11:30 until we'd be able to start working.

So, that was the point that the company V.P. came in and actually told us to go rent a movie or something to kill time, because we were going to be a while. Now, mind you, we were going to be paid to sit around and watch a movie, but still. Guh.

What we ended up doing was that Ben and I, with the one other guy in our department, John, went to my house, and I picked up Office Space. I felt it was appropriate. We then went to get food, and came back to watch the movie.

10:00 we sit down to watch the movie. 10:30 Erica, another one of my co-workers comes in to inform us that now it looks more like 12:30 AM before we'll be able to start.

So we finish the movie and go back to our department to wait. At about midnight, we're told by Gary that, from his calculations, this should all be done by 12:22 and we'll be able to start. At 12:40 the V.P. comes in to tell us that it's at 99%, then leaves again. Ten minutes later, they still haven't been back to tell us that last percent has finished. Now we worry… again.

So Sharon goes to the computer room where Gary and the V.P. are working. She knocks on the door, because she doesn't even have access to it. She gets no response, despite being able to hear people in there. She comes back, complains about that for a bit, then five minutes later sends Ben to try to get ahold of them.

A couple of minutes later Ben comes back to inform us that the thing that was at 99% had finished, but that a new problem had arisen that was being fixed.

This was the point that John and I went to the kitchen to figure out how the coffee machine works.

I mean, in theory I know how it works, but unfortunately for me, the coffee grounds come in individual packages, and I didn't know how many of those to put in. So, stupidly giddy from lack of sleep and stress, I made a terrible pot of coffee, followed by another pot that was equally terrible, but in a completely different way. I settled for the second one, because it was strong enough that it would keep me awake.

And upon returning to the department, I heard a very light clicking sound through the door of checks hitting against the pockets of the sorter. *This* is a very *good* sign. I open the door, and it's finally working! It's 1:30 AM, but it's working. So we start at it, processing items like a team possessed. Working, working, working as fast as we could, my head zipping to and fro at the various things I had to look at because I was running on the false sleep of lots of caffeine, so I was in that state where your eyes don't turn any more, but your head can turn very quickly instead.

And so, four hours later we have burned straight through the work (not literally, as much as many people probably wanted to) and it was time for anyone not still involved in an essential job to go home.

And, the sun preparing to rise, my bicycle moist with dew under the loading dock where I leave it every day, I set forth for home, still wearing the dress clothes I'd put on for work over seventeen hours before, preparing to get as much sleep as possible before I had to get up at noon to go to the normal day of work, and knowing that the shear fact that I was biking home meant that I wouldn't be able to sleep when I got there.

And now, at 6:44 AM, as the box fan blasting my face has finally had its desired effect of drying out my eyes to make me more tired, I finish this diary entry, completely close the curtains to block out the full-fledged sun now blasting through the trees, and go to bed for a few hours in the hopes that tomorrow, or rather, today, this problem will finally actually be gone.