Here, at work, we have a problem. Our server has not been working for over 24 hours now, including all of Monday and now, so far, the hours of this Tuesday workday. All of us rely on the server to store our documents, allowing accessibility between us and not worrying about which document is the most current because it’s in one universal place. But, now that it’s not working, I cannot access any of my project files.

Depending on your organization’s standard operating procedures (‘SOP’ around here) you probably have stipulations on what you can store on your hard drive and what can be transported and used (e.g. thumb drives). Maybe it’s for security reasons or maybe it’s for storage reasons. For me this translates to storing completed documents temporarily on my hard drive, but then elsewhere, whether it’s a CD or something else. For documents that are in progress, I keep them on the server, where most of our work is kept. If I were to store them elsewhere, I’d inevitably work on the wrong file and there would be chaos.

You see my problem. Considering the previous posts about our digital lives (#1 and #2), it’s at least a current topic. In my case, yes, I am too dependent on the digital world for my work. However, my oral history project is a digital project (i.e. digital recording, digital images, and word documents) and it wouldn’t work on paper. It’s a lesson to us that we need to rethink our methods of working. I do not have a solution, but I think it comes back to the point that if we are planning to rely on digital work more and more, then we need to be diligent and have a disaster management plan, so to speak.

My work is not lost, just temporarily suspended. This has never happened before, and I have faith that it will be solved shortly; but the fact that I’m unable to work on my project without access to the server is currently hindering my level of productivity.

Does anyone a solution? Does this ever happen where you work?