A disaster or a blessing?

Okay, one file printed, another one to go. Well, make that five.

I was arranging the pile of papers I had just printed when suddenly ... the computer was off and so were the lights. My God. What joke were You playing to me?

Thursday, 18 August 2005
That day I had a load of things on my to-do list. Actually I had intended to come to the office on Wednesday to finish some of my works so that my Thursday's burden would come a bit lighter. But nope, I didn't come because somehow I felt so tired that day, I spent almost the whole day dozing off. It was supposed to be a holiday, anyway (i.e. Indonesia's independence day), so I thought I deserved a little break.

I arrived at the office much later than I wanted (as always). The first thing I planned to do was downloading some files from the mailbox and printing them because they were needed for the training that morning. So, I open mail.yahoo.com and there, the files I needed were already in mailbox. Good. What I needed to do next was download one file... open it... edit here and there, and... print. Okay, one file printed, another one to go. Well, make that five.

I was arranging the pile of papers I had just printed when suddenly ... the computer was off and so were the lights. My God. What joke were You playing to me? My head was instantly filled with all the tasks in my to-do list, all dancing ferociously waiting to be executed right away. I tried to calm off, hoping that the lights would soon be on and that it was just a temporary electricity shut down as it usually happened.

Well, no. I forgot how I knew it at the first place, but it turned out that the electricity shut down didn't happen in my office area, it occurred in almost all Java, Bali and Madura. Good God! I didn't know whether I had to thank God for this or went panic. I had to submit two works that day because that day was the deadline. What to do? What to do?

Trying to make an effort, or at least wanting to be seen making some effort, I went to the neighbour offices which apparently had a generator set (genset, to make it short). One office had a genset but it could only accomodate for the lighting and air conditioning, not for other electrical apparatus. And I found that out after carrying around an HP 1010 laser jet printer to that office. That made a good 300 m-journey.

The other office was much better. It allowed for the using of computers and printers and all other electricity equipments. So I dazed off back to my office to get the printer and then carried it back to the "much better" office. You think the problem's solved? NO. The computer in the "much better" office did not provide for CD drive (I needed it to install the printer), so I had to go back to my office to get a laptop. To get the laptop, I had to wait for the person who was in charge of keeping maintenance of laptops, who was out having lunch or whatever he was doing at that time. Since I hated to wait, I ran to my car and got my own laptop which was actually a lousy one and proved its lousiness because it couldn't read the printer's installation CD.

I went back to my office and finally I got the laptop I needed. Then, I walked back (actually, "climbed back" suited more perfectly because the location of the "much better" office was on the second floor) heaving the heavy laptop. I did all the steps needed to take to get the printer installed. So, I opened the file, select "print" from the command box and waited. What happened later was that I had to re-try installing the printer.

The installing effort had to be repeated at least five times before I managed to print. Then came the announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, to spare the genset energy, we have to turn off the genset in approximately half an hour". WHAT??? I still had more files to print yet I had to hear this?!

Feeling drained, I went back to my office and did my afternoon prayer (sholat Dzuhur). What else could I do? Better whine about all this mess to the Ultimate Creator. Like an answered prayer, after I finished my prayer, the lights went on. But I was too tired. There was no way the deadlines could be met that day. So, after a lingering moment at the end of that day, I thought: Was today really a disaster or a blessing from God?