Ah, it's story time here at WRN. Today, we're going to start with the story about how my company in the midst of some financial difficulties decided to trim 25% of the employees. I survived fine, but the whole process was kind of shocking.

Basically, they called company meeting and split us into two groups. Group A stayed and Group B was gone. Waaah waaah, some people get fired ... it shook me up at first, but you know that's business in the US I guess. What for me was one of the most shocking parts was that while they were in the meeting getting fired, our IT changed all of their passwords so they could no longer log into their PC's.

One guy who, like me, has a company laptop and had been using it as his primary computer got really pissed and ended up buying the laptop from my company just so he could get his data and stuff (pornography?) off of it.

This made me realize that I really needed to get a flash memory drive and move my personal data over to it. That way if I ever got locked out of my laptop or whatever I'd still have all my data where I could take it with me easily.

So that weekend I went and picked up a 2GB flash drive and moved all my stuff over to it. The process went well and I was happy in my new information security.

Life was cruising along fine until this past week. Somehow I've managed to lose my little thumb drive. I have no idea where it is. I've scoured my apartment, my office, my car, every piece of clothing and every bag I have and no luck.

I can't decide if it was stolen or lost (although I'd lean towards me just losing it). Either way though, my data is all gone now. "But, dEn," you say, "didn't you back it up?" Short answer, "No." Long answer, also "No."

So now I'm missing all of my freaking non-work related data. It's really frustrating. I'm about 98% done with a web design that I'm doing for a family member but now I no longer have the Photoshop source for the website. Any changes I make will have to be using the slices I made for the site.

The same with this site and a redesign I was doing for my own website. Add in a bunch of personal photos and archived software projects and icons and designs I've done for applications and I've lost hundreds of hours of work.

All because I'm retarded and didn't back up my data.

It's so frustrating and I'm so angry but I don't even know who to be angry at. Myself I guess but it's just the kind of thing that makes you want to through a laptop through a window (there goes the rest of my data!).

The worst part is that I'll probably find the stupid flash drive in about 4 years when everything that was on it is absolutely useless to me.

So yeah, just thought I'd share. Hope you enjoyed the story.

At 9/20/2006 5:13 PM,  Anonymous said...

poor monkey :(

 

At 9/20/2006 8:05 PM,  Anonymous said...

den, AG is very disappointed in you. The following lead to this:

1. Satire about people losing their jobs? It wasn't their fault that the CEO doesn't know how to succeed and he wants too big of a cut to support those who actually do the work.
2. Your apathy to above issues.
3. Retarded? That's not PC.
4. Poking fun at the guy who uses his computer. I travel for work and write school papers on my computer. Yes, I back up, but I would be bullshit if I was let go tomorrow and lost a paper.

Your punishment is to read Pinko Punko for a week. That will learn ya.

 

At 9/20/2006 8:25 PM,  dontEATnachos said...

AG,

You think I don't honestly care about the people who got laid off at my company? I just don't think bitching about it on the internet is going to help at all ... especially not while I'm still working there.

As far as 'retarded' goes. It's kind of cathartic. Saying "I'm developmentally disabled" is pointless and I've gotten enough lectures on this from ex-girlfriends that I'm almost obligated to use it now. Maybe I was being ironic ...

Regarding the guy who bought his computer back, he was actually a pretty cool guy and taking away access to someone's computer (especially when you've worked at a company for 5+ years) isn't cool. BUT he would often say, "Hey, check this out" as I walked by and show me the pictures of scantily clad bikini women that were his new background. In fact, when I first started I got this old desktop that used to be his and I had to deactivate the bikini women screensaver.

The point of all of this was that I wasn't going to get screwed over by my company the way other people had, and somehow I ended just screwing over myself.

Interesting life lesson!

 

At 9/20/2006 10:57 PM,  Anonymous said...

dEn- thanks for the post. AG is a hater, and she ain't a playa!

 

At 9/21/2006 5:41 AM,  Anonymous said...

Oh look, Pinko Punko showed up. Dr. Zima himself. Whatevs.

OK, dEN, but I don't think mocking someone for losing their job is ever acceptable. In these times, people count on income and when they lose it, it's very scary for them.

Companies in America are evil. That's all I have to say.

 

At 9/21/2006 7:51 AM,  teh l4m3 said...

I'd give you a sympathy hug, but there's no guarantee I wouldn't try to cop a feel...

 

At 9/21/2006 7:59 AM,  Chuckles said...

Until you wrote "But dEn", I thought this post was from fulsome.

Anyway, AG should probably just eat it.

 

At 9/21/2006 9:25 AM,  dontEATnachos said...

Hmm, AG, I think I may have to disagree with you about your off-limit subject matters for mocking.

I don't believe that there is any topic that it ISN'T acceptable to mock someone for.

Take Steve Irwin. He got a stingray barb in the chest. That's funny. He should be mocked for it.

Consider also: women. Them not having the constitutional right to vote until 1920. That's funny and they should be mocked for it.

That's just how it goes. I can't help it. It's how the internet works.

 

At 9/22/2006 12:05 PM,  pop renaissance said...

"Oh look, Pinko Punko showed up. Dr. Zima himself. Whatevs."

god damn, ag makes me laugh out loud at work WAY too much.

 

At 9/22/2006 3:51 PM,  mdhatter said...

one fine day my 512K thumb drive decided it didn't work anymore. Someone should build a RAID-arrayed thumbdrive. So when one half fails, you have a second chance to save your stuff.

I got a great deal on a new 512K thumbdrive at a certain national computer retailer (that has a small apple store inside). Granted, it has the Northeastern University Logo on it, but it came with a 3 foot USB 2 extention cord. 10 bucks.


I so feel your pain. I lost a huge pile of (non-porn) bookmarks.

 

At 9/22/2006 3:55 PM,  mdhatter said...

and I'm sorry, but retarded IS funny.

So what is up with your boss? Locking out access was a nice CYA touch. Respect is a great motivator.

 

At 9/25/2006 6:53 AM,  Chuckles said...

That is like having secruity escort the 70 year old man out the door.

 

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