I look after the IT at the place I work at, and I've just spent the best part of an hour setting up a phone and extension number for a new employee. The reason for this is because we have a phone system that rang out the extinction of the dinosaurs…
First there was no dial tone, then an incorrect dial tone, then, when there WAS a dial tone the phone itself wouldn't ring properly, I replaced every cable from the phone itself up to the wall socket with no success, tried different extension sockets in the rack cabinet and eventually took the phone, cables and all to a different part of the building and tried them on a different wall socket with a different extension and hey presto, the damned thing rang properly! Then I had to take it all back through to where the phone is supposed to be and retry, fortunately it worked… I say fortunately because I was about to get medieval on the whole setup, which would've quite possibly had bad implications on my future employment.
However despite all that, I still felt a sense of achievement that I did all that legwork to get it working, kind of like an 'old school' feeling, where you really have to work hard to get a small task done. So, despite all the advanced technology surrounding me that makes my working life a little easier, it took an old archaic phone system to bring me back down to earth and that makes me stronger and more confident to take on other tasks I get hit with.
Of course these days people want stuff done in 5 minutes and don't understand when you explain why it can't be done that fast. I'm not saying I prefer to work slowly, I can work fast and multitask like most people but sometimes it's worth taking your time, sitting quietly and thinking about a job before getting on with it, saves a load of headaches afterwards… especially in the creative industry I work in.
Now I sit and wait for our newest work colleague to come to me and state that his phone isn't working and he needs it fixed straightaway...
