When You’re at the Mercy of Others
I find myself in an interesting situation these past couple of days. One of my largest clients is having major server issues and the site has been down for a couple of days. We’re receiving periodic updates and I’m convinced the Technical Support staff is doing the best they can under what has to be incredibly stressful circumstances. Some of the writers are frustrated with the down time, but I’m not. I’m using it to my advantage. I’m writing in anticipation of a fix in the near future, I’m running some errands, I cleaned the kitchen and worked ahead on some of my other projects. In fact, the down time came in plenty handy.
If you write for the web and find you can’t do a thing because the servers are down or there are other issues, the worst thing you can do (in my opinion) is to send emails around to all to complain. If you do have a major gripe, contact your superior in a private email and express your concerns, otherwise ride out the storm and make productive use of your time.
- Write ahead and save to your word processor or offline editor.
- Go for a walk and get some fresh air.
- Visit other blogs and websites or a newsstand or library for ideas.
There’s nothing you can do when a server is down. To complain doesn’t put you in the best light and lowers the morale of the support team who are working as hard as they can.
What do you do during a server outage?
Posted
on
Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 1:10 am under
I try to find another way to get the work done if at all possible. For example, if my ISP’s mail server is down, I’ll use another e-mail service.
If my client has OCR (optical character recognition), I could fax copy, which could be scanned and read in on the other end. This hasn’t happened, but it’s the avenue I would explore.
If the client can’t receive the work or use it due to an outage, I try to catch up on bookkeeping or something else that doesn’t get me involved so that I can respond when the clients systems come back up.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:21 amI’m with you - downtime can be pretty special! I love taking the time for myself, or working on other projects that are more personal to me - such as writing poetry or working on a screenplay or something.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:23 amI smile blissfully, enjoy someone else truly being at fault (in fact, a network I blog for had a similar probelm yesterday and today), and graciuosly accept the gift!
February 8th, 2008 at 1:33 amBreaks are a welcome mat. It can be a little annoying at first, especially if you need to stick to a strict schedule. But once you embrace the down time (and realize it’s not the end of the world), it can be a great time to catch up on housework, get out the house, or do absolutely nothing.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:39 amI try to enjoy the break, and encourage and support the people fixing the problem as much as I can without getting in the way. On my good days, anyway.
But most days are good days, thank goodness!
kk
February 8th, 2008 at 2:39 amLast year when my computer crashed, I’d write my posts on a pad, type them at work on my lunch break, and then post from there. Sure it wasn’t fun, but I wasn’t 5 days behind once I got things up and running again either.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:45 amI would try to catch up on other things and just write offline. I generally write my posts first in Scrivener anyway.
February 8th, 2008 at 6:10 amOne advantage of having your webservers in your home is that there is generally very little downtime. The downside is that when there is downtime - you’re the one fixing it.
But I have to admit that on a recent trip, I lost the ability to connect to the Internet for a couple of days. Once I got used to the idea, it actually was a nice break.
Enjoy the unexpected, and look for the ways to enjoy downtime!
February 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pmI know just what you’re talking about. And I totally agree. : )
I would not stop visiting a blog just because it was down for a day or two. Bloggers who are so paranoid about that need something else to worry about.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:18 pmI was just at the mercy of an apocalyptic snowstorm and I used the downtime to do the things I never have time for, like exploring new blogs
February 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pmAs a fellow b5er, I know the tech team worked their hardest to fix the issues. I have to say though, I didn’t make the most of the day, I instead used the massive blizzard outside to take a little break.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pmWe had a storm ripped through VT back in August that uprooted trees, tore off roofs, snapped power poles in half on both ends of our road. So for three days, we had no power, no Internet, and no phones. I have to say that by the end of 24 hours I was ready to pull my hair out.
I read a lot of books and went for extremely long walks with my kids. I hand wrote any articles that didn’t require research. (Our libraries here are tiny and not current with books so researching there is pointless.)
February 8th, 2008 at 6:23 pmI find down time to be a blessing. It allows me to get ahead on other projects and it is always a plus to have extra time when you are getting a new blog up and running because you have that much more time to get content on.
Then of course there are times when something happens and I take a nap because I need the extra energy - that is only if my kids let me
February 8th, 2008 at 8:03 pmThe biggest annoyance I’ve experienced is when I’m in the middle of saving an article that I’ve just written and the server hangs up. I’ve since learned to copy what I’ve written right before I click the Save button. That way, I can paste it into my word processor to upload later, if necessary.
@Dannie - I can totally relate to the nap and kids thing.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:14 pmI totally work on another project. Last September we had a serious lull at my main job and I wrote fiction for another venue. I submitted them and now it is February and am getting ’surprise’ contracts on that fiction.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pmThis happened to me a week and a half-ago. I had made the final cut for a writing gig and they requested a sample following their writing style. When I went to submit it later that day. The website was down. They were down for two days. Sunday they were back, and I submitted my sample explaining the delay. Of course, they already knew it so that wasn’t a big deal and I got the job.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:29 am[…] been a strange blogging week. As Deb referred to in an earlier post this week, a client was having some major server issues. I also happen to work for said client, so I’ve […]
February 10th, 2008 at 7:52 am