The power light on the monitor, though, continued to do its Saturday Night Fever imitation, and the lights on the multiplug blazed like a christmas tree. Not the power, then. Phew!
My kneejerk response was to unplug the dead PC and to log a call with the Helpdesk... until I remembered that HEAT ran on my PC. And that I really didn't feel like carrying a PC all the way over to ICTS across a Plaza crammed with lunching students, against high winds. And that my access to Netscape Calendar relied on my PC. (And to SAP, though I'd have been glad of the excuse not to have that!) Did I really have the time to sit on another PC and write down all my forthcoming appointments, and type them into my hellphone... and then hope nothing changed in the interim? And then, back in my office, copy them all onto iCal? My resolve buckled.
I borrowed a key and bravely ventured into the PC Limbo that houses PCs on their way to Paradise or Perdition, and sought something of similar vintage to my own, brandished my screwdriver menacingly until it cowered obediently, and whipped out its power supply. After recovering from the inevitable attack of the rabid dustbunnies, I retreated to my office with the captive power supply pinioned firmly under my arm.
The transplant was uneventful, and the patient made a full recovery. Total downtime - 15 minutes, including the ten minutes to locate the key. Excluding the aeons it routinely takes to boot up, run login scripts, attempt to install various other things and finally deliver me to my desktop. I felt quite pleased, and smugly productive.
Especially when I considered the likely alternative. I could have logged a call. If I was lucky, I'd have gotten through on the telephone, and the person on the other end would have captured what I told them in the call details as I reported it, and not via a process of interpretation. They'd have asked for someone to be sent to collect the dead PC.
At some stage, someone would have come. This could be anything from minutes to days later, depending on availability, schedules, and planetary alignment. It would not have been preceded by a telephone call to announce their arrival, or to check that anyone was here, and so - in all likelihood - it would have found no one at home, and necessitated a revisit - similarly unannounced - with eventual success. Whereafter the PC would have lain in the workshop, been diagnosed, and an appropriately aged power supply sought. Given the vintage of the PC (which runs Windows 98SE) this would not have been an easy task, and may have taken a while. Eventually, one would have been traced, installed, and tested. The PC would have been declared healthy and sent home.
Whereupon the delivery would have repeated the collection cycle, of repeat, frustrated, visits, before successful completion.
Estimated downtime? Hmmm. How long is the proverbial piece of string? But it could have been anything from hours to weeks. And, by comparison, 15 minutes seemed a far better bet.
Of course, I'm not recommending anyone do this. My PC is safely out of warranty, and so there is no risk of ICTS turning around and denying me support on the basis of my actions. They'd have denied it anyway on the basis of the age of my PC. Nor should anyone attempt to diagnose and cure their PC ailments without at least some prospect of success - it's pretty straightforward stuff, but there are some things one does need to know to prevent irreversible damage.
I'm merely using this happy little anecdote to illustrate why the temptation to work outside of The System sometimes gets the better of us, however sane or necessary The System might be. Sometimes, we just don't have the time.