In the queue I encountered bemused, frustrated or angry others to whom I explained the situation, and with whom I chatted, about - oh, all kinds of things. The kinds of things that one should spend rather more time talking about, this being a University and all. By the time the services were restored, I'd had a really good morning, reconnecting with a number of people who'd become virtual personae (or even just email addresses) to me, and actually debating real ideas and real issues with real people (over real coffee). It felt so good. Even the grey skies couldn't change that.
Yes, the work I'd planned for this morning was held up by the unavailability of services - having forgotten my flashdisk yesterday, I was obliged to email myself copies of things I'd worked on at home, which of course I couldn't access without email. Even the online Sudoku was not there for distraction. But after a morning like today, I feel so much more energised and productive I'm sure I'll zip through the outstanding tasks in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take me.
The way we structure our work (more than the work itself, perhaps) has become increasingly dependent, not just on the technology that squats on our desks, but on the technology that squats in the computer room and connects us all over the planet, to each other, even to the person in the office next door. A simple power outage disrupting that threw that into clear relief, and provoked a range of responses from fatalism to anger to disbelief. To relief. To joy.
I think that, like "Talk like a Pirate day" (which was apparently on Monday...) and all the other commemorative days in our calendar, we should consider No Electronic Connectivity Day too, every once in a while, to stir us out of our offices and into the passages and coffee queues and even into the sunshine, to meet and mix, to laugh and love life, and drink real coffee with real people and celebrate a world in which we can still communicate without keyboards and cables.
Sometimes.
If we really want to.