What Happens When The Internet Goes Down?
I work in a home based office and this morning as always, I booted up my computer to start my work day. Lo and behold, the internet was not working. Having gone through this about a month ago, I calmly just rebooted thinking it would solve the problem but no. I felt my heart start to race a little and my body temperature climb a little more. What to do? I headed to the “mechanical room” in the basement and looked at the blinking boxes. Now I have to tell you, I don’t know the difference between a modem and a router or a splitter and a filter. So, I unplugged everything, waited 30 seconds, came upstairs and rebooted again. Nada. Not a bleep or a blink.
I suddenly realized that I was now incapacitated as a Realtor®. I had an offer to finish but the program resides online. I had two people waiting for me to call them with details about a listed property but, the MLS ® system is online. I couldn’t log onto the Sympatico website and my techno-wizard, Chris, is on holidays this week. No email, no offers, no listings and nobody to whine to either! I started to shake and it was way too early for a glass of wine. Do others have the same reaction?
So, I called my website designer who coached me by phone through a few tests and he determined that I had no choice but to call the folks at Sympatico. NOOOO! I have to tell you, they have reduced me to tears of frustration in the past but I sucked up my courage and dialed 310-Surf. A helpful gentleman had me run up and down the stairs between the blinking box things and my computer about a dozen times trying different things. Aside from getting a good day’s work-out, we determined that the problem was a faulty splitter. Then he tried to sell me a wireless modem even though I told him 5 times I don’t have wireless in my home. He still thought I should buy it anyway and seemed rather angry that I didn’t agree. After a quick run to buy a new $4.83 splitter, I’m back in business and the career crisis has been averted.
Today was a clear lesson of how strongly my business is intrinsically connected to, well, being connected. Seems I’m not the only one.
