It’s a well-known fact, among those people fortunate enough to know me, that I am, well, slightly accident-prone. SOME might even call me clumsy. I don’t like that description because it gives the impression that the accidents are always MY FAULT. Perhaps I have had more trips than average to the Accident and Emergency departments of hospitals around the country, but as I write this, I’m extremely happy to report that for the last 3 months I have lived accident free! I think I should get a round of applause and a badge but AA doesn’t stand for accidents anonymous. I hold up my hand and admit that I don’t always engage my entire brain at times when I perhaps should. By way of an example let me tell you about a little incident that occurred not too long ago. I had a small mishap while beavering away (as I ALWAYS do) at my desk, at work.
I do try to keep my desk in some sort of order (emphasis on TRY there), well, OK, maybe not my ENTIRE desk, but the space where my three most important tools are situated is always kept free. What are my three most important tools? Well, my keyboard, my mouse, my mug / tankard of coffee. They are KEY to a successful working day. My mishap involved two of them. Keyboard. Mug. The mug was half-full when I accidentally knocked its entire contents into my keyboard.
Ah, Yes, ‘Uh oh’ and ‘Eeek’ where only a few of the phrases that came to mind at that moment. What do you do in these situations? PANIC MODE! Speed I found to be fairly helpful as I whipped round and unplugged the keyboard from the computer, and mouse from the keyboard, and picked up the mug (not broken? Oh good, it’s my favourite). But then what?
First off, try not to panic. I was pretty sure that I had read about this very scenario in a MacUser magazine. At the time I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s something someone like me should definitely take note of’. The article had begun with words: ‘IMMEDIATE ACTION IS REQUIRED!’ So, I thought, at least the situation is not unheard of, and may well be fixable. There’s still hope.
I managed to rustle up a copy of the magazine article and proceeded to read the instructions. How does one save a keyboard from a coffee-stained demise? Well, as it happens, you immerse the entire keyboard in a sink-full of water, unplugging it first of course! I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid. It sounds hard to believe, but that’s what’s required – you take your keyboard, which is an electrical jobby, complete with a circuit board, and you run it under the tap! Not only that, the next step is to take the thing to bits while it’s under water. All this frantic activity needs to happen asap before the coffee starts to dry – the point at which it starts to kill the keyboard.
Well, I have to tell you, I was a little sceptical to say the least! I was still thinking that the people who wrote the article must have been joking when I left my keyboard standing in bits to dry. How on EARTH was it ever going to work again?!
Once it had dried I put the keyboard back together and, surprisingly enough, had no screws left over. (Perhaps that’s just a ‘man’ thing. Ha ha.) Apart from initially putting some of the keys in the wrong place, it all went together OK. Time for the moment of truth: I plugged it in, and would you Adam and Eve it – it actually worked. Wow!
It’s weird to think that something which would have been utterly useless if left to dry for a while, was better and sparklier after a bit of a soaking – no little scraps of crud which build up in the keyboard – no more slightly grimey keys. It’s now better than before.
Sometimes we fall into the ‘I know best’ trap, and leave things to get worse, when in fact, we need the instructions: IMMEDIATE ACTION IS REQUIRED. Think about it. Besides cheese, what are the things that are improved by being left to fester? Not a lot. Problems don’t. Relationships don’t. When things start to go wrong, and cracks start appearing, immediate action is required to make it right; ‘doing an ostrich’ won’t get us very far if a fair and frank conversation is what’s needed.
If we want people to have faith in us, we have to be willing to take apart problems and look at them in bits. It’s amazing how much smaller problems seem when they are broken down into bite-sized pieces. Sometimes we need an extra pair of hands, or a specialised screwdriver, sometimes the instructions are just weird, but even weird instructions can work out for the best.
Think about your day today, do you have stuff you’ve been putting off? It won’t get better on its own. Don’t let it dry and ruin your day (your week/your year) – immediate action is required. Oh, and don’t knock coffee into your keyboard – it’s a pain to put right.
It’s a well-known fact, among those people fortunate enough to know me, that I am, well, slightly accident-prone. SOME might even call me clumsy. I don’t like that description because it gives the impression that the accidents are always MY FAULT. Perhaps I have had more trips than average to the Accident and Emergency departments of hospitals around the country, but as I write this, I’m extremely happy to report that for the last 3 months I have lived accident free! I think I should get a round of applause and a badge but AA doesn’t stand for accidents anonymous. I hold up my hand and admit that I don’t always engage my entire brain at times when I perhaps should. By way of an example let me tell you about a little incident that occurred not too long ago. I had a small mishap while beavering away (as I ALWAYS do) at my desk, at work.
