Let it snow, let it snow, but oh my god what if the power goes out

Don't you just love how crazy people get when the forecast is calling for snow? It is truly disturbing how crazy people get; hardware stores and grocery places are mobbed for everything people can grab. Good luck if you need a shovel, milk or bread. I spent more time in lines last night (thanks to the list my wife made), then actually shopping. I think the average was 10 minutes of shopping for every 45 minutes spent waiting in line to pay for it!


It only gets worse as the storms draw near, people forget how to drive, or park, for that matter. After hitting all of the major hardware stores (i.e. Home Depot and Lowes) in the area, I decided to go to the small store right down the street from my office. Wouldn't you know they had shovels in abundance?? They had case after case of them lined up in the parking lots. For the low price of $29.99 you can purchase your very own cheap plastic shovel which is sure to break after one use. So I bought two...


Having thoroughly exhausted all my patience, I then made my way to work. What do I walk into? A mob of people wanting laptops for the weekend, and of course they are all checked out by people who were smart and didn't wait until the day of the storm. It is pretty entertaining to see the look on peoples faces as you turn them away again and again. Just one more thing to make my day a little brighter I guess.


Now I work in an old building so the electrical wiring is a little bit questionable. When it's windy out, we have to warn the staff to save their work. So needless to say with up to a minimum of sixteen inches of snow coming people are worried once again that we will lose power this weekend. What are we going to do without email? What will we do if we can't log in from home? These are the questions that drive every IT Administrator nuts. Truthfully, my response should have been "you are going to go without email because if there’s no power in the building NONE OF THE SERVERS WILL WORK". However, one must be polite when speaking to morons, so the response usually ends up being something like this, "We will be monitoring the conditions from home and if the roads permit us driving and there is a power failure or down time we will coordinate with the building manager to make sure the down time is as short as possible".


But such is the life of an IT Administrator. Until next time, stay warm this weekend and try to stay off the roads.