🛠️ TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE: UNRESPONSIVE COMPUTER 🛠️

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The screen goes black.

The screen that, moments before, displayed a Very Important Report. The one you’re presenting to the board this afternoon. The one you spent five hours on last night, and three hours on the night before, and six hours on the night before that.

You can’t for the life of you remember if you hit “save.”

💭  STEP 1: Wonder if this is a dream

In the absence of your computer fans whirring, silence floods the room. You break it with one finger and a flurry of mouse clicks. You mash the keyboard hoping to stumble on a sequence of inputs that will jumpstart the system. You jiggle cables extending from the back of the machine hoping one will defibrillate its circuit-board heart.

Plant your feet firmly on the floor. Let the air flow in and out of your lungs. Take a moment to shake off denial and come to grips with reality. Pinch yourself if you must.

🪓 STEP 2: Say no to percussive maintenance

You’ll remember an old TV that assaulted your eardrums with an ultrasonic banshee shriek until it received a solid knock on the input panel. A printer that happily chewed paper like a golden retriever puppy into a pulpy oblivion until you hoisted it a few inches above its perch and let gravity do the dirty work.

Acknowledge the call to violence. Understand that it comes from somewhere deep within your lizard brain. Anger, unresolved. Let it go.

⚡ STEP 3: Negotiate a miracle

Please let someone cancel the board meeting. Please let there be a backup of the document on the cloud. Pretty please with sugar on top let a bolt of lightning discharge straight into your motherboard and shock it back to life. Or better yet, let that bolt aim a little to the left and put you out of your misery.

Consider what you would sacrifice for any of these events to happen, but keep it brief. Bargaining like this rarely gets results.

🌧️ STEP 4: Abandon all hope

All those hours of hard work wasted. You let your team down. You let your company down. You let your family down. You let yourself down. You might as well write that resignation letter now, except your computer is still a brick, and really, what’s the point of anything anymore?

Walk to the nearest window. Observe the world outside. Note the ways in which it has chosen to move on. Consider how you might move on, too.

➡️ STEP 5: Accept that existence is temporary

Did you ever have control? The answer is complicated. You clock how you put your trust into invisible systems you can’t name. You contemplate the fragility of the connections that hold the world together. You come to peace with the reality that nothing lasts forever. These thoughts are important, though they will not solve your computer problem.

Return to your desk. Find the power button. Hold it down for a few seconds. Release, wait, and press it again. Watch your computer spring back to life.

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Or… “Turn it off and on again.”

This is what happens when writing forgets its reader.

Know where they are. Respect what they need.