Day One:

On the first day without email, they all pretended to grumble and complain, but secretly they were delighted to be free. Free from the constant glancing at their inboxes. Free from the annoying ping announcing new arrivals. Free from the guilt at those emails awaiting responses and actions that they did not care to do. Free from work entirely, for anything could be put off now. I need to do that, they said to colleagues, whether or not it was true.

And so they relaxed and caught up with coworkers on their weekends, made concerned faces when managers arrived to explain that it might be some time before email was restored. At the end of the day nothing had been resolved, but they were told it would be in no time. And so they went home, happy at a day free of worry, and bracing themselves for the deluge that might follow once the normal course of things had been restored.

Day Two:

On the second day without email, they were told it would be weeks, if not longer, before services could be restored.

How could such a thing happen? This question was met with shrugs and grave expressions.

No one knows, was the whisper that went from cubicle to cubicle. Team leads called meetings of their groups to discuss contingencies, but there were no contingencies for a world without email. Such a thing was beyond comprehension, beyond the imagination of anyone involved.

Could we use fax machines, some suggested, and were met with blank, terrified stares.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

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