My Very Own Office Space

Ever seen Office Space? Remember that scene where they take the copy/fax/printer machine out into a field and destroy it with a baseball bat? That's how I feel about my PC at work. In general, my PC worked just fine for over a year. Every now and then it would make some funny noises, but it never seemed to affect it's performance.

In recent months though, it was become the object of my destructive fantasies. Back in August, the PC decided to just stop working. I couldn't get it to run programs, boot up reliably, etc...It took Dell nearly a week to come out and fix it. Apparently, a new fan was necessary. (Now the clicking noise is gone, so that's good). I would like to note that all of this has happened AFTER we replaced the hard drive.

The next bit of excitement involved some wonderful Windows Updates. You know - that annoying automatic pop-up that tells you to update your computer so it runs faster and more efficiently. Yeah, well, those Updates proceeded to crash the whole computer altogether. We then had to remove Vista Professional and replace it with XP. Another day lost to getting my computer reset so I could work on it again.

Finally, there is the day-to-day slowness that occurs each time I reboot the damn machine. Even as I type this, my typing is on delay. I type the words and they don't show up right away. It's frustrating and really cuts down on productivity at work.

Lucky for me, there is one year left on the warranty. The odds of getting a new machine - not real great. So, I've started thinking about how I could 'rid' myself of this awful machine.

1)Leave it in my Las Vegas hotel room and hope the cleaning staff takes it home. (I even left a huge note saying 'TAKE ME' with the username/password on it.)
2)'Accidentally' spill tea/coke/water on it during the workday.
3)Drop it off in the middle of Verona Road and watch as it gets smashed to bits!
4)Stage a 'robbery' of the PC while walking down State Street.
5)Try to infect with a computer virus so that the hard drive is destroyed.

There is a glimmer of hope that I may get a new PC. After enough complaining and lost productivity, management comes around. We are making a few last ditch efforts to save this PC. So far, there's no improvement in how it's working.

Keeping my fingers crossed.