The Monkey and the Frenchman

We had an outbreak of a computer virus at work yesterday, which meant that all day yesterday and today I couldn't access anything off my computer. That's okay because, you know, I didn't really have any work to do which required access to my computer files. Then today the folks from the IT department informed me that my laptop was one of a few in the agency that had the virus, and that my entire hard drive needed to be replaced. Then, I was told that because yesterday (before I found out about the virus) two of my co-workers had used their flash drives on my laptop to retrieve a file, both of their flash drives and likely their laptops (when they put the flash drive in that computer) were likely also infected. Then I realized that yesterday one of these flash drives also ended up in still another co-worker's laptop, possibly spreading the virus to his computer as well. As I was sending frantic messages to my co-workers informing them of all of this, I couldn't help but feel a bit like the monkey from the movie "Outbreak".

By the end of the day I did get my repaired laptop back, which was shockingly fast for our IT department. I don't know the status of my co-workers' laptops, as I'm not entirely sure if they are still speaking to me. My flash drive is still in quarantine, trying to be salvaged.

The day did end on a high note though. About 4:00 the front desk called me and told me there was an exchange student from a local university that wanted to find out about my organization and the work we do. I just love it when people randomly stop by without an appointment and ask to talk. I do really just sit around and wait for people to do this. Luckily, due to the above-mentioned virus madness, I didn't really have much going on this afternoon, and so I agreed to meet with the guy. Turned out he was French and very good-looking, so not a bad way to end the day!