So the last few days have been quite eventful for me...
There are some renovations happening two floors above my office. Due to miscommunication /misinterpretation of orders (pro-tip: when somebody tells you not to do something, DON'T DO IT), a 500 L tank decided to empty itself into my office ceiling on Saturday, resulting in water raining down on mine and my colleagues desks. Onto our bookshelves, onto our computers.
Cue panic.
Even though I wasn't there at the time, from what I heard the first responders acted quickly and effectively. Boards were lain across books to protect them, computers and peripherals shifted as far as possible out of direct harm, and power cables unplugged (from the computers, without touching wall sockets). But there was a lot of water, and some damage was unavoidable.
I found out about this on Saturday at 2pm. I rushed to my office, but by the time I arrived most of the water had been mopped up, and a dehumidifier placed in the centre of the room. I tried to dry the worst damaged books, looked for any damage at my colleagues desks, and took a lot of photos for insurance purposes. I was hoping that my computer and external hard-drive would be ok, as they weren't turned on when they got wet, and therefore shouldn't have short-circuited. But I had to wait til Monday for electricians to properly assess the damage.
There are some renovations happening two floors above my office. Due to miscommunication /misinterpretation of orders (pro-tip: when somebody tells you not to do something, DON'T DO IT), a 500 L tank decided to empty itself into my office ceiling on Saturday, resulting in water raining down on mine and my colleagues desks. Onto our bookshelves, onto our computers.
Cue panic.
Even though I wasn't there at the time, from what I heard the first responders acted quickly and effectively. Boards were lain across books to protect them, computers and peripherals shifted as far as possible out of direct harm, and power cables unplugged (from the computers, without touching wall sockets). But there was a lot of water, and some damage was unavoidable.
I found out about this on Saturday at 2pm. I rushed to my office, but by the time I arrived most of the water had been mopped up, and a dehumidifier placed in the centre of the room. I tried to dry the worst damaged books, looked for any damage at my colleagues desks, and took a lot of photos for insurance purposes. I was hoping that my computer and external hard-drive would be ok, as they weren't turned on when they got wet, and therefore shouldn't have short-circuited. But I had to wait til Monday for electricians to properly assess the damage.
The exact opposite of my reaction.
Damage report? The computer and external hard-drive still work! Amazing! I was extremely happy when I found this out! However, my new (as of last week) solar wireless keyboard and numpad did not fair so well. All of these items are going to get replaced under insurance, but at least I can recover data.
Now, here is the public service announcement:
BACK UP YOUR WORK OFF-SITE
I keep all my important work on Dropbox, so I was never in any real danger of losing data (to the huge relief of all involved), just very inconvenienced by the loss of hardware/software. But the moral of this story is that you can never predict what could happen to your belongings, at home or in the office. Especially indoor rain.
