Murphy's Law

How do I begin to tell you how my seemingly productive, calm and normal day turned disastrous as the clock struck ?

Until 5 pm I was happily working away at my laptop, which although slightly injured (I don't know how it happened, but the laptop screen portion has literally snapped at the place where it joins the keyboard.) was still working fine.

At 7, my boss calls from the offsite in one corner of Singapore, and asks me to join them tomorrow so I can help out with some presentation scheduled for the evening. I wonder how to transport the laptop that cannot be closed anymore to this place, but say yes nevertheless.

At 7.50 pm, I decided to call D who has been indicating for a while now, that she'd like to move into my room in the current apartment when I move out in September, but has been pretty indecisive about it, leaving me frantic to figure out my other options (which includes calling about 20 people I know in the city and putting out the word that I'm looking for a non psycho woman to take over my room when I leave).

By 8 pm D basically confirms to me that she will move in and is OK with our terms and conditions etc etc. I'm happier than ever at the closure of such a big to do on my list, and in my happiness call my flatmate DM to tell her the news. DM is just around the corner and indicates that we can discuss the exciting progress as soon as she gets home in 10 mins. I can't wait, I'm SO excited! But wait, I do.

Tragedy 1

At 8 pm, my laptop starts acting weird and finally sighs and gives up. Screen goes blank and I can no longer see what I'm typing. Now the only way to shut it down is to physically press down on the relevant button. And I do that. End of computer.

Tragedy 2
Realizing instantly, this is the laptop I need for an 8 am meeting tomorrow with my super boss, who sits in Panama City, and whose number, alas, I don't have on me. To email him I need my computer. My computer, as shown above, is dead. Extreme fail has just happened.

Tragedy 3

Then I realized my own boss in Singapore expects me to be there with the same computer by 10 am tomorrow. And that's not going to happen (unless IT can transfer the info into a temp comp and give it to me tomorrow morning itself. Right. That's SO happening) which means I need to let her know there's a problem. Except the boss is busy with the offsite funs and isn't picking up her phone. The party will likely go on well into the night, and post that, calling her to say "boss. computer died. I may not be able to help with presentation tomorrow" might just be a career limiting move.

Tragedy 4

Remember D who called me a while back and confirmed she'd take over the room when I left?

D calls me, 10 mins after all this and tells me she doesn't want to move in after all. Now I really like her despite all this, so I won't go into details of why this was a massive pain.

But my contract says I need to continue paying rent in this house for 2 months after I leave if I cannot find anyone to replace me. It's only fair to the folks who continue to live here. But I'm now back in the market looking for non psycho girls. ARGH!!!!

Post all this DM, my flatmate, comes back home, makes the righ sympathetic noises and is kind enough to loan me her personal laptop for the night and tomorrow, so I can use webmail to let the boss and super boss know about the problem.

I'm actually going through with the 8 am call coz i have the req docs in my sent items on outlook. The rest is still a pain to manage, but DM's made it all a little better with her computer.

I can whine to P on chat about this, I can blog about it, and actually go through with one critical meeting tomorrow. Already writing about it makes it feel smaller, less messy and more manageable. I imagine it will all fall into place. Somehow.

I hope the morning brings with it an end to my spate of bad luck. Good night :-)