Technology Gremlins

Love or hate technology, it’s pretty handy. My Mum is a Luddite and is going to be standing having a laugh if / when the World Wide Web has a massive crash. She’ll be standing there with her notebook and pencil, laughing away. It won’t be a quiet laugh either. It’ll be raucous, loud and perhaps there might be a need for tena ladies.

Today, Gremlins have taken something from me that’s pretty important. I don’t know where the hell it’s disappeared to. It’s in cyberspace and I don’t know how to find it.

Since 2006, I have been doing food hygiene training. In actual fact, I’ve put 320 people through their training. 318 passed their exams. (I was surprised when I realised that). Every year, I update my power point slides, as you do. So, Helga and I were away at a Trainers’ Seminar recently and got all sorts of juicy information that I wanted to pop into my slides. I use a flash drive; it’s handy. Laptop switched on, insert flash drive.

Where the hell?

I excused myself from Helga’s company to start a search (actually, it was to go to the privacy of the office and start cursing like a sailor). No food hygiene folder in sight. No REHIS (Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland) folder in sight. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Foxtrot Alpha. I came out in a bit of a sweat, that had nothing to do with menopausal symptoms. I have to do my next Elementary Food Hygiene course in two weeks time. I am away this weekend at an IAM Conference in Birmingham, returning Monday. On Tuesday, I’m heading up to Torridon to teach Intermediate Food Hygiene, returning home the Thursday afternoon – yes, if the weather’s good, I will be on the bike. Have panniers, lap top will travel. Between now and the 4th of November I have two days free in my diary. I would need a damn sight more time than that to create a 6.5 hour training course. Panic wasn’t quite setting in yet. Surely I backed it up on the server?

WHERE IS IT??? IT CAN’T BE THAT HARD TO FIND!!

I searched high and low. I have looked in every single folder on my flash drive. I couldn’t find it. Knowing that it was labelled ‘REHIS’ is searched and searched in every single orifice in the computer and server. Then ‘PLOOF’!! There it was on my screen. I tried to back-track to find where it was hiding. Before I did that, I made sure I saved a copy. I know I can be a bit dim at times, however, I’m not that stupid. You know, I still don’t know where it’s gone. It’s disappeared with my catalogue of truly gruesome pictures collected over the years. Cyberspace has eaten my slides and is not spitting them out. I think they must have gone Back To The Future or something, seeing as that’s trending today, it seems to be the only logical explanation.

Back to the Future

If anyone has any idea where this valuable piece of work has disappeared to, please do let me know. Last used in June. Last seen on a screen in the training room. Stored in a flash drive that is only used by myself and kept in a very safe place. All I can say is, I’m glad I checked it today. There’s nothing worse than switching on your laptop, connecting the laptop to the projector and breathing a sigh of relief only to find your whole course content has vanished.

Today, I hate technology.