Thank You, Chris Martin, You Owe Me One!

I had a bad, bad day at the office yesterday, which kinda sorta started the night before. After my boss left for the day, I put some music on and hit up some Lily Allen – don’t judge…Fuck you is an amazing song – followed by some Coldplay, because, really, Coldplay is kind of awesome in a non-committal way.

Viva la Vida, which is so much fun to listen to, came on the play list. I was singing along and grooving in my office chair, doing that weird foot dance thing, which thinking back must have looked pretty hilarious to the people that live across the street, when the music stopped. Stopped. Program closed.

And…

It happened…

Warning!! Your computer has been royally fucked and you are infected with all these nasty viruses!! Fix it now!! Do you want to fix it now??

The sound around my (happily) vacant office was a resounding “Nooooooooooooooo” and I even did the dive for the keyboard, hoping fruitlessly, that if I talked reasonably to my laptop and stoked the keyboard nicely enough, the virus would go away.

Predictably, that didn’t happen. What did happen was a mad tapping of keys, shrill discussions with myself and frantic phone calls to our very unreachable IT team in Australia, who were maddeningly unavailable.

Not finding any help, I did what every reasonable person would do: I had a temper tantrum, the details of which I will spare you. It wasn't pretty.

After I scraped my fallen, tantrumy face off my desk, wiped the tears of frustration away and gave a guttural war cry, I googled my laptops affliction: Antivirus System Pro. The first hit was for a site called bleepingcomputer.com. I read their page on what it was and how to get rid of it, which ironically includes downloading something from their site. Right. But I guess if your computer is fucked up, it’s fucked up.

I decided to wait until the next morning to deal with it, powered down and trudged home, very unhappily. Who wants a virus on their work computer courtesy of Chris freaking Martin?? Who? Nobody, that’s who! It’s embarrassing and shameful to admit that you listen to Coldplay and you have to admit that you like them. Just a little….well, a lot.

Jump to the next morning, after being coached by friends who know as much about technology as I do, which is to say, nothing, I felt fully unarmed as I faced up to my laptop. I once destroyed a computer when it caught a virus on my watch! I fully messed it up. We had to get a new one, which to be honest, wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but I felt pretty rotten about necessitating such a large purchase. Getting a new computer for work is not an option, though. Because I hadn’t backed up. Because I am an idiot.

I tried the bleeping computer fix. And fixed it was not. I’m sure it’s no fault of the bleeping computer’s site, as I have already proven that I am irresponsible in the guardianship of computers. But, still it didn’t work and I needed to fix it somehow. That, or do drugs. Lots and lots of illicit drugs, followed by vodka. At least then I wouldn’t care.

One full day of scanning, scanning in safe mode, deleting text, quarantines and removals was spent on this techie misadventure of mine. A whole day. 8.30 until 5. That’s a lot of missed solitaire, Chris. And reading the newspaper. And catching up with my favourite sites. Oh, and work. For you. I hold you personally responsible, Mr. Martin, you and your kind of awesome band.

So, in the immortal words of Ms. Allen: Fuck you (Chris Martin)! Fuck you very much (Coldplay)!

-Anna

PS. If you’re wondering what I did to fix my computer, I did a system restore (as a last resort). It took literally 5 minutes and worked a treat. I should have done that the first go ‘round.