terrible environment killing terrible person

[deird_lj]

Yes, I left my work computer on all night. I am terrible and energy wasting, and must be shunned.

(Although I did, in fact, turn my screen off, so I'm not all bad.)


Apparently work has decided that the best strategy for turning us into Happy Little Energy Savers is to shame/bribe us into it. By giving people who turn off their computers chocolate, and taping Big Black Balloons Of Nasty Blackness to the computers that were still on.

(One might wonder if, in fact, the energy wasted by manufacturing hundreds of black balloons is going to balance out the energy saved by turning the computers off... if one were cynical and heartless and uncaring.)


And yes, I got a black balloon. Oh the shame.

The thing is, the work computers are ancient. And turning them on takes about five or six minutes. During which you can't wander off and do something else, because every minutes or so you have to press a button so that they keep turning on.
I am not willing to waste that much time every morning.

Also, our work email system completely closes all emails every time it's turned off, so you can't go back to something you were working on earlier - you have to start all over again.
I am not willing to track down all the emails I was dealing with AGAIN every single morning.


*will continue to waste energy until work upgrades their computer system, you morons*

Comments

[next_to_normal]

I am completely befuddled about whether I should turn my computer off at night or not. The last job I had was all energy conscious and absolutely You Must Turn It Off Every Night (And We Will Know If You Don't). But the job before that, they were like, "OMG don't turn your computer off at night because that's when we do our server upgrades and if your computer is off, it'll crash the whole system." Or something. Geek speak, I don't speak it.

Now I'm in an office where our IT guy is hundreds of miles away and won't know what I do, and my boss never turns his computer off (mostly because he's technologically challenged and probably wouldn't know how to turn it on again), but maybe he should, because I end up having to restart it for him at least once a week because it freezes all the time.

I don't think we have a server that requires nightly upgrades, so I suppose I should err on the side of being environmentally friendly. But then again, on the occasions when my boss needs to use my computer and I'm not there (I'm the only one who can print - long story, don't ask), it helps if it's already on for him to use, so I worry about shutting it down in the event that I take a sick day. Though I rarely do that. But I just did, three times in the last month.

*flails*

[deird1]

Ack! Confusingness!

[next_to_normal]

As bizarre as the chocolate/black balloon system is, at least I'd know where we stand on the environment.