My Mysteriously Bad Day

I don't like to complain about work. Here especially. For one, I've heard that bloggers who complain about their jobs can run into trouble if their employers find out. Also, so many people complain about their job in so many ways, it's pretty much all been said. But not this . . .

My job consists mainly of reconciling a rather large Excel spreadsheet to what is commonly called the "general ledger." As I balance each line, I make a notation on my computerized document. Each month I make hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more notations. And I save my work often in case the network crashes.

The other day started like so many others when I noticed something terribly odd on my computer screen. My notations from this month were gone. Disappeared. Kaput. My formatting was all there, including lines I highlighted indicating those I'd done. But the most important part, my notes, had just vanished.

My god, how could this happen? Now I've been known to make computer blunders. There was the time I accidentally saved my working document as my supervisor's working document, effectively replacing his document with mine. That was my bad. And my boss was as forgiving with me as Godzilla was with Tokyo (Not true. My boss is a great guy.)

And since 50, my fingers have been more fumble than fleet. Combine that with my wandering attention and stuff happens. I might be smiling over Old Horsetail Snake's latest blog, then look up to my computer monitor and wonder aloud, "Where'd that come from?" or "How did that get over there?" or simply "What the (insert your favorite expletive)?" But this wasn't just some brain fart unless it was the mother of all brain farts. It would have taken a series of keystrokes I normally would not have done.

Was it sabotage? Or maybe some computer virus? I actually Google searched the news to see if there were a new Excel-attacking virus out there, though my colleague said it would have to be an extremely maniacal virus just to erase a small but very important part of my very large document.

The computer guru staff is now retrieving a copy of my working document. I want more, however. Dust for fingerprints! Call the Geek Squad! Pull the hard drive! Get homeland security on this. Somebody's messin' with me and I want to know who it is. Just hope it doesn't go like that old Pogo comic strip line, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."