Greeting, loyal blog fans. Some of you may be wondering “why hasn’t BHD posted anything lately?”<\/p>\n
The reason, much to my surprise, was…
\n
\n…that I went on a business trip to Southern California and brought my laptop issued by my office with me. I have done that before when I traveled for work, and never had a problem until this time.<\/p>\n
Because my security clearance was upgraded when I was “Acting Boss” this summer, “they” also “upgraded” the security on my work computer. I did not notice anything when I was at the office because it connects to networks and the internet through internal secure connections.<\/p>\n
However, this “security upgrade” blocked my computer from accessing wifi — anywhere — in the hotel where I was staying, or at the meetings I attended. I called the I.T. people in my office several times, and they said, “we’ve seen this a few times; just bring us your laptop and we’ll fix it.” <\/p>\n
Yeah, right. Sure, I’ll rush right over to my office in the DC area on the U.S. East Coast from Southern California. Scotty, beam me up!<\/p>\n
So I endured five days without internet access. That also included no access to email.<\/p>\n
You know what? After accepting that there was nothing I could do about it, I relaxed. I had more time to see friends and colleagues who gathered at this meeting from across the U.S. and Canada (and the world). I had early breakfasts to get work done for my professional association, and after long, long days at these meetings, dragging myself back to my hotel room after 20:00 each evening, it was pleasantly refreshing that I could crawl into bed early and not spend hours on the computer answering email.<\/p>\n
My boss wasn’t real happy, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I will have to suffer endless chastising, though: “if you only had a smartphone…”<\/p>\n
Well, I don’t. And won’t. Until this experience, I never had a problem. Now that I know it can happen, I will test my work computer for its wifi access before I travel with it again. (Actually, I’m supposed to get a new one in a few weeks, so I will start over again.)<\/p>\n
Sheesh… what an experience. I learned, however, that I really can live without the ‘net for an extended time and actually enjoy the experience.<\/p>\n
Sorry to any of my friends who may have worried that something bad happened to me and that’s why I was incommunicado. Nope, I was just cybersecurityscrewed.<\/p>\n
Life is short: roll with what happens and learn to enjoy it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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