OVER 50 THINGS TO DO WHEN THE SYSTEM IS DOWN

  1. Complain about your salary
  2. Complain about your manager and how you can do his job better than he can.
  3. Update your resume.
  4. Use the lovely squares, circles, and other symbols on your template to achieve a masterpiece of high-tech art.
  5. Call Dial-a-Joke.
  6. Take the stress test given in any fitness magazine and discover that you checked "yes" to every question, and your cumulative score indicates an imminent breakdown.
  7. Call Dial-a-Prayer
  8. Phone your technical support group and discover (again) the line is still busy.
  9. Do isometric exercises and hope no one sees you twitch.
  10. Water the plant on your desk that looks as though it has had a long, lingering illness.
  11. Get your eighth cup of coffee.
  12. Clean out your desk, and remove all old, rotting chocolate chip cookies that are sitting next to your Addidas running shoes.
  13. Throw out all 224 compiled versions of the same program that you were keeping "just in case."
  14. Improve your New York Times crossword skills after stealing a dictionary from the department secretary.
  15. Examine the local DP salary survey, and discover what you already know: You're underpaid.
  16. Examine COMPUTERWORLD position announcements.
  17. Draw a face on your CRT using X's and Y's.
  18. Find out all the neat toys you can make with paper clips.
  19. Reflect on the fact that major drug dealers never have to go through this, and that each owns a Mercedes Benz. Consider a major career change.
  20. Investigate the cost of opening a fruit-and-vegetable stand on a good corner near your office.
  21. Do weight-lifting exercises using 5-lb quality assurance manuals.
  22. Revile the specs of the systems analyst.
  23. Make paper planes out of the standards manual.
  24. Denigrate the programming practices of your predecessor.
  25. Have a good laugh by reading management's idea of a five-year DP plan.
  26. Construct a Frisbee out of a disk drive.
  27. Rejoice in the fact that with the system down, you have the perfect excuse for not meeting the deadline you weren't going to meet anyway.
  28. Break into the snack machine after it eats your last quarter.
  29. Crumple the systems analysts' flowcharts into little balls, and then see how many you can toss over your left shoulder into the wastebasket.
  30. Crucify a systems programmer on a tape drive.
  31. Condescend to sit with an end user and discover that the eight programs you've spent months working on do not in any way, shape, manner, or form produce meaningful results.
  32. Leave the office, and take a brisk walk in the fall sunshine. Upon your return, discover that the system came up as soon as you left, but is now down again.
  33. Speculate freely on office romances and designate the recipients of the Mary Cunningham/William Agee award.
  34. Dive into the pyramid swamping your "in" box, and uncover all of last year's technical updates.
  35. Browse through the standards manual, and discover that not one program you've written conforms with those standards.
  36. Detach some of the pretty, colored wires from inside your terminal, and see if you can put them back together again.
  37. Reach out and touch someone long distance, using any extension in the department (other than your own).
  38. Cast THE WIZARD OF OZ using members of your department. It should be easy to find those without brains, without hearts, and who need courage simply by examining the list of executive officers.
  39. Cast SNOW WHITE using members of your department. There is usually a plethora of talent available for the role of Dopey, so compile a list of understudies.
  40. Compose a FANTASY ISLAND script on career pathing in your firm, bearing in mind that there are some miracles even Mr. Roarke cannot perform.
  41. Put the Fortran Coloring Book to good use, employing all the blue, red, and yellow highlighter pens you stole from the supply cabinet and forgot to take home.
  42. Create an attractive toy for your cat, dog, or gerbil by stapling backup floppy disks together.
  43. Examine the date on your manuals, and find out that they are six years old.
  44. Uncover the hidden treasures in the pile beneath your desk. Discard anything that bites you.
  45. Remove all catsup, salt, pepper, and sugar that is over two years old from your work space.
  46. Remove any small, black, wiggling dots from the jar of Coffee Mate.
  47. Consult your daily horoscope in the newspaper, and discover that new opportunities await. Then call your local headhunter.
  48. Take your three-piece-corduroy suit to the cleaners for its yearly pressing.
  49. Designate the weakest, wimpiest member of your department "Punk Hunk of the Month" and invite the individual to put a safety pin through his nose.
  50. Do the exercises in Tom Jackson's THE PERFECT RESUME, listing all the accomplishments you could have had if the system were up. and, last but not least,
  51. Write articles for COMPUTERWORLD on "Over 50 Things to Do When the System Is Down."