Deep Breaths.
- Early last Thursday morning, our website, blog, and email all crashed with no warning. I think you might not be surprised to read that patience is NOT one of my strong suits and by noon, I was unhinging a bit as I thought of all those out-of-town visitors for homecoming who might be Googling us and instead finding a "404 / File Not Found" error.
- That said, almost every third call we received on Thursday was someone reporting that our website, blog, or access to our online order form wasn't working. There wasn't a thing in the world I could do about server problems with a company located in Utah but it served as an important reminder that I LIKE TO CONTROL ALL THINGS (and that almost never works out for me.)
- Jeanne wasn't concerned in the least that we were off the grid. While she watched me withdraw from digital connection, she even suggested no email for a day might be good for me and if anyone needed us, they could just call us. It was all very 1987 and I didn't care for it one single bit.
- By 10 pm, I was chatting with the web hosting tech support person online IN ALL CAPS. I didn't even apologize for Internet yelling. When I started to type that Sheryl Crow was coming to town and maybe she would need to find us on the web before having her tour bus drive all over Columbia, Behind-The-Scenes-Tech-Guru Jason suggested I take a break from the situation and practice some deep breathing.
- The next morning I woke up and immediately opened my computer for a status update. Thankfully, whatever server problems seemed to hinder my web presence the day before had been resolved. Except when I looked at our site from my phone and found a blank screen that said "Hello World! Welcome to Wordpress!"
- And that is how I ended up ALL CAPS yelling in an online chat prior to 6 am, before I even had coffee. Bucket list.
- In defense of my early morning outrage, the help guy asked me if our site had a mobile plugin. Why didn't he just ask me if I have a viable plan for peace in the Middle East that I would be willing to share? I'm fairly certain I have more international relations knowledge than plugin knowledge.
- Tech guy's response was "I can't help you if you can't tell me how your site was built." I was confused - why would he think I know how it was built? And if they broke it, then shouldn't they fix it?
- I've woken Behind-The-Scenes Tech Guru Jason up in the night for a lot of things over the years...barfing children, scary noises, and my tendency to hit the snooze button when pie baking demands a 2 am start...but never to ask him about a mobile plugin. But I did. That's the price of being good with technology and marrying someone who just wants the stuff to work. Sorry, not sorry, Behind-The-Scenes-Tech Guru Jason.
- He fixed it. But he made me wait until he had woken up and gotten ready for work...and reminded me to take some deep breaths.
