Me, hold a grudge?

I’ve been fairly quiet recently, partially because I’ve had a lot of work that took me out of the office, and partially because I’ve had trouble with my computer on the few occasions I wasn’t. If I hadn’t been so quiet, it’s fairly certain that the continuing South African power crisis would have been high on the agenda.

This morning, after days of by-elimination guesswork, made more challenging by not having internet access, I realised that a power surge caused by Eskom’s policy of random blackouts has fried important bits of my new computer. My decision last year — to replace the computer I lost to an armed robbery with a new desktop rather than a laptop, on the basis that mere convenience was an unaffordable luxury — proved to be woefully over-optimistic and ultimately mistaken. It now turns out that a notebook computer, with its ability to shrug off daily two-hour power failures, is a basic necessity for anyone who needs a PC to do their job. As if that blunder wasn’t serious enough, now comes the icing on the cake: the unproductive alternative has been rendered entirely non-productive, having become a terminal victim of the very reason it was unproductive in the first place. It’s like I was robbed twice.

I’d like to thank Eskom, with all my heart. I eagerly await a cheque with which I can buy a new laptop. I’d also like to thank my parents, for their understanding and support, my friend Brian for lending me an old box of his, and my dogs, who endured my frequent irritability and late nights while tracking this problem during a week that was crazy with conferences and meetings and functions and missed deadlines. I feel so special. Last, but not least, I’d like to thank Alec “The Bolt” Erwin, who deserves my gratitude for his unwavering reassurance that the loss of my contribution to South Africa’s gross national income will not affect economic growth. Thanks for picking up the slack, Alec. These tears are tears of joy. You can e-mail my overdue copy to slavedriver@poorhouse.co.za.