I broke the internet...

Well... I didn't break the WHOLE internet, as evidenced by the fact that you are still able to come here and read about my breaking the internet, but I did break the internet in our office!

I was only doing my job, mind you, but still, me doing my job rendered our office pretty much non-functional for a few hours.

Having spent the vast majority of my mornings for the last two weeks on the phone with India, India finally realized that our shit was broken and that it needed to be replaced. So yesterday afternoon, I was preparing to ship out the parts that they needed, which required that I disconnect them from the computer to which they were attached. So I unplugged them from the wall, and the back of the computer, and was just about to box them up and ship them out when I hear one of the brokers shout, "Hey, is your e-mail working?" to which another broker replied, "Umm, no... Is your internet working?" to which the original broker replied, "Shit, no... LIZ! Why is the e-mail down, and why is the internet not working?"

Of course, I knew I'd only unplugged a part that had nothing to do with our connections to the outside world, so when things weren't working directly afterward, I was nonetheless kind of nervous.

So I tried the few fixes I knew how to manage, and nothing worked. So then I go to ask a broker if she knows how to fix it, she doesn't. She then suggests I mention what's going on to the boss. The boss had fortunately already called in a tech support guy for an unrelated problem, so he only needed to call again to upgrade the need for him to hustle over.

Two hours later the internet was still down in our office.

About 4:30 the tech support guy finished, and before he left he said to me, "I'm not 100% sure, but whatever you unplugged shouldn't have caused that... The system just happened crash at about the same time... and if I'd have remembered a few things about your system here, I'd have had you all up and running a lot quicker than I did."

"Thanks for that... Be sure to let the boss know that I didn't break everything!"

So it may or may not have been my fault, but fortunately things are working again and fortunately I still have a job... At least until I break something else!