We thought we had been spared from Typhoon Durian (Reming), the super-typhoon that was supposed to hit Metro Manila but instead hit Bicol and other southern provinces. The typhoon is already off to Vietnam, but it seems it’s also still wreaking havoc here in our office.

While I commiserate and sympathize with the people who suffered most from the typhoon’s devastation, I’ve really got to say something about the misery caused by not having an Internet connection at the office. Shallow? Yes. Insensitive? Maybe. But really, I’ve got work to do on our websites and web presence and I’ll be damned if I let a typhoon get in my way.

I think for maintenance reasons our ISP decided to switch off its servers prior to the typhoon hitting, but now can’t seem to restore proper service to its DSL clients. It’s even worse than the way things were back in the early 1990’s internet scene here in the Philippines. At least then, computers still had dial-up modems — never mind that they connected at (the relatively snail-pace rate of) 28.8 kbps. Our desktops have LAN cards, but no dial-up modems to speak of! Ü
Right now, I’m in a Netopia cafe here in Greenhills answering emails and checking Friendster and Myspace (*ahem* that’s part of my job description, actually) on the company dime. There used to be a time (long before my time) when this company conducted all its intra- and inter-office communications through fax and computer print-outs and actual door-to-door messenger services, but in this age of email and high-speed Internet connections it’s easier to fire off one email CC’ed to several people, or to email high-resolution photos to the press instead of getting prints made and then having those delivered.

I didn’t realize how much took our ISP for granted until this happened — especially since the job I’m trying to define for myself relies so much on being online. It’s gotten so bad that I’m actually looking for work to do. I was able to complete creating a database and writing a report; alas, the lack of internet access means I’ll have to wait until God-knows-when to send those files to my supervisors. Or we could always use floppy disks (so 1990’s!).

Tags: Internet Dependence, Workplace Woes

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