1 hour forward, 10 years back

This weekend, the time changed. It was a bit unusual because the switch happened earlier in the year than it normally does. Not a big deal in most places; My computers at home switched to the new time without any action being taken on my part.

My computer at work was a different story.

I work for a giant multi-national company with 50,000 employees. This company has billions of dollars and lots of resources at its disposal, so setting the time on a computer is a doddle, a trivial task, for this powerhouse paragon of corporate plentitude. Here's the list of simple steps I performed in order to set the time on my computer:

1. Notice that my computer's time was wrong.


2. Adjust it forward.


3. Notice, 10 minutes later, that it had been adjusted back.


4. Repeat step 2.


5. Repeat step 3.


6. Call the company support line.


7. Listen to the announcement about an excessively high number of incoming support calls.


8. Leave a message.


9. Wait 10 minutes.


10. Receive an e-mail containing an executable attachment, telling me to:
    
    
    
    1. Save the attachment to my desktop.
    
    
    2. Close Lotus Notes.
    
    
    3. Execute the attachment from my desktop, and follow the prompts.
    
    
    4. Reboot.
    
    
    
    


11. Perform the above steps, encounter an error message about another installer running, preventing this one from running.
    
12. Reply to the support e-mail, telling them about the error message. While I'm typing, a popup window appears and
    tells me that my computer will reboot in 57 minutes.



13. Send the e-mail.


14. Re-try the installation, thinking it will work the second time. It does.


15. Reboot.


16. Wait.


17. Enjoy my newly-corrected time.

I've never heard of having to install software and reboot so I can set the time on my computer, but I am only a small part of this big organization. So what do I know?

Honestly, as far as tasks performed within this organization are concerned, this one was relatively easy. At least I didn't have to go to a meeting and make a business case for setting my clock, or assign the time I spent screwing around with it to a task in the company time-tracking software.