It's White Out!

Everything happens at the wrong time, usually the worst time, the time when everything was planned to go so well and what on earth could go wrong after all you have calculated for every eventuality....except SNOW!

For months I have been working on the migration to a new email server. Close enough to 200 employees, various groups and a business that is 95% reliant on email. I have been working on this for months, setting up the server (it's in the cloud don't y'know) getting the accounts set, checking groups, aliases, forwarding, making sure that the new server mirrored everything the old one was doing and even then I knew that come switch on I would be working until 2am on the Saturday night and in the office all day on the Sunday and then MOST IMPORTANT!!!! THAT I WOULD BE IN ON THE MONDAY MORNING BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE to make sure that nobody tried to log into the old server and that they were all aware of the changes to operation and then it would all be great.
Sunday night....I let the dogs out....no snow.... Monday morning....see above picture!
Crap!
Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapandutterbollocks!
You can quote me on the above!

I tried to get my car out, it went well backwards and then I tried to go forwards.....It didn't go forwards....I couldn't imagine reversing the 60 miles to work....
However...there was no panic, we have a plan for this, first we ring the 24 hour insurance line and then we get me on Kasha's insurance for Sissy and then I go to work through the snow aided by the power of the Land Rover Company.

This sounds easy doesn't it? It's 2012 and indeed Kasha's insurance company do have a 24 hour line. The 24 hour line is manned by a man called Jim, he is a nice man, his granddaughter is at Uni now, he has been manning the line for the last 12 years, he answers the phone to tell people that you have to call your local office because they don't have the ability to do anything for the full 24 hours. I think that it is nice that they provide a real live person to do this rather than a machine. It is good because as Jim says....he needs the work, and after the mills closed....or something like that. We get away as he starts to tell us about his ailments....

I need to be at work at 8am....the local office doesn't open until 9am, it takes me 75 minutes to get to work, and that is when we don't have the height of two large pixies (in pointy hats) of snow sitting on the ground.

At 9am we ring the local office, it rings and rings and rings. It is still ringing at 9:15 but at 9:20 we get a very breathless woman who has just fought her way through the snow. She hasn't got her coat of yet she says, we don't care we think but we remain pleasant and get my name on the documents.

This is great, I have never driven Sissy before and she is my girlfriends pride and joy and now I am taking her out for the first time ever in two pixies (in hats) worth of snow with ice underneath. This is a thrilling time for me but Kasha seems to want to chew cushions and wring her hands...women!!!!

By the time I get up the hill and into range of my mobile phone I have 32 messages from work....
Happy Monday everyone, it's white out!