Flat Lining

I had a very important meeting yesterday with a potential client that went extremely well, all I had to do was produce a document that he needed and he was mine. Simple, I go back to the office retrieve the document from my D drive, print it, and fax it to him; in the bag right?

Not quite. I go to the D drive and the document that I’m looking for is missing. This isn’t any document, this is a very very important piece of paper from my State that allows me to conduct business in the State and they will not issue me another one. Basically, if I don’t have this document a lot of money will have to be spent in order to stay open in my State. Sounds exaggerated right? It’s not, this document must be found.

After applying CPR to myself and apologizing to everyone in my office for using expletives to characterize my true feelings of the situation I decided that now was a good time to do some Spring cleaning in my office even though it’s November. I almost always print out a hard copy of everything that I have saved on my computer just in case my computer crashes; a few months ago I did have a slight malfunctioning of my laptop that would have wiped out some files. My rational behind the Spring cleaning is that the document is laying behind a pile of papers that I have in my office and that if I start throwing away things I’ll eventually come across it; process of elimination. You know why our rainforests need saved? It’s because half of it is sitting on my desk, shelves, and floor in my office.

I start my pursuit and start throwing irrelevant and unimportant papers away. I’m half way through all my files and still nothing. Finally after about an hour of teetering between failure and success I uncover the document that I needed. Sitting on my bookshelf hidden between two trade magazines was where it was hiding. After my heartbeat returned to normal I faxed the document. The client called me back and is ready to do business.