Sunday, March 15, 2020

The power goes out in our office building right at the end of the afternoon prayers. The ten men we have scrounged together are praying in an open hallway rather than the conference room, keeping two meters away from one another, more or less. Just as the prayer leader finishes the mourners’ kaddish, the lights go out. At first, we think someone has bumped into a light switch again. Then we realize that neither the refrigerator or, more critically, the computers in the server room are humming. And it’s not just us. Looking at the other hallways through the central atrium, we see that there’s no power to the whole building. A series of cell phone calls confirms that no one knows why. Most of us retire to our cubes. Without anything to do, I fall asleep. I’m awakened by music. A support tech is strumming his acoustic guitar down the aisle from me. I wander over, as do most of the rest of the staff. He and others play and sing several songs by Led Zeppelin and Shlomo Carlebach. Eventually the lights go on and the computers boot back up. I’ve only lost a little work. We’re supposed to start working at home, but if our systems won’t stay up, we won’t be able to connect to them remotely. I start moving my project onto the cloud. Despite the health warnings, it looks like I’ll be back in the office tomorrow, at least.