The Network is Down, and other things you don’t want to hear in a disaster

“If you are a Systems Administrator, the refrain the network is
down is routine. Depending on the sophistication of your users, it
might be a more specific lament, such as the Internet is broken or
email is unavailable. If you have really sophisticated users, you
might actually get a real error message to work with.

“And if you work in a large organization, the level of
sophistication could be all over the map. Computers and the
associated networks have become so much a part of our daily life
that when they are not available, everything grinds to a halt. But
they have also become so user-friendly (to a point) that user
training has been eliminated in most companies for all but the most
sophisticated applications. End-users are expected to know how to
use the standard suite of office automation applications. But
rarely are they expected to know more than that. In fact, if you
gathered ten random people in a room and asked how the information
got from point A to point B, nine of them would look at you blankly
and wonder why you were asking them such a technical question.”

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