Murphy is taking over my work day: my laptop has been turned into a brick by the very application designed to save it from becoming one, the Restore program.

My week started looking bright. I had been having problems with my laptop for a while, and I thought restoring it to factory defaults and starting over would fix a lot of issues. Conveniently, my laptop has just the application to do this, in a few clicks. So I make sure to back up all my data, get all my applications' install files and take note of my settings to make sure I could reinstall my work environment in a speedy manner.

As I arrived at work this morning, I got ready to restore my laptop. And Murphy took over.  

At first it felt like my day would be wasted. 

But wait! Some good can come out of this, I promise

It turns out that, like many failures we have to deal with, this laptop issue has a silver lining: My laptop's hard drive is now being entirely checked and reformated. Hence, I will truly get an entirely refreshed, out-of-the-box machine. It will now be up to me to keep the laptop in working order.

YOU turn the problem into a tragedy

When problems happen, how we react to them makes all the difference. If I had thrown a tantrum, my colleague would not be so willing to help me out. I would have become a pain in the neck for him. In fact, no matter how we feel about a problem, it will not change the situation or the past. My laptop is unusable. The laptop won't care how angry I get at it. It cannot be scared into working. Only me and the people around me are affected by my reactions. 

If I turn this event into an opportunity for learning or if I try to see the good side of my laptop being a brick, it changes the whole atmosphere in the office. If I can't work on my own laptop, at least I can prevent everybody else from being peeved about it, no?