Late last month, my computer at work ended up with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Yes, that awful sideways unhappy face. I’m not sure what is worse, the unsmiling face or the blue screen. It occurred when a Microsoft update, already flagged for having issues, slipped through our IT safety measures and updated anyway.

The update had to do with printers/printing, and several other co-workers in the office had already had their turn with this dreaded blue screen. I was busily training our new secretary and our new social media admin and was a bit too smug in thinking that I had scraped by. But, alas, I didn’t.

Right when I didn’t need it the most, while printing vital information for my trainings, it occurred. Not only did the blue screen take over the next thirty minutes to an hour of my afternoon; but the very moment that the IT company fixed the issue, a phishing email scam launched itself from my email address to every email in my work email account.

That’s right. For hours and even days later, the secretary and I fielded calls and emails asking if the email which I had sent was legitimate or not. All we could say is no, it was not, and to please do not click on the attached link. We also asked everyone to run a virus scan if anyone thought their computer had been compromised.

What a disaster! Even the IT company asked me why I had sent an email to them with an invoice they could not open. I explained that I had done no such thing, nor had I clicked on any email like that recently in my memory bank of opening emails. In the end, we resolved that I must have clicked on an email a few weeks or months earlier, and when my email restarted after the blue screen fix/restart…well, the rest, so they say, was history.

It took me awhile to recover from that episode. Not just the calls and the emails that continued to arrive over the following days to weeks, but other things. Like finding out that my OneDrive had not been backing up for about two years and a half. After speaking with our IT company, they got it resolved. And now, they will be having a training at our office for everyone who wants to learn how to be active in maintaining their computers better.

This whole experience has been even more of an eye-opener to me about everything involved with owning a computer. Between my personal computer’s hard drive crash in November 2020 and this latest experience at work, I have developed a mission to better educate myself and others on social media, digital technology, and overall care for their computer life.

Yes, that’s right. I said it. We have a computer life. Well, some of us have a smart phone life and no computer. I only mean that there is so much to learn about navigating social media, understanding the world wide web, and being safe on both. It is our responsibility to at least become aware of things to watch out for that are not “right” with our digital device or devices.

So, there it is. My lesson from the Blue Screen of Death experience is to never underestimate my lack of knowledge. My goal is to continue to always be learning, not just about social media but also about every facet of computers, modern technology, and all the program applications involved in our new digital world including safety.

I hope this blog post has been beneficial to you. Please feel free to comment if there is anything you would like me to educate myself about and pass on to you. In the meantime, I am continuing to train the new social media admin on my current job. Skills include, but not limited to, desktop and publishing using MS Publisher and Canva and some HTML.

Next scheduled blog post will be on marriage on the second Sunday of May. See you then.

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As always, I encourage you to check out my book, “HONOR ONE ANOTHER: The ABCs of Embracing Our Spirit Within.” It makes a great gift for anyone. It’s a nonfiction, inspirational, easy-to-read, feel-good kind of book.

You can find it on my Books page, by visiting my Amazon author page or Barnes & Noble.

If you read it, please take time to leave me a review, donate a copy to your local library, and even place a copy in a “little free library.” Please let me know if you do at honeysucklepublishingllc@yahoo.com, as I am tracking getting my book into as many libraries and “little free libraries” as possible.

Thank you and have a blessed day.