So it's Friday night and I'm at work, sacrificing my evening of possibly-drunken irresponsibility to the dark and hungry IT gods. Truly sacrificing, too -- the others on the audio-conference are actually doing something; I'm here as part of the application team merely to appease and give the appearance of dedication and concern. Do I care if our clients can't do their testing tomorrow? Not particularly. Will I get in trouble if I slip off the call and head home for DVDs, pizza and perhaps a triple-shot of vodka? Indubitably, neck-deep in it. So I remain.

Worse, my work laptop is locked safely in a drawer I can't open. So it's not like I could be at home and logged in via the VPN even if I could somehow get there instantaneously (Stargate, anyone?).

Worse still, even if I broke the lock (as surely as this problem is breaking my spirit) and retrieved said lappy, I'd be left with a laptop I can't log-in to -- thanks to some foolishness with static IPs it no longer joins the Windows domain; I've long since forgotten the cached password required to get in and mess with the IP settings. So getting back to the happy place where I can work from home requires: breaking into a desk drawer; rebuilding the laptop with the standard office environment; reinstalling all the other crap I use to work remotely, and; getting every password I use renewed.

Unlikely to happen at 9pm on a Friday, methinks.