When nothing works

No matter how much I enjoy teamwork, and how much more rewarding a result achieved together with your dear friends and colleagues is, and how much bigger these results usually are when accomplished together,

I chose independence over interdependence.

Today anyway.

The most important elements on my to-do list are all directly related to files stored on our server (Robert) which was hacked and thus down. Files to be sent to the printing house, all files for the telegram, all my other FR and PR files.

All other jobs waiting to be done depend on answers, help, clarifications, input and documents from other people/systems. Even sending an e-mail on boardinf-l is impossible.

Also the post office doesn't want to cooperate today. Percin and I carry 35 kilo of Y Vote materials to the post office. The people with financial power are not around, so we scratch all the money we can find together to pay for the stamps. The lady in the post office wants to make everything complicated and I have to fill in lots of forms. Her French is bitchy and unpolite, and when at the end of the whole process, I am 7 euro short on cash, she almost explodes. I tell her I'll run home to get more money. "Dépêchez-vous!" she shouts, while I run home to find 7 more euros underneath people's desks. Just before closing time I'm back, and the packages are sent to Greece, the Netherlands, and the UK. Pfffff.

Instead of opting for an ulcer, I chose to calmly continue to work on all those smaller matters equally important. Also Tena takes a deep breath and tells the computer that she can do this. She can stay calm. She can keep working all night long. She has a bottle of vodka on her desk for support.

As anyway most other CD members are out, I dedicate myself to assisting Philipp with fixing Dragan's phone and solving the mysterie of the annoyingly beeping fax. I play a little bit with photoshop to create a flashy button for the European Voice website. Luckily YOUrope Needs YOU! won the European Charlemagne Youth Prize, and a quick press release, twit and blog-update assured already some media coverage. And I finally did my laundry.

After preparing a nice salad for Tena and myself, we now continue our quiet night in the Head Office. Still e-mails to answer, Sparks of Future things to prepare, tickets to staple on papers, articles to write, my oh my oh my, maybe we should just ignore it all and go to bed?

11.05 PM. We are not going to bed.