Hi. We haven’t met, not officially. I’m your Hard Drive, or at least that’s the nickname you would probably recognize. There are some technical terms involved, but that’s ok: “Hard Drive” works for me.
You haven’t thought about me today, I’m pretty sure. I’m not offended or anything—that just means I’m dong a good job. In the land of computer systems, if the end user doesn’t even know you’re there, that’s a compliment. Think about antivirus software as an example—if you forget you have it and your computer just works without viruses, that’s perfect. If every morning your antivirus needs to send you a message, you probably hate it. Our lack of communication is a good thing.
Which brings me to why I’m writing. If the little hairs on your arms have started to stand up, it’s not that bad yet, but unfortunately you’re on the right track. It would have to be pretty bad for me to break the code of silence and reach out like this, so I really hope you take this warning seriously because I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this again.
Hard Drives are different than other parts of your computer. If something’s wrong with something else, your system may start having problems. With the Hard Drive, files are either accessible or they aren’t. That means one day your Hard Drive may be just fine, and the next day she won’t even wake up. No diagnosis and a three-months-to-live prognosis, just alive and then dead, with nothing in between. For your home system, you have the cloud and all the usual backup for your pictures and stuff, so that’s not really a problem.
I’m the Hard Drive at work. I hold every file that you and your coworkers have ever made, including all the things involved in that huge project you’re currently working on, and if even part of the Hard Drive is damaged, you will lose so much data you won’t be able to finish the project on time and may lose the contract altogether. It could be really, really bad—way worse than losing some of your personal photos, which you took the time to protect.
I don’t know how long we have, actually, which makes this hard. I have all kinds of pieces that have to work together, and the parts that go first are usually the parts that protect me from power surges, and power surges come from the outside without warning so I have no way to predict them. Right now, I’ve absorbed a bunch through the years, and there’s only so many surges I can live through. I’m not sure how much I have left in me, or how wonky the power plans to be tonight, so this is the best I can do.
I’ve been working for you all this time, and I’d really love to keep doing it. I’m not trying to be a pest—really, I’m not—but I’m getting worried. We never know what might happen, and it may seem weird for a computer to care, but I get to see everything you do, and I’d love to see this project succeed. I can see the writing on the wall—I may end up being the reason everything fails, and nothing depresses and terrifies me more.
Thank you for listening. I wish we had met under better circumstances, but with the future this uncertain, I felt a;klsdlhf. A oiyhapod8fyaghikpphn raasdjvkh 1011010101010
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Happy Friday the 13th. Good luck.