Let me see if I can illustrate this.
I have officially been back at work for three days. Reporting is my full time job. (Yay!) I have gotten exactly one story written. Because for two of the last three days, my full time job has been regaining all of the resources I lost access to.
Think about your job. Can you name all the little things you use that are specific to your job and your company? What would happen if they were gone?
I never thought about it, either. But basically:
* I couldn't write in our word processing program and save it into our publishing program, because I was missing the right link. Therefore, I had to email stories to my editor. Doable, but not preferable.
* I couldn't use our email program, either.
* It took until today (Tuesday) to get either resolved. I started work Friday.
* I couldn't access previous stories to research a subject because I kept hitting the paper's paywall. I used up all my free pages Friday. It took a while to figure out that I had lost my free account when I got laid off, and to figure out how to get it back.
* I still don't have access to voicemail for the extension I am using. 5:30 p.m. is a bad time to realize nobody can leave you a message, as anyone who could fix this had already left for the day.
These are not necessarily bad things. The company does have to protect itself from disgruntled employees...like the recently laid off. But I just had forgotten how long it takes to get everything in place just so a body can do her job when she comes back.
I think...I hope...that I have all the bugs worked out now and I should be able to move full steam ahead. :)
