SAN FRANCISCO – With a global Microsoft outage stretching into its second day, researchers at the Digital Work Studies Institute are warning that only two days of reprieve from Outlook and Teams may not be enough time to heal the world’s office workers.
“Following just 24 hours of detox from the Microsoft Office Suite there are reports of office workers regaining higher brain function, and in some miraculous cases, the ability to have conversations with each other,” reports Dr. Andrea Wexler, speaking via phone for the first time in five years.
Asked what she thought about reports of Microsoft’s IT team working around the clock to get its servers back up and running, she wondered “why the rush?”
“Come on, it’s Friday. Nobody’s expected to get any real work done,” Wexler said. “They can just come back to this on Monday. In fact, we’re begging them to. Please…”
And while the outage has put the vast majority of virtual work on pause, some businesses are reportedly getting by doing something called “working in real person.”
“I just met my colleagues for the first time ever, and I think this is something I could get used to,” one government employee told reporters. “Like I wasn’t crazy about the commute and all, but after our meeting, some of us went out for coffee, and we really bonded over the fact that we all worked together at the same place.”
And while work-from-home employees are reportedly struggling to get anything done, Wexler recommends those folks find ways to pass the time, including watching TV, doing laundry and, in some extreme cases, making banana bread.
At press time, Hotmail was reportedly back up and running, allowing a total of eight people to access their emails.
