There are times you just assume everything will work. Then the unexpected happens and it doesn’t work. I had one of those unexpected events about a week ago when I tried to go somewhere and my garage door wouldn’t open. I tried with the electric opener and I tried it in manual mode. One of the springs had broken and so I was a prisoner in my house, at least if I wanted to drive anywhere.

A couple of days ago we needed to scan a document to PDF. The way that our office machine works is that it scans the PDF and then e-mails it to us. It just wouldn’t work. Then the lightbulb came on and we realized that some of our e-mail settings had changed recently. Once those settings were updated in the scanner, everything worked great.

Both of these situations were unexpected. It took a few minutes to diagnose the scanner issue and a few more to update the settings. Thankfully I was able to “call a guy” to replace the garage door springs so I was only trapped for a few hours. Other scenarios would take longer to resolve, unless you plan ahead.

Every now and then you should look at whatever process is important to your business. Determine how to handle minor issues. Make a plan should some sort of disaster strike. While these events may still be painful when they happen, preparation can minimize the pain.

I hope you’ve all read about what happened to a loyal reader when CryptoLocker knocked out a computer. I also suggested a somewhat inexpensive “insurance policy” that would make it easier to deal with such a disaster. Having the data on your computer locked up is a really bad issue and you need to at least have a plan in case it happens to you.