I just spent most of a day trying to figure out why my desktop computer is now taking almost 5 minutes to finish its boot sequence. Regardless of what is actually wrong, it was a day that I really couldn't afford. This "futzing" is part of the missing productivity that I'm talking about.

There are a number of excuses for my system having problems, but there are no good reasons. The most obvious excuse is that my system is complex enough that few computer professionals have dealt with any other small LAN system as complex. Actually, if you look at the hardware and software list you'll find these systems are not all that complex. Most of the complexity surrounds my desktop workstation and the myriad of things I have it doing almost all of the time it is up. The point is that I really don't have as much running on it as I have had in the past on a Unix workstation doing much the same type of work.

The difference is that I used to do all my work with and for other Unix professionals at a time when the end product, the report or letter or fax, was the only thing the recipient saw. I could use the tools that were available in that environment with occasional lapses into things like the Unix port of MS Word or Word Perfect or Lotus 123. Rarely did I have to send someone a particularly formatted document electronically.

Today, much of my work involves sending and receiving  e-mail attachments consisting of variously formatted documents, spreadsheets, diagrams and such from a variety of Microsoft (and sometimes Lotus or Corel) software of various versions and lineages.