A Great Sense of Violation

This was one of the worst days I’ve had in about as long as I can remember. As I sit here, I feel completely violated. My world has been invaded, and I’m not sure that it will ever quite be the same again.

As a sole practitioner, my entire world, everything associated with the operation of my business, is based in the computer that I use at the office. My time and billing software, my accounting software, my case management software, and, of course, my client files, are the lifeblood of how I operate.

My office is at the end of a building in an office condominium complex. The office backs up to a stand of trees that divides the office park from residential properties. It’s an extremely secluded spot, and it has, apparently, been just begging to be taken advantage of by some adventurous miserable prick. And, although I never really considered it until today, the building has no security system. In retrospect, that should have been a big concern for me, but it just never crossed my mind.

When I walked into my office today, the first thing that I noticed was that the torchiere in the corner was on, which it should not have been. I turned it off when I left yesterday. And then I noticed that the window was gone, and that there was a sixty pound rock, and lots of broken glass on the floor next to my desk. Then I looked at my credenza, and came to the horrifying realization that my computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and expensive JBL Creature 2 speakers, as well as all of the associated cables, were all gone. My printer was still there, but it was turned up on end so that the fuckers could pull the printer cable out and take it.

My whole business is gone. And with the crazy schedule that I’ve been keeping, I hadn’t had an opportunity to do a back-up in a couple of months. I lost my entire billing database and have no copies at all of the invoices I sent out yesterday, since I don’t keep hard copies, but rather save them on the computer as a PDF file. I have been having to contact clients to get them to get copies of the invoices that went out yesterday to me so that I can rebuild the database and so I know what their account balances are. I generally know what they are, but I surely don’t know the specific dollar amounts.

So far, I’m out about $200 to buy a keyboard, mouse, printer cable and a low-end set of speakers for my laptop. I still need to acquire a monitor and a new printer, since my present printer does not have a Mac driver and is not compatible with my MacBook. I will have to buy those over the weekend. That doesn’t count what I’m going to have to pay the consultant to come back in and set up my billing and practice management programs for me. It also cost me half a day of productive time today, since I had to come home to have access to a computer, and I can’t get anything done with the dogs constantly bugging me. This fiasco is definitely going to cost me more than the amount of my month’s rent, that’s for sure.

There is only one thing that could have happened that could have been worse, and that’s losing my license. This is as close to the worst case scenario as something could possibly be. And I feel completely violated, like I’ve been raped. At the moment, I’m unsure what I’m going to do, but I can tell you two things: (a) I am NOT paying rent this month, and if the building owner doesn’t like it, I will sue him for the damages resulting from the total lack of any security and (b) I will not stay in the building if a security system is not installed immediately. While I doubt that an alarm going off would have stopped this smash-and-grab, perhaps knowledge that there was a security system in the building might have deterred the motherfuckers.

Fortunately, it appears that they left at least partial fingerprints behind, so I’m hopeful that the police will find them and make an arrest. And if they do, the least I hope for them is that some big guy named Bubba with a scorching case of herpes decides to make him or them his bitch while they’re incarcerated.

UPDATE, JULY 3: This morning, I paid a visit to Office Max and purchased a new monitor and a new printer, as well as a new surge protector, because the bastards even took that.

It turns out that at least one of the morons left a lovely thumbprint on the glass, so my hope is that Columbus’ Finest will shortly be making an arrest and that they might even be able to recover my computer.

As of today, I’m out about $500, which doesn’t even begin to count the cost of the consultant that will have to come in next week. This morning, I told the landlord that unless there’s a functioning security system in this building by the end of next week, I’m moving out, and he informed me that there is a system in place, it’s just not active. Just dandy.