The Internet Is Down (Said the Man in Airplane Mode)

8:02 AM. Priority: CRITICAL. Subject line, in all caps: "THE INTERNET IS DOWN. NOBODY CAN WORK."

"Nobody" turned out to be Gary.

Everyone else in the office was working. Several of them were streaming music, which is its own ticket. We asked Gary to look at the bottom right corner of his screen. There was a tiny airplane.

Gary had turned on airplane mode during a flight. In March. This was the first time he'd opened his laptop since then, because he "mostly works from his phone." Which, to be fair, was working fine. On the internet. That was down.

Other outages we've responded to

The deleted internet: A user dragged the browser icon off her desktop and into the trash. "The internet is gone." She was not wrong, technically, from her point of view.
The dentist's Wi-Fi: "The Wi-Fi is so slow." He had been connected to the free guest network of the dentist next door for six months. It had a waiting room vibe.
The conference room: "Everything is slow for everyone." True. Someone in the conference room was uploading 90 minutes of 4K vacation footage to the company file share.

How to tell if the internet is actually down

Pick up your phone. Turn off its cellular data so it's on Wi-Fi only. Load a website. If your phone works and your computer doesn't, the internet is fine. Your computer is the problem. Which means you are the problem. You see where we're going with this.

The annoyingly correct part

Before you report an outage, check three things: is anyone else affected, are you on the right Wi-Fi network, and does toggling Wi-Fi (or airplane mode) off and on fix it? If it really is everyone, restart the modem first, then the router, wait a couple of minutes, and check your internet provider's outage page. Then tell IT whether it's "just me" or "everyone." That one detail changes how fast anyone can help you.

Names changed to protect the ID10Ts. Also, this story is fiction. Any resemblance to your office is your office's fault.