I had heard a rumor that each state employee has multiple licenses to install Microsoft Office on their home computers (beyond the web app). So last month, I took a moment to download the program, installed it, but ran into an activation problem. I still had access to the Office 365 webapp so I just forgot about it, until we were sent an email confirming the rumor.
The key was knowing for certain that I had a legitimate rights to the program. I’m not an IT guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I can mash keyboards, and I’m not scared about nerfing our home laptop. I went back at it, messed around with some settings, deleted some stray items, and got it to work.
Like kids in the 50’s grew up working on cars, I’m of the generation that grew up messing around with our PC’s, those 286’s and 386’s. There was a lot of time spent sitting in front of the computer inserting one floppy disk after another for a big installation. The computer is a black box, but not a scary one.
Once in a while, all that time in front of the CRT is validated. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the highest and best use of my time, but at least it wasn’t a complete loss.