Contingency

Posted by: Dr Ashley Tan on: March 10, 2019

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For as long as I have been facilitating workshops, I have always brought contingencies. I cannot recall the last time I had to use one, save for yesterday.

One contingency is to rely on more than one device. I bring my own laptop even though the venue might already have a computer.

Yesterday (yes, it was a Masters class on a Saturday) I went through the usual motion of opening the same online resources I had on my laptop on the desktop computer in the room. About halfway through the session, my laptop shut down for no clear reason. Thankfully, I could move almost seamlessly to the desktop.
 

“Day of the Dead – Band” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by mnd_ctrl

 
Having a contingency was advice I started giving to student teachers over 20 years ago. I have modelled that practice for all that time, but I have been tested just that once.

I still do not know what went wrong with my laptop. When I got home, I performed diagnostics and restored it from a disk image. It seems to be working fine now, but I will still rely on contingencies even if they arrive only once every 20 years.

Tags: contingency