Is a power outage a good thing or a bad thing?

Due to a underground fire in downtown Vancouver yesterday the power to most of the business district was out yesterday and continues to be out today. So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

From a business point of view, productivity of workers is zero unless they can work from home. From a retail business point of view profits will suffer - but if they have insurance, maybe not. But from an individual's point of view, on a gorgeous sunny summer day, I'm thinking this is really a good thing.

Yesterday all of the traffic lights in the affected area were out. That meant many police officers found themselves directing traffic all day. But today there are portable generators on almost every intersection powering the lights so traffic is back to normal - just a bit noisier due to the generators humming. So that's not good, but it's not that bad either, it's interesting to find out that portable generators are enough to run the traffic lights in a downtown this size.

Workers from the power company are underground replacing more than a dozen power lines that were burnt in the fire, it's quite an education to see on TV news reports just how many power lines there are down there. Education is always a good thing. It's important for people to think about how much their lives depend upon things they don't see because they are underground - and to realize their lives won't end just because the power is out. There is a difference between necessity and convenience.

Some of the office buildings are completely closed and there are chains on the doors because the elevators won't work, so even if the daylight is enough for workers to do work in their offices, they can't get into the building. So that means a lot of people must have used the stairs to get out yesterday. That would suck. But why are people even bothering to try to get in today? That's a wake-up call that should make them think.

Oh look, over there, it's water, it's park, it's beach! So if you can't work from home... you've won a day off, and it's a great one! Celebrate!

I was walking through the affected area earlier today (on my way to a courier shop that was not in the outage area) and I actually found an open coffee shop! It was on the edge of the area that was hit, so they were open, and according to them, very busy yesterday. They were not as busy today, and when asked, the woman behind the counter said "It depends on how you look at it" when asked if she was happy the power outage didn't affect them. She looked like she longed for the beach. Words of wisdom in a coffee shop, the right place for them really.

I won't trivialize the inconvenience to hotels and apartment buildings in the area without power - for them it's a really bad thing, but for the office workers who have the day off today, take time to enjoy the bad thing that can be a good thing "depending on how you look at it".