Posted by Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: The Report Dilemma

Roman was in a great mood that day, and having a difficult time hiding it as he got to the lab that morning. His cheery mood had gained the attention of the science crew, who wondered why he hadn’t chastised NE Carpenter’s sloppy uniform or told NE Briggs to tie his shoes before he tripped and knocked something over.

The reason? Rand was to return to duty today. He was sat at his desk in his office, trying to have everything ready before she arrived with the daily reports. She’d only been off a week, but Roman could swear that was the longest week of his time on the Sentinel. He had a mountain of things he was trying to catch up on before she got back, and he was nearly done.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand was not in a great mood. The week off had been frustrating. Rand hated that she was missing her duty even though Rogers had told her repeatedly that it was fine and to take care of herself. It had taken all week to get 2 decent uniforms back. TWO that’s all she had because the others had been ruined! Personally she should be on cloud nine, and she was. She wasn’t worried about on and off duty behavior. Rand was the epitome of protocol and regulation, and no matter her personal feelings, work came first and foremost.

But something was not right today. It was not the fact that all the over night shift leads sent their reports electronically, stopping her from physically having to run around the ship. It was not that the reports had to be sent back for corrections, or that she had a weeks worth to correct and file correctly (which was why she was up at her normal time even though she wasn’t cleared to start running again, yet). Oh no, it was her printer…it was malfunctioning. The ‘i’s were dotted with hearts, and the ‘o’s were alternating smiley and frownie faces. After an hour of trying to get the past reports to print correctly she gave up and went to the conference room. She got a 1/4th of them printed before that printer started messing up as well. She could NOT turn in reports with hearts and faces on them. At 0630 when she should be in the biology lab to give Lt Cmdr Alden his reports, she was still fighting with the printer. Finally she gave up and put them all electronically on a PaDD…only to discover the error was now embedded in the electronic files as well. And she was supposed to see Nibbles again today!

At 0630, Roman expected Rand to be there. But she wasn’t. It was unlike her to be late. By 0645, he was thinking it was very unlike her to be this late. He dismissed worries that maybe her ankle wasn’t as healed as expected and she hadn’t been able to return.

She entered the labs, having barely remembered Alden’s tea, and set the mug on his works station. She did not put reports down or offer the PaDD. In fact it took her a moment to realize that Alden was not in the lab. With what others would assume was an annoyed huff, was really anxious annoyance at herself for not noticing he was else where before putting the drink down. She walked down to the office, moving carefully, her foot taking full weight without problem, but if she moved too fast or twisted wrong sometimes it wanted to give out. Pressing the chime, she waited, and then entered, setting the tea down. One hand holding the PaDD staring at the horrifying thing, while her other hand fidgeted behind her back. She didn’t know how to make the computer fix the error.

Yeoman Rand

The chime rang at last and Roman called to come in. Rand set the tea on his desk, holding a PaDD. Her hand was behind her back. “Ah, Rand! You’re back. Late, but I’m glad to see you back on duty,” he said. “Those are the daily reports?” He asked, gesturing to the PaDD. “What’s wrong?” She wasn’t putting the PaDD on his desk, in fact, she seemed to be staring at it as if it were the Klingon’s new horrifying delicacy.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand nodded, still staring at the horror that was the daily reports. “Yes Sir, I’m late,” she didn’t give a reason or an excuse. She nodded and then shook her head adimantly, “They are the reports…no, no they’re not,” she said a little too quickly and even snatched the PaDD away as if he was going to steal the PaDD from her and see the monstrosity mocking her from the screen. “I thought it was just a printer error, but now it’s in the electronic file too.” Rand was decent with computers, used them all day long, could correct simple errors and malfunctions, but this was something entirely beyond her. She wanted to say it took someone with computer programming knowledge, but she didn’t know, only that whomever had pulled this prank new more about computers than she did. “I can’t give you these, I can’t give anyone these. I tried, but I don’t know how to fix it.” Reluctantly she slowly set the PaDD on his desk wishing it would just fix itself. She was mad, evidence by her clenched jaw, but she as also extremely flustered and embarrassed, evidenced by her hands clasped into the small of her back.

Yeoman Rand

“What’s wrong with them?” Roman asked after she snatched the PaDD away. “What’s in the files?” Were they wrong? Finally, she set the PaDD on his desk and he looked at the reports… they were written in what looked to be a mock-up of Rand’s handwriting, except in the style of primary school girls, with hearts on the i’s and flowers and things drawn all over them. It was entirely unprofessional and absolutely something he’d never ever expect Rand to do. “What is this? I can’t use these. Who could’ve done this?”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“I know!” oops…she didn’t mean to be frustrated with him, it wasn’t his fault. “They were fine when they were sent to me, I transferred them over and they were fine on the computer, but they printed that way. I tried the conference room, still they printed that way. So I just sent them to the PaDD but when I did that, the electronic file changed to match. I tried rewriting them by hand but as soon as I saved the file, it…it…it was THAT!” She pointed at the PaDD like it was Mr Wyvern’s twin or something. “I can’t give that to you or Cpt Rogers! I tried to fix it, but I don’t know enough to figure out how to reprogram the computer. I mean it’s one thing to mess with my uniforms, and mess up the labels on the bridge drinks, but the reports?”

Yeoman Rand

No, these reports wouldn’t do at all. “Try my computer,” he said. “And Engineering can have a look at yours.” He didn’t know enough about computer to fix it himself either. It was obvious he was irritated, his morning good mood ruined by the stupid report prank. But not at her. And then he paused. “Hang on, your uniforms?”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

She sat down at his console and his computer looked fine, she was able to pull all of the lab reports and personnel and incident reports that went to him to his console and they were fine. But she couldn’t pull the captain’s reports without inputting her credentials. “Before I broke my foot. Someone got ahold of my uniforms in the laundry. Cut them up and pieced together gold, red, and blue uniforms together into one thing, put the wrong rank stripes on the cuffs, made some too long and some too short. Even after a week they were only able to piece together two uniforms for me. No one knows who did it or when it happened.” She finished all the reports for Alden and sent them to a spare PaDD in his office for him to sign. Then when she used her credentials to pull the CO reports…everything went weird again and she groaned in frustration. She logged out without doing anything else. Whatever it was she didn’t want on his console as well. She could NOT give Rogers reports like that. Rand already had the impression the woman thought she didn’t do her job well or well enough. Though she was super sweet to her while she’d been off duty for her foot.

Yeoman Rand