It's Memorial Day here in the states.  Since there is no work to write about today, here's a true life mystery story from the OneNote hallway.



A while back, Karla returned a tablet she had been using to me. I had the tablet and the power supply in my office for awhile. After a few days, I decided to turn it in to our administrator, Lori. I placed it in her office.

We have a new tester named Carol coming to the team from another group here at MS. Since we had a tablet available, we did not need to spend money on a new machine and decided to take the tablet we had and give it to Carol. I dropped it off with her. She gave it back to me the next day. It turns out the power supply was not the correct one for the tablet - it physically was the wrong size. Additionally, the battery was totally dead so there was nothing she could do. Sigh. I checked Karla's office one last time and there was no power supply.

"Fine," I thought to myself. "Let me put all this aside for now and try to order a new power supply." I put all the gear (the tablet and the incorrect power supply back in Lori's office).

This morning I went by Gerald's office. On a chair in that office was the tablet and a power supply. The tablet power LED was flashing - the tablet was in SLEEP mode! Somehow the battery had been charged. Gerald had no idea what had happened - he did not even know where the tablet had been, nor why it was in his office. Looking at it, I explained the origin of the tablet and how Karla and Carol had moved it around. I showed Gerald how the power supply was not correct - but the power supply in his office was the right one!

While we were talking with some folks in the hallway, including Lori, we found out that someone had found the tablet in yet another person's office (Terry) and had thought to move it to Gerald's office. This is the "boomerang" effect - the tablet had gone away at one point, but now had returned.

That explained why it was in Gerald's office, but not where the correct power supply originated. I also cannot find the incorrect power supply. I even went back o Terry's office to see if the wrong power supply was there, but it wasn't. We're also left with the mystery of how and why the tablet was moved from Lori's to Terry's office.

I'm sure odd little events like this happen at every house, workplace or other dwelling there is. It doesn't make it any less odd, though.

Somebody please cue the "Scooby Due" theme music.

Questions, comments, concerns and speculation always welcome,