In the continuing saga of random beeping and mechanical failures at the office, the infrequent beeping continued yesterday, along with the occasional blip in network and phone access. It wasn't so much a problem most of the time, except when the phone system decided to hang up on one of the more senior partners while she was on hold. Wince.

We finally decided to test the theory that one of the older battery backups had actually gone bad, and transferred everything that was plugged into that box to one of the other backups.

This morning the theory was confirmed. The backup in question apparently decided to give up on the infrequent beeping and started actually screaming. When I got in to work two of my coworkers were staring at it in consternation, since even though they'd unplugged it, it was still yelling its little head off. We tried putting it out on the front porch where it could scream all it wanted yet not annoy us, and then finally figured out how to turn the thing off completely. In the meantime, all network access and phone service seems to be functioning normally. I think at this point we're all reduced to simply crossing our fingers and hoping that this is finally a fix.