Mr Furious
I've just got home from work an hour late. The reason? Some halfwit bahoozle masquerading as one of the brilliant and talented people who make up my team of dear colleagues deleted a Very Important File from one of the servers we use for broadcasting, albeit probably unwittingly.

In the interests of my career and the reputation of my employer, I'll leave detail to a minimum, but the thing is, the VIF was responsible for a small but nevertheless significant piece of national television. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the system, we didn't discover this until I was about to leave the office, which was exactly when said item needed to be on air.

It took us almost an hour to find and transfer the relevant piece of media so we could return the broadcast to its proper state.

Although the initial bozine act got me angry enough (I take my work seriously:), my mood wasn't improved by my senior co-worker telling me to leave the office. Sure, they were right, my shift had effectively finished at midnight. And I have absolutely no doubt that my colleague was capable of resolving the issue on their own. But they pressed the issue when I wanted to see the job get done.

Am I the only one who feels reluctant to walk away from a Big Hairy Problem just cos the sand's run out on my day's work? Although I kept a cab waiting 55 minutes while we sorted the problem out, am I alone in thinking that clocking off would have been a dereliction of duty?

It's not quite the same level of magnitude, but you don't find surgeons downing tools at shift's end having just discovered their patient's bleeding from somewhere they shouldn't, do you?

I may just be a journalist, but I'm expected to do my job to the highest possible standard, something I strive to achieve every day. For that I think I earn the privilege of being able to leave the office with the comfort of knowing everything's working just as it's meant to.

And if I get any shit about the cab's waiting time, you'll hear it here first...