I should probably warn you that this blog post about thinking outside the box is rather alarming. Pun intended, as you’ll understand shortly. 😉

Ah, the joys of working at home!

Yesterday, I was working when I suddenly heard four loud screeching chirps upstairs. They sounded as though they were coming from a smoke alarm that needed its battery replaced. But most smoke alarms that I’ve owned have typically emitted a single quiet chirp when it’s time to replace their battery. This one was four loud screeching chirps that sounded like a bird in utter distress (or hopped up on Red Bull) that kept happening every couple of minutes. In retrospect, that should have been a clue.

We have four smoke alarms upstairs: one in the hallway, one near the master bedroom, and two in bedrooms on the other side of the house from the master bedroom. Anyone who has ever had to replace a smoke alarm battery knows that it can be sometimes difficult to know which smoke alarm needs its battery to be replaced.

So, I thought I would start in the hallway to see if I could narrow down the source of the noise. I stood in the middle of the hallway next to the hallway smoke alarm and waited for the sound to repeat. It did, and it sounded like I was right on top of it. “Aha”, I thought. That must be the one!

Confident, I grabbed a 9-volt battery from downstairs, went upstairs to that smoke alarm, and replaced the battery. This one was on the wall, so I didn’t even need to stand on a chair or a ladder to get to it. I replaced the battery and waited.

Within a minute, I heard the four loud screeching chirps again. “Now it sounds like it’s coming from the guest bedroom”, I thought. I went into the guest bedroom (which is just a few feet from where I was standing before) and stood under the smoke alarm in that bedroom. When the sound happened again, I decided that alarm must be the alarm that needs its battery replaced. This one was higher up, so I needed to find a chair to fix it. So, I grabbed another 9-volt battery from downstairs (and a chair), and I replaced the battery in that smoke alarm. And waited.

“Screech, screech, screech, screech!” – the sound continued. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”, I thought. “Now, it sounds further away.” I listened again and when I heard the four loud screeching chirps again, I thought “it sounds like it’s by our master bedroom”. And when I looked at that smoke alarm, I realized it looked different from the others. “Aha!”, I thought. “That explains why the sound is different than the single quiet chirp I normally hear!”.

Alas, this smoke alarm was on the ceiling, so I needed a ladder to get to this one. So, I went downstairs to get another 9-volt battery (you would think I would have brought them all upstairs by this point, but no), and the five-foot ladder out of the garage. I carried the battery and the ladder upstairs, claimed up to get to this smoke alarm and unscrewed it. To my surprise, this one didn’t require a 9-volt battery; instead, it required three AAA batteries. Sigh. So, I carried this smoke alarm with me as I went downstairs to find some AAA batteries.

“Screech, screech, screech, screech!” The sound continued – but not from the smoke alarm I was holding in my hands downstairs. The sound was still coming from upstairs. This was not the smoke alarm making the noise.

So, I replaced that smoke alarm, and I went to the last smoke alarm that hadn’t been checked. “This one HAS to be the one”, I thought. I replaced the battery in that smoke alarm and waited – only to hear the four loud screeching chirps once more.

At this point, I’m out of ideas. Dejectedly, I walked back to the middle of the hallway where my search started with my head down. What could it be?

And then I saw it. Plugged into the wall was a carbon monoxide detector box (that looks like this one).

“That couldn’t be it, could it?”, I thought. I bent down next to the carbon monoxide detector box, listened and waited.

“SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH!” The sound was extremely loud, right next to my ear. That was indeed it. I grabbed yet another 9-volt battery, replaced the battery in the carbon monoxide detector, pressed the reset button, plugged it in and waited. Finally, no more screeching.

After replacing the battery in most of the smoke detectors, and bringing a chair and ladder upstairs, I could have fixed the problem in about two minutes (instead of the 25-30 minutes I spent looking for batteries, a chair and a ladder) if I had just paused and spent a minute or two thinking outside the box instead of rushing in and assuming that I knew what the problem was. Even if in this case, thinking outside the box meant considering the physical box. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Good advice when trying to address a problem in eDiscovery too – sometimes the answer isn’t as obvious as you think it is.

So, what do you think? Have you ever wasted time to try fix a problem that could have been easily fixed if you had spent a minute or two thinking outside the box instead of assuming you knew what needed to be fixed? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.