Well, this is perfect.
It’s Friday the 13th. It’s a workday. And Microsoft Outlook — along with Teams, Microsoft 365, and Copilot — decided to take the day off for us.
The outage started Thursday afternoon, Nov. 12, and rolled into a second day on Friday, Nov. 13, with tens of thousands of users still reporting problems Friday morning. Microsoft is tracking it as incident MO1550821, and while some people are slowly getting back in, it hasn’t been declared fully resolved yet.
Translation: No email. No “per my last email.” No meeting invite you were dreading. No 47-message thread about the TPS reports.
The universe has given you a hall pass. Use it wisely. Here is your official, very productive, totally work-related survival guide for today:
Full disclosure: I happen to actually have a scheduled day off today anyway.
So while you’re all staring at a spinning loading circle in Outlook, I’m over here staring at a much better spinning circle. I planned this day off weeks ago. I did not plan the outage. But I am absolutely taking credit for the timing.
👀 1. Stare dramatically out the window like you’re in a music video
You can’t check email, so you might as well look haunted. Bonus points if there’s rain. Extra bonus points if you mouth the words to a song no one can hear.
I can do this one all day. I have no meetings to get back to.
🪑 2. Have a meeting with yourself
Book a conference room. Sit down. Nod thoughtfully. Say “let’s circle back” out loud to no one. Leave after 4 minutes feeling refreshed and slightly unhinged. This is what leadership looks like in 2026.
Or, if you’re like me and you’re off today: Have a meeting with yourself on the couch. Agenda is snacks. Meeting adjourned.
🗄️ 3. Finally clean out that desk drawer
You know the one. It has 3 chargers for phones you no longer own, a granola bar from 2023, and a single AA battery rolling around like it pays rent. Today is its reckoning.
I will not be doing this one. I am off. That drawer can wait until Monday like everyone else’s email.
🎡 4. Spin the wheel and let fate pick your Vertigo song
This is the important one.
My new album Vertigo is out — Pop version already released Oct 30 — and we built a game for it.
No Vertigo vs. Paranoid. No mood battle. That game is done.
This one is simple: Spin the wheel with all 12 songs from Vertigo. Wherever it lands, it plays a sample of that song.
That’s your song. That’s your personality for the next three minutes. That’s your excuse to not do spreadsheets.
Spin it. Listen to the sample. Screenshot what you got. Spin again if you didn’t like it — we won’t tell. Spin a third time because your coworker wants a turn. Spin a fourth time because now it’s a competition.
Land on Obsession? You’re intense today.
Land on Avalanche? You’re dramatic today.
Land on Euphoria? You’re annoyingly happy for a Friday the 13th with no email.
Land on Vertigo? You’re dizzy, obviously. Sit down.
I’ve been spinning it all morning. It’s a lot more fun when you don’t have an inbox to feel guilty about.
🎧 5. Listen to Vertigo on purpose, not as background noise
Since Outlook is down, your computer speakers are finally free. No “ding!” every 12 seconds.
Put on Vertigo front to back. The 12 songs are meant to be heard as a full spin — Obsession, Avalanche, Euphoria, Vertigo, 1979, Turn of Events, Seen, and the rest. Pick your favorite track, then go spin the wheel again to see if fate agrees with you. It won’t. Fate is rude like that.
Don’t forget to save it and playlist it on your favorite music platform – do me a solid.
🎬 6. Start a Vertigo lyric video watch party
I just uploaded the lyric video for “Vertigo” to YouTube, and the lyric video for “Seen” is on the way. Gather three coworkers, huddle around one laptop like it’s 2009, and watch them. Discuss the lyrics like it’s a book club. Someone will cry. It might be you.
✉️ 7. Write the email you would have sent, then don’t send it
This is therapeutic. Draft the world’s most passive-aggressive, perfectly worded reply to that one thread. Read it back. Laugh. Delete it. You can’t send it anyway — Outlook is down. The universe saved your career.
I wrote zero of these today. Highly recommend.
📣 8. Tell everyone about Vertigo (Country) and Vertigo (Remixed & Reimagined) coming next
Because one Vertigo isn’t enough. We’re doing this in three worlds:
- Vertigo (Pop) — out now, the anchor
- Vertigo (Country) — coming January, the storytelling version
- Vertigo (Remixed & Reimagined) — coming March, the late-night driving version
Tell your desk neighbor. Tell the person in the elevator. Tell the IT guy who is currently stress-eating pretzels trying to fix Outlook. He needs this.
🍀 9. Practice your Friday the 13th superstitions
Don’t walk under ladders. Don’t open umbrellas indoors. Don’t say “Outlook is back up!” out loud or you’ll jinx it.
Do spin the wheel one more time for good luck. If you get the same song three times in a row, that’s not a glitch — that’s a sign.
😎 10. Do absolutely nothing, but do it with confidence
You’ve earned it. It’s Friday the 13th. Microsoft is down. Your inbox is frozen in time. Your boss can’t email you. Your boss can’t even email about you.
So spin, listen, screenshot, and share what you landed on.
When Outlook comes back, you can pretend you were “waiting on a server response” all day.
We all know you were spinning the wheel.
And I, for one, will be spinning it from my day off with zero guilt whatsoever.
Your Friday the 13th Homework:
- Spin the Vertigo Wheel
- Listen to the sample it plays
- Screenshot your song
- Stream (and save) the full version wherever you listen to music
Which of the 12 did you get?
So here’s the deal: Outlook will come back. Friday the 13th will pass. Monday will show up with a fresh inbox and absolutely no mercy. But today? Today was a gift. A weird, glitchy, slightly spooky gift where the whole world got a forced coffee break at the same time.
Don’t waste it refreshing your inbox. Waste it properly — spinning the wheel, blasting Vertigo, and doing at least one thing on that list that makes your workday feel a little less like work.
And if you want more days like this — minus the global outage, plus a lot more music — stick around.
Subscribe to the blog, follow Moteventure on Spotify and YouTube, and turn on notifications so you don’t miss the Seen lyric video, the Vertigo (Country) drop in January, and Vertigo (Remixed & Reimagined) in March. New songs, new spins, new games, and very possibly more perfectly timed days off are coming.
Drop your spin in the comments — which of the 12 songs picked you today?
Hey there — I’m Jon. This is Moteventure, my corner of the internet where music, movies, lists, and life all collide. Glad you’re here.