I write this as Frankenstorm is bearing down on the nation’s eastern seaboard and am hoping and praying that everyone there stays safe and that Sandy doesn’t wreak too much havoc and destruction. At the same time, I personally am in the middle of my very own storm: the perfect storm of technology break-downs.
They say you can judge a person’s true character by how they handle adversity. I don’t know if I passed any character test this past week, but I’ve certainly been subjected to some adversity.
In the span of 48 hours last week, both my laptop and desktop computers crashed and I got a new IPhone. This, my friends, is worse than going to the dentist or doing math problems for me. For several days I literally had no computer! (this is why you haven’t gotten any of my blogs, which I’m so hoping you’ve been missing!) What’s a girl to do?! I couldn’t work, I couldn’t post, and I couldn’t email. It was all very frustrating and enlightening at the same time.
What was life like without technology, I asked myself. I remember working at The Frank Erwin Center many years ago and getting the first ever Apple computers. I didn’t even want one; I loved my typewriter! Yes, typewriter, the same kind of typewriter I used all the years I worked in TV news. I also remember my boss Norah getting one of the first ever cell phones…for work purposes only…you remember them, those giant bricks?! We were so excited though! And what a momentous day it was when I got my first pager when Kristen entered Kindergarten, just in case the school needed to get a hold of me in an emergency. A pager? Whaaat???? It doesn’t seem that long ago, but I had to laugh and cry at the same time when Kristen, just this past summer, asked me what kind of computer I had in college. Computer???? LOL! The phone was still attached to the wall back then! Since then I’ve gone through many a cell phone, albeit I’m almost always one trend away from the latest and greatest gizmo. I may not be a techie per se, but I have become accustomed to my technology.
What’s very disturbing to me is that fact that almost everyone must use technology in some way, yet very few of us are technology savvy enough to fix, download, upgrade or integrate anything. If society can produce all these wonderful products, why can’t they be easy to understand and work with? I can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been just getting my new desktop up and running with all the programs I was used to. It’s not anything fancy, yet everything that is supposedly “so easy to install” has not been! And why do 1-800 tech support lines always refer you to their websites? If I could get to a website I probably wouldn’t be calling for tech support!!!! Grrrr….. I was literally in tears on the phone today with Microsoft. Yes, crying; blubbering crying. I know all you Apple users will tell me to get an Apple because they are so easy, I just don’t want to have to win the lottery to do so.
In all this frustration I can say that the geeks at Best Buy’s Geek Squad have been awesome and even AT&T has been somewhat accommodating after I reminded them that karma and social media are both very powerful! I’m still waiting on my laptop, but that has more to do with Toshiba than anything else. Note to all you potential PC buyers: my Toshiba laptop’s hard-drive crashed one month past its one year warranty! Yep, I’ve had it for exactly 13 months and it died…with no warranty to be found.
So now I’m back blogging, posting and pinning, but I’m happy to report that my desk is somewhat cleaned up, recipes are filed, books are read, and stitching has been done. It’s amazing what you can do without technology! I don’t recommend it, but when you are given lemons, make lemonade, right? I love reading, stitching and organizing. Maybe it was time for a personal wake up call. As Robin Williams said in one of my all-time favorite movies, Goodwill Hunting, “you will have bumps, but they will only remind you of the good times you haven’t been paying attention to.”
Here’s hoping my technology bumps are behind me. I’m ready to pay attention to much more important things.
Beyond Words 