It came to me last night as I was reloading Millenium Me (can you believe that’s the name of what houses all that I have in my computer?) on an old computer for the fifth time in a month in hopes that the difficulty I was having would mysteriously disappear with the Welcome to Windows screen. I don’t need to share with you that it didn’t. I will share with you that I hate it when I have a default difficulty and the computer screen goes black with the words “A FATAL DEFAULT HAS OCCURED.” Fatal is a word that should only be used in the news, or in the paper when describing someone’s car crash, not when I have lost a document that you can be sure I had not already backed up.
Anyway, I digress. We are on a personal computer learning curve the size of North Dakota. And that learning curve has taken us from a group that was going to use personal computers to enhance, simplify and organize our lives to a group who have allowed ourselves to become obsessed with getting something to work to complicate our lives.
Anecdote to make the point. (Do notice that I no longer write in complete sentences. This is a direct result of e-mail and the new language that takes away verbs, nouns and, in some unique cases, the subject.)
I recently spent some time on the phone with a potential client. He wanted our company to recommend a new computer and some software for him to purchase. He was concerned that I understand he didn’t want too much on his machine. He explained to me that he doesn’t like to bundle his technology.
“Bundle your technology?”
“Well, it’s like this. I don’t want to have one of those faxes that also answers the door. I don’t want to have to scan my faxes to my computer to send, and I don’t want my answering machine connected to anything other than itself. Something always goes wrong, and it’s best not to have your life dependent on one machine. That way, something is always working.”
Stunned, I realize that he made perfect sense. I know don’t want to bundle my technology either. Unfortunately, I have spent thousands over the last years bundling, and it would probably cost a lot more than that to unbundle. (My automatic spell-check tells me that unbundle isn’t a word yet, but I have added it to the dictionary, so now it is. It’s pretty impressive that we are now able to add words to the English language, don’t you think?)
He went on, gaining in speed as he went, and sounding more and more angry at the thought of the new technology he’d called me to recommend. “Another example of what I don’t want this new computer to do with my life. I was just down in the Dominican Republic for vacation. There isn’t much to do after dinner and there was a computer in the lobby of the hotel. One of the guests, a woman, asked if she could send an e-mail through AOL. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, ten of us men tried to get the e-mail through, but clearly the lines down there aren’t great and we couldn’t log on. Finally this young kid came in, maybe he was fifteen, and stood there for a minute. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you just send a fax?’ That’s what I mean. I don’t want to complicate things.”
I understand his increasing fear and anger. Why am I tracking all my stocks through three different programs? I log on at least twice a day and download all of them. The stocks always have the same gain or loss, but nonetheless, I still take the time to input all the information three times. I just can’t make up my mind which is best, so I continue with all three at three times the time.
Why is a writer friend of mine using a CEO’s rolodex software program to house her 100 (at the most!) friends instead of Outlook? She got this program a year ago, has downloaded three upgrades, and at the last complaint session, still couldn’t get it to do labels for her Christmas card list. (I didn’t tell her that it’s tacky to send out Christmas cards with labels knowing full well there was no way she’d get it to work before December.) The problem is she can’t download it to Outlook, so now she has Outlook and the CEO rolodex program.
This last thing is the best. I bought a new laptop two years ago. I dropped it on the floor (don’t ask) and the screen went out. I called tech support, where the voice at the other end suggested I send it back to them and not say that I had dropped it so I could get it fixed for free. To gain his respect and admiration, I said I couldn’t do that. I sent it back with the truth written all over it. I was then told that I would be called and told what it would cost for the repair.
Two weeks later, the computer showed up FedEx. I turned it on … nothing. I called tech support and got put on hold for the life span of a monarch butterfly before I finally got a man who believed I was a writer, and only because I might write something bad, he should listen. I always tell tech support that I’m a writer and writing an article about whatever is wrong and the reason for my call. I know it’s lying, but they always forward me to someone else who is usually well versed on things.
“Well, what did they do to it?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “They were supposed to call and didn’t. But shouldn’t you know what they did? Isn’t it in your computer?”
He didn’t bother to answer me.
“There is just a blank screen?”
“Yep. Is it possible they took out the hard drive and forgot to put it back? I have a lot of stuff on that hard drive!”
“Press down really hard on the ‘L,’ ‘O,’ and ‘K’ keys.”
I swear to God.
“What do you mean hard?”
“Really hard, until you can feel the keyboard pressing in on what’s underneath it.”
“What’s underneath it?”
“The motherboard.”
For those of you not in the know, the motherboard is what you are paying thousands for. It drives the computer.
I pressed down really hard. If you want to know the truth of it, I stood up and put all my weight on that mother… board.
Poof. (Poof is a word often used in the online forums when you leave an online ‘room.’ You just type it in and then disappear, and everyone smiles.) It worked, the computer began booting up.
“Who did you say you write for?”
“I didn’t. But, The New York Times, places like that.” I lied.
“Look. I don’t believe you feel safe with that computer. I want to send you another brand new one. It will arrive tomorrow, and when it does, you send that one back, ok?”
It goes on and on from there. I’ll spare you the details, but the end result is that in the end I had two laptops. I have the home phone number of the head of tech support for this company. I have been called by their PR firm, and I have a direct number to call into the number one tech support seat if I ever have a problem. I am sure you think that I am exaggerating, but unfortunately, it’s the truth. The number of hours I have spent accumulating this learning curve is not to be discussed.
So, get to the point, you say, thinking this has gone on just a bit too long. (Did I mention that someone in publishing told me that manuscripts are 30 percent longer now that people can edit on their computer and not retype each page with every change?) The point is that we should use a computer for things. But, we don’t need to upgrade what works. Don’t replace something that ain’t broke, and we shouldn’t get get more than one program for anything we do. One e-mail address is all we need. One fax program is all we need. One stock tracker (but which one should I dump?) is all that is necessary. And most of all, make the word ‘restraint’ a part of our screen savers. We only need one of those too.
