Presidio Sentinel San Diego, July 2014
By
Laura Walcher
I’m very well-known in (very) small circles as easy-goin’, gentle, soft-spoken, polite, diplomatic … oh never mind.
It’s all over.
That
was then. Despite my in-house techo-genius' insistence that it’s “me” and not “it,” I refuse to believe that my new phone and my new
computer don’t have it in for me. The phone thinks it runs the world .. Yet maybe it’s right.
At the merest breath, the tiniest shift of a finger, it changes all its
directions, adds endless new displays, dozens of un-wanted and un-needed
opportunities to provide information, education, direction, and l00 ways to
communicate, and heaven help me if I just want to make a phone call.
So
far, its sole benefit has been that it carries my emails, which, I grudgingly
admit, has saved me time - and gas, frequently needed to return to the office
to see what I may have missed.
But
that brings me my new computer “system,” which I’ll put
in quotes because a “system” implies a certain logic, a method, that one can use to
achieve a reasonable and understandable outcome.
No.
My
new “system” doesn’t talk to the previous system. The previous system insists that it’s the only one worth a damn. Do not ask me how annoying this has been, thank you. Then, heaven help you if you want to
send the perfectly written piece to the office or the editor. They will sigh, yet again, and say,
with immense superiority: “Laura, can you send me this in XXXX or YYYY or ZZZZ so
I can read it?”
Don’t argue with me; it enrages me further. In this techno-ridden era, I realize
that screaming at supposedly inanimate objects like phones and computers … well, that might get me ulcers or maybe locked
up. But at least it’s satisfying.
Especially since I can’t get any sympathy for my
rages; even those ‘round here who claim to love
me insist it’s me.
It’s not.
Yet
I know I’m not alone.
My pal, Pat Rosenberger, has a new computer, too. Like me, she’s a perfectly competent and capable woman. So why, one might ask, has trying to
manage it led to her back support for spasms; a neck
brace for aches and a bite-guard for jaw-clenching?
No
wonder kids don’t go out to play anymore. Working their computer games, keeping up with new “words” that only they and their
friends understand takes up all their time and energy. And how they understand it
may not be how you understand it - like “LOL.” I
thought it meant “Lots of Love,” but when I sent LOL in a condolence note, I sadly
discovered that to others, it meant “Laugh
Out Loud.”
xxx
