Technology is the Devil

Technology is the devil incarnate. It knows when it is crunch time, you’re tired, or you’re just not in the mood to deal with it’s crap and it picks that exact moment to throw a temper tantrum. My first glimpse of this was back when tamagotchi’s were a thing…you know, those little egg-shaped electric keychains with a cute animal that you had to feed or entertain… the ones that were kind of temperamental at the best of times. I was in the back seat when the animal started dying for the first time. Obviously, I was very upset by this, but no matter how much I tried, nothing I did could stop the inevitable. My mother even pulled to the side of the road to try and help, but sadly it was too late. Then, seconds later a new little digital character hatched and it started all over again. Little did I know this event would foreshadow my relationship with technology for years to come. 

Of course, this was never really an issue until I found myself on my own. In the golden days a computer would crash, I would batt my eyelashes at my dad and he would go to work. There was a lot of cursing under his breath and statements of “I don’t know what you did this time, I don’t think this is fixable” and then just like magic it would be up and running again. I miss those days! 

My first real battle with technology came during my grad degree. Sure, there were little hiccups and setbacks along the way, but one can’t truly appreciate how evil technology is before you lose a significant amount of work. Backups didn’t work, everything was corrupted and nothing I did had any impact…it was the Tamagotchi all over again! But unlike the forgiving egg that just repopulated a new digital pet seconds after a crash, this one took days of long hours to re-do a ton of work, making what should have been a fairly smooth weekend one of heightened stress and irritability as I plowed through work I had already done. This is never a fun time.

Now that I am in the working world things are not any better. In fact, I am pretty sure they are worse. I know what you are thinking; “But that is what IT is for” … what IT? There has been a never-ending stream of files that crash, fatal errors and general computer problems. Perhaps the best one was when I walked in to work and could not turn the dang thing on. Nothing makes you feel more incompetent then having to go tell the tech guru of the company that you are incapable of turning on a machine that should be an easy press of a button. Now the tech guru is worlds apart from our office and after a few more minor miss-haps the next big one was today. My computer launched itself in an update without permission and from there it did a full blown kamikaze. After 3 hours of trouble shooting and trying attempt after attempt (with a lot of internal cursing) I finally managed to figure it out and get it fixed. A true A-HA moment when the heavens opened up and angels started to sing…or maybe that last part was just in my head. 

So now that I have mastered this feat am I any better equipped to handle the next meltdown? (Because believe me, there will be next time) You bet! … Next time I’m grabbing the hammer.