Can't live with it...

No one who follows, or even dips into, Dead Guy can fail to be aware of my love-hate relationship with technology.

 This time yesterday my fingernails were in serious danger of extinction, not because of something technology had done, but because a large chunk of it wasn’t there. Temporarily, I’m relieved to say; everything came back on line (as I believe is the correct term) as I was about to leave the office for a late lunch. But by that time both phone and broadband connection had been missing for six days. Six days!

 OK, not a life-threatening disaster for me, though potentially a very bad thing indeed for my elderly, infirm neighbour; she lives alone and her phone could be – in fact, has been – a lifeline. Despite urgent calls to the phone company, it took them three days to reconnect hers.

 Mine took twice as long. Time was when I’d have sighed with relief that I wasn’t going to be interrupted by the unignorable trill of the phone, and forged ahead with stuff that didn’t need internet input – which, back in the day, was most things.

 But technology invades your life, entangles its fibre-optic tendrils into everything you do and renders itself absolutely indispensible. If you need a bit of information you find yourself reaching for the mouse and hovering the cursor over Google without consciously thinking about it – until the screen tells you you can’t go there. And though I’ve always been the kind of person who is content with my own company and doesn’t need constant communication with others as a staple of existence, I have learned to rely on e-mail to keep me in touch with the big wide world beyond my office; and if the phone number listed in the directory doesn’t work, people think you’ve died or gone bust.

 Fortunately my office is only yards from my house, and we are a two-computer household. (For some reason I’ve given up trying to get someone to explain, the phone and broadband line in the house were working fine. I don’t think I’ll ever understand this stuff…) So though changing location every time I needed to look something up wasn’t a serious option, I was able to get to some (though not all) of my e-mail via webmail on husband’s shiny new laptop. But that threw up a little mystery of its own: why is it I can read messages on webmail, but it won’t let me reply to them?

 I was also able to berate the phone company using its own lines of communication. Not that it did any good; received wisdom was someone had cut through a rather large cable, and over four thousand lines were down in the vicinity. I suppose these things just take time.

 It’s all working again now (she said, crossing fingers, touching wood and hoping she hasn’t just invoked the Law of the dreaded Murphy), and with a little luck this post will shortly be winging through the ether.

 Whether that’s a good or a bad thing I’ll leave it to loyal Dead Guy followers to decide.

Comments

[Roy Innes]

A good thing, for sure. Look forward to your posts and identify with your technology ambivalence. Recently had my four year old granddaughter patiently show me how to run her DVD player.

[Linda Leszczuk]

I'm the computer guru at work. When I started here 20 years ago, we were dragging people, kicking and screaming, into the computer age ("I don't want that thing on my desk. It takes up too much room and I don't even know how to use it!"). Now, if the network goes down, everyone wants to go home because they can't work.

What a difference a couple decades makes.

[Lynne Patrick]

Thank you, Roy! Vote of confidence much appreciated. And it's good to know I'm not the only techno-duff out there!

[Lynne Patrick]

Linda, two decades ago there were as many different systems as there were people to invent them. I don't thank Microsoft for much, but they do have my gratitude for dragging everyone under the same roof.
You're 100% right about the way things - and people have changed.