The Perils of Technology

Every year I do a post on thankfulness, but after the day I’ve had today, I’ve decided to do something a bit different.

I am a lover of technology. I got my first computer in 1998 (and that was late), a Compaq Presario laptop with a 13″ screen, 32MB of RAM, and a 2GB hard drive. $1,500. I did so much on that thing. Designed my first website (with the now-defunct Geocities — stop laughing), did a ton of digital photography using a very old version of Photoshop, wrote countless poems, and more. I loved that little laptop and believe it or not, I could turn it on today and it would still run (but not go online, obviously). It was my first leap into the computing world, and it opened up so much more for me. Those were the days.

I’ve had 10 computers since. I went to desktops for a bit, then decided they were too bulky and took up too much space, so I switched back to laptops. I had the fun experience of Windows ME. I spent $1,700 on a Toshiba laptop with a special graphics card and 1GB of RAM (which was a lot back in 2006) for gaming purposes (now? I can’t even run it. Sad). My computer prior to the one I’m using now had a monitor failure 2 years in that completely sucked patootie. And this one had a fan malfunction and was gone for 11 days and I nearly went nuts because I am such a creature of habit that even though I had a decent backup machine, nothing felt right.

I also have two iPads, and both were given to me. An older one which I use for writing, and a new one (Air 2) that I use for everything else. I am very lucky to have two generous people in my life. They saved me a ton of money.

So today at work I had a potentially serious problem with our computer. We only have one, and we use it for everything, including order processing, which is the most important thing. We also check email, and a lot of our customers email their orders to us. We also get regular important other things via email, so it’s essential that we’re able to do this.

I was processing 10 orders (yikes!) and I went to print them and got an error: Drive C: is corrupt and unstable. Run check disk. Those are words you do not want to hear 1 day before your vacation. Seriously. Any other day, fine, I’d (wo)man up. But 1 day before vacation…not happening. But, reality has this great way of biting because it was happening, and there was nothing I could do about it.

So I run check disk. Took me awhile to figure it out on Vista (it’s been 8 years since I used it at home) but I got it going. I officially had nothing to do.

After do some relaxation techniques to nip my anxiety in the bud, my mind wandered a bit. I’m very glad to have technology, and computers. I remember typing up my stories on a typewriter, and how if I had to make even the slightest change, I’d have to retype the whole page. (And let’s not speak of the horror that is correction tape.) And then I got two word processors (not at once, naturally) and that was tough because with the first, there was literally no font options besides plain Courier, and with the second, I had to put everything on floppy disks. And they are now obsolete and have been for quite some time. Luckily, I was able to copy everything onto my first computer, then back it all up, and so on down the line (I still have those original files somewhere on a CD). For a novelist, that wasn’t going to fly. So, computers for the win!

I ended up staying about 20 minutes late to make sure the computer was okay, and it was. I printed my orders, and then my toner ran out (of course!) but that’s a small thing when you think of what could have gone wrong. I am so very grateful that it was minor, and not something huge.

And in some ways it’s tough because we are so dependent on computers. For the few days I was without one (before I pulled out my backup machine and set it up), I was like a lost puppy. There are so many things that I do, so many things that are just automatic, that not being able to do them was just plain weird and a bit disconcerting. I need my intertubes dammit! Even my iPhone. There are so many things I do with it now, so many apps: my productive app, my pomodoro app, MyFitnessPal, Twitter, Kindle, Life (it’s a woman thing), etc. What would I do without them? I’d probably cry, freak out, and feel cut off from the world, but I think I’d eventually be okay. Eventually. Maybe. Perhaps. I don’t know….

So I am very thankful for technology and for my work computer in particular. I guess back in the day, my bosses handwrote orders or called them in. Okay, I’d have some serious issues handwriting 20 orders (as I told one of my bosses today – old hand injury) and some vendors do not allow call-ins. Sooooooo glad we weren’t set back 30 years by this.

So next time your computer is on the fritz, or your smartphone acts up, or your web browser is funky, just remember: things were not always like this. When I was a kid (in the 80s), computers, iPads, and smartphones did not exist. Life sucked. (No, not really. We got by. But things were definitely different.)

And somewhere out there is probably an alien race laughing at us for our dependence on technology.

Or not.

(This post has been brought to you by aching wrists, a hurting eyeball, and a severely stressed out secretary. But no computers were harmed.)