Dating : Technology is Wonderful-Except When It Isn’t!

August 8, 2019. 5:47 am

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Being 65, I grew up in a simpler time. Changing a channel on the television meant standing up, walking to the TV and turning a knob. Television was limited to three channels, but was free. We, as a collective people, shared more in common. After all, at any moment in time, we were getting our entertainment and our news from one of three sources. We either sat and watched a program when it was on or we missed it. We could talk at the water cooler at work with colleagues who shared our taste in comedy, tragedy, sports or the mundane. If we were in a large metropolitan area, we might have a choice between two competing daily newspapers. Even smaller cities would have a morning and afternoon edition. If we were not home to answer the phone, we were not home, and someone would have to call again. When we left the house we were blissfully detached and able to just be in the everyday moment of what we were doing and whom we were doing it with. Families or dates at restaurants talked to one another without the distraction of cell phones.

I remember the excitement of checking the once a day except for Sundays mail. Letters from friends and family. Love letters from a romantic interest in another town, perhaps sprayed with perfume to evoke memories of our last meeting. We looked forward to the arrival of weekly or monthly magazines which allowed us to read more in-depth articles than the newspapers could provide.

My parents would invite friends over for bridge or dominoes. My dad taught me and my siblings these games and chess. My friends and I spent hours playing board games like Risk conquering the world or Monopoly, becoming millionaires. The Game of Life taught us about cars, houses and kids.

Outdoors meant four square, box hockey, tether ball or a swinging as high as we could in swings that today are not allowed in parks….too dangerous. I noticed this yesterday as I drove by a park near my school. The old swings, teeter-totter (seesaw) and merry-go-round were gone, replaced by a plastic playground with a not too high circular slide and a fort. Sigh.

I am reminiscing (I asked Siri how to spell this — one thing I love about technology. lol) about these good old days, but I don’t want to go back. I love the variety of media offerings. I love being about to ask Siri or Google and get answers in a second to questions I would have had to research in days past. The GPS allows me to drive anywhere and find my destination. I can communicate instantly with family and friends around the world. But, in the sweet words of a Joni Mitchell song, Both Sides Now, “Somethings lost and somethings gained in living everyday!”

Technology is great, except when it isn’t! My expectations of the world have changed. I find I am more stressed and this is not good. I want the convenience of instant gratification. I want the “Now” technology can create. And when the technology does not, work I get stressed.

A friend recently sent me a YouTube commentary on the impact of stress on the immune system. The fight or flight syndrome, developed to escape a saber tooth tiger, is literally killing us today. The theory espoused is that the response to stress is to devote 100 percent of our energy to fight/flight because that is what we would have needed to escape the attacker. The incidence of the such attacks would have been episodic during other times, and this energy could later be spent repairing and replacing cells, boosting our immune system, etc. But the constant stress of daily living means we are in the fight or flight mode too much of the time, leaving too little time of no stress.

Last week I returned from a vacation in the Caribbean. While I experienced some stress (mostly driving in a strange place even with GPS) I experienced much more relaxation time. There were moments I had to stop myself from worrying about work that was left behind. There were moments when I could get lost in concerns about the future and who I would be and what I would do when I retire. But there was a lot of time where I just relaxed. I realized how much I need that. Maybe that is part of what having a Sabbath, a day of rest each week, is about….rest not just from physical labor, but from the cares of the world.

But when I arrived in my office on the Monday following the vacation, the stress of reality returned. The stress was exacerbated by technology, or rather, the failure of technology.

Just before my departure, I had been issued a new laptop computer. At my age, sadly, a part of me dreads new technology, even though it is better, faster, etc. It seems it is rarely simpler, at least, one has to learn new ways of doing things that it seems one just learned.

I recently bought a new toaster oven when the old one I had used for years died. I made the mistake of getting one that also touted itself as a convection oven and oil free fryer, so my friend chicken and french fries would be healthier. It has sat on my kitchen counter now for two months. I have yet to open the instructions to figure out how to use it. I have been using the top oven of my double oven for all the things I would have used my old toaster over for in the past. Someday I will use this “new fangled contraption” as old school people would call it. I have to admit, I am not sure when that will happen though. I have a food processor that I did not use for ten years. I recently finally used it, but I still find myself chopping vegetables with a knife and cutting board.

The first problem I had with the computer was remembering the new passcode to open it up. The tech had showed me when he brought it the day before my trip. The numbers I needed were on a tag on the computer itself. How hard could that be? I typed in the numbers and got an error message. I tried again. I tried again. The computer locked. The tech who showed up reminded me I needed to add some letters to the number, letters it should have been easy for me to remember, but wasn’t.

Once the computer was opened, the second problem was the inability to print. I would send a document to the printer in another room (We have shared printers now, the old days of a printer on my desk are gone….its called “Shared Services” but I call it “Shared Scarcity!”) I tried several times and got no response. At the printer, a message said I needed to load paper manually. This was a first. I did not know how to load paper manually. I did the old “push lots of buttons and open and shut drawers” routine and eventually lots of stuff printed out. Apparently my screwed up computer/printer interface was backlogging other people who were “sharing” this “service” of printing. And my button pushing also caused the machine to send multiple instruction pages about how to change paper and fix a paper jam, etc. I have no idea how many trees were felled to make the paper wasted by my efforts.

I tried to enlist the help of younger co-workers. They were not more successful. We called the “Help Desk” and they sent out a tech who looked at my computer and, after checking all kinds of settings, pronounced that the problem was the printer. We call Help Desk again. The printer man came out. He performed all kinds of diagnostics. He told me the problem was the computer. “You got yourself and old printer and a new computer. They ain’t understanding each other. Look, the printer, she just does what she is told. If the computer doesn’t tell her right, she doesn’t print.” I thought to myself that this inability to communicate was a metaphor for the problems of the old with technology. Sometimes we just can’t seem to communicate.

So there I was in the Hell of a technology conundrum. Both “experts” explaining to me why it was the other’s fault. Ironically I had recently experienced the same thing with my Chase Starbucks Visa Card and Starbucks Company. I had noticed that the stars that were supposed to be added to my account for using this credit card were not added for July. Every month around the 22nd they add stars which I can use to buy bulk coffee or in store coffee and food.

I called Chase to find out why the stars had not been added. The annoying telephone prompts that required countless numbers to be pushed before you can reach a human didn’t seem to have a human option for this issue but directed me to a Starbucks number and website. I tried the Starbucks number, which also had the annoying computer prompts, no human and a message with the number at Chase to call. I finally reached a human at Chase. He was nice. He explained to me that it wasn’t until the next billing cycle that the last billing cycle’s stars would be added. I patiently explained that I understood this, but that that June billing cycle had came and gone and no stars had been added. After repeating myself three times and going over my statement with the tech, he finally understood and said “I see. I will make a report. It will take 10 to 15 business days to get a response. I suggest you contact Starbucks at this number……” Sigh. I always find it amusing and frustrating at the same time that big companies, like Chase, can tell you it takes so long to resolve a problem. It makes me want to tell them I will pay them within 10 to 15 business days of my due date….but that is another rant.

I tried Starbucks again. By this time I was on a mission. If I could not print at least I would get my (expletive) stars. Unable to reach a human at Starbucks, I did receive a prompt to go online and “chat” with a rep. I realize that this must be more efficient than talking…..after all, the poor Millennial, trapped in the customer care cubical, can multi-task with more than one complainant at a time on computer, while by phone he only gets yelled at one at a time. So much for a liberal arts degree in English Literature.

Once I got my chat guy on the line, he first explained that I needed to call Chase. I told him I had and they had sent me to him. Hummm, he typed, then asked me to explain exactly my issue. He then informed me that my stars should appear within 30 days after my billing cycle….a fact I had already told him I knew….While I was trying to chat he kept asking me questions about what was on my Chase bill, but when I would go to the Chase app on my phone, the Starbucks app assumed I was disconnecting and I had to hurry back and reconnect or lose the chat. It was all so comical, if frustrating.

Finally chat guy told me I would have to call and talk to a person at Starbucks. He gave me a number and an “incident” number to refer to when I reached Harry Human at Starbucks. It was the same telephone number I had called so many times before, unable to reach a human. He gave me the secret. I had to press the prompt for complaining about a store….the humans were more interested in that then my stars. That way a human would answer. Ha!

I called Starbucks. I followed the prompt instructions from the Chat….I got a human (I did not tell the chat guy I had already tried this before by hitting the promo for store complaint when there was no prompt for a human for stars issues, but that first human had hung up on me or I had been disconnected, maybe because I did not have an “incident” number).

I told the new human I have an incident number. Comically, upon looking it up, she explained that my stars would appear 30 days after my Chase billing cycle. Sigh. I explained one more time the issue. She then said, “It’s a Chase issue. You just have to wait until Chase resolveS the problem. I am sorry.” There was nothing she could do. I failed. I will wait the 10 to 15 business days and see if stars appear. Of course by then, the next set of stars should appear and we will have to see if this outage is permanent or episodic. Ha!

Meanwhile, back at my computer, I contacted Help Desk again. This time I got a call back from a tech who said “I am going to take over.” He meant, take over my computer, remotely. And he did. I felt like I was on an episode of Star Trek where the captain goes to manual drive because the computers are not functioning.

The tech turned the printer connection off and reinstalled the printer and did some other things, all the while explaining that it was not the computer’s fault and the printer guy should have known. Miraculously, the printer started working. I still don’t know why and don’t know how long it will be before the next technological glitch causes my fight or flight reflex to shut off energy to my immune system as a result of a new stress from technology. But for now, life is good.