Bill and I are pretty calm people, so it’s difficult to rattle both of us at the same time, but when we had a pretty near simultaneous panic attack, it was Katie who came to our rescue.
It had to do with technology, which should come as no surprise to anyone, especially anyone who is of our generation — too old to know the language of tech as native speakers but too young to throw up our hands in frustration and give up trying to learn every new thing that comes down the pike — which happens way too frequently.
We were trying to send out a mass mailing, but to different people. So we had to copy and paste the document, but then personalize it so everyone got the same warm and fuzzy feeling. We had already sent out four of these missives — sitting together in front of my laptop, the ultimate couple bonding activity in 2015 — when we decided to check our sent box to make sure the E-mails were flying as they were intended.
To our horror, we could not find those sent E-mails — initially. And then, when we did, it looked as if all four recipients were on the same E-mail loop so that they all received all four E-mails — each one identical except for the personalized greeting and close.
“KATIE!” we hollered for help. As her nimble fingers worked over the keys, Bill and I looked on anxiously. “You both have to stop,” she declared, “because your energy is scary and not productive.” She understood the nature of our concern — mortification at being caught in an obvious cut and paste operation — the height of E-mail insincerity.
Even as she discovered the problem — what looked like an interconnected loop, but wasn’t, thank goodness — she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this; this program is not supposed to work this way.” Of course it isn’t. I somehow always seem to stumble onto the bad kinds of jackpots and never hit any good kinds of jackpots (except for the Pop Warner Wildcats 50-50 raffle when Will played Mitey Mites football, so you can figure out how long ago that had to be).
I am constantly finding myself having to push past my technology comfort level. Use it or Lose it, Thrive or Die — whatever chant you have to invoke to survive in these superfast, constantly evolving technology times, you must, or get left in the dust.
It is a whole other level of challenge for those in the next generation up. I have witnessed these struggles closely as I try to help my parents with their technology issues. In some cases, it is the blind leading the blind. In fact, I am in the midst of an unfolding saga, and it’s too early to say whether or not it will have a happy ending.
It all started when my dad was doing his taxes this past winter. At 85, he is fiercely independent and proud, as would befit a PhD from MIT. He’s used to doing things his way. So it’s hard for him to ask for help.
In the middle of his Turbo Tax program, his laptop computer crashed, taking all his work along with it. With a former tax attorney son-in-law at the ready, we helped him resurrect his files in time to file for an extension. It was only a Band-Aid to the larger problem, which was that he needed a new computer pronto to do his taxes for real.
In trying to be helpful, I made a severe miscalculation. I converted from a PC to Mac years ago at the insistence of my children. I had resisted. I joined the Apple revolution kicking and screaming, but now cannot imagine life without the ease and creativity of their devices.
I thought my dad would get a kick out of a Mac as well. One of the best perks about buying a new device is that you can sign up for a one-year, one-to-one tutoring program for the unbelievable price of $99.
A believer in lifelong learning, I thought my dad could spend his retirement days going to the Apple store with my mom in tow happily learning how best to use his new computer.
Wrong. Two weeks after helping him bring the computer home, setting it up, buying a printer and external hard drive, and setting up those as well, he declared that he did not like the new computer. He already knew everything he wanted to know and he did not want to learn how to use it. Take it back, he said. Awesome, I thought. But then again, completely understandable.
Long story short: We needed a new desktop, so we are buying the new computer from him. He purchased another PC to replace the one that crashed, but this chapter of the story came with a whole other set of issues.
The first was that he didn’t understand why he couldn’t get Internet when he flipped the computer on. So part of our Father’s Day gift was connecting the new PC to his WiFi and setting up his most frequently used icons.
The next problem came in what should have been the easiest operation of all: setting up the printer. But the PC would not accept the printer’s setup disk. Initiate first phone call for tech support (from Calcutta). After almost an hour, the computer went into a series of automatic updates — 65 in all — and then the two devices still wouldn’t sync. Continue with a second phone call to Calcutta. Still no go.
My dad then wanted to return his new PC and start again from scratch, but has been back to the store to get technical support there. Apparently they have been more helpful than I have. As of this writing, he says everything is under control. I hope it is, but there may be a sequel here. We’ll see.
