Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
April 2006
As I sit here at
the computer in my office, preparing to start writing this months
Singing News article, I can't help but notice the twisty-spaghetti
conglomeration of wires and cables that run across the back of the
desk. Each wire and cord leads to and connects another similar
electronic marvel and gadget. It reminds me of the little can of
entwined earth worms that I take when the girls and I go fishing.
When did I become such a technical savant that I need all of these
complex machines to do my everyday job? The answer to that is easy
for me. I have never been technically savvy. I only have a cursory
knowledge of the gadgets that sit here in front of me. I guess I
use them because everyone else does and they say that it makes
life much simpler. Yeah right... I laugh at your promises of
streamlining and efficiency. Ha-ha and double ha-ha.
Most of us can remember what life was like before the computer
can't we? It really wasn't that long ago that we wrote letters by
hand and then mailed them in envelopes or called folks up on the
phone. We looked at books and encyclopedias. We played solitaire
with real cards.
I am not mad at my computer by the way. It has very literally
changed our world and there is no going back. Even though I can
remember a time when the days had no computer in them, my
daughters can not. Many young folks today cannot. They will
consider us very primitive when we describe for them the days
before computers changed it all. It will be my version of the
story my parents told about having to walk three miles to school
everyday in the snow and rain. Our children will place us in the
category of cowboys, pilgrims and other people on the History
Channel.
Let's see... connected to my computer is the terminal for the
digital camera. I can just barely get the pictures I've taken to
the computer screen so I can either use them as screen-savers or
even actually print one out. If I want to do anything else though
I have to be careful or a box will pop up and tell me that the
file can't be used in this format with some message that is
actually more confusing to me than those hieroglyphics up on the
cave walls on that same History channel.
I also have a cord coming out of the computer that connects to the
new video camera. It's all digital. There is no tape or disc. One
wrong button push and your vacation is gone like last weeks
newspaper. (I say newspaper in the singular and not the plural
because the Irvine paper only comes out once a week.) You can edit
your movies and add music and titles and all kinds of stuff if you
have a few days to figure it out. Maybe when I retire I will have
the time to go back and do all of those things but I'm sure that
by then all of this stuff will be outdated too and my computer
will tell me that this program can not support this file and
please call technical support to resolve the issue.
I have by the way, visited many exotic and interesting country's
by way of all the wonderful toll-free technical support numbers I
have called. You may buy a wireless modem in Indiana but the fact
of the matter is, nobody there knows how it works. Kentucky,
Georgia, Texas... it doesn't matter. All instruction manual roads
lead to India. They are the only ones in the world who know how
everything works. It doesn't matter that they have never
physically seen the item you are talking about. Some executive at
the corporate offices in Phoenix, Fed-Exed them a comprehensive
manual and asked them if it was ok to write their phone number in
the back of all their "operations guides".
I suppose we should all be grateful. Because if it had not been
for the great folks at Toshiba or Kodak or Sony, I might never
have had the opportunity to ask the guy in Singapore, "So what
time is it over there?"
I have noticed that in recent years, all instruction manuals now
come in about three different languages. A while back I remember
opening something up and there were no English instructions at
all. I did find a number for tech support though. It was hidden in
the back like they really didn't want you to bug them unless you
really had to. I could at this point begin a lengthy discussion
about navigating through the labyrinth of telephone menus and
options, none being the choice you want to make at each interval
but you just choose the closest you can, all in hopes of just
speaking to an actual person, but I won't.
"Haroo" the guy says on the other end. "Can you prease read me ra
serial rumber from ra rabel on the ropside of the box the item
came in?"
Please... before you write me a scornful and scolding letter, I am
not making fun of anyone's dialect. I come from the mountains of
Kentucky and anyone that hears me talk knows it. I just want to
note that I have never had a conversation with the lady or
gentleman who represents Hewlett Packard in the Peoples Republic
of China that we didn't reach a point in the conversation when we
were both saying "What was that you said? Huh? I'm sorry...say
again?"
I know that these are folks just like you and me who are just
trying to do a job. My amiable frustration is with that executive
in Phoenix who, along with his co-executives decided that it would
be a good idea to have folks who buy a camera in West Virginia
have to call one of our good non-English speaking friends at 4
o'clock in the morning over in Singapore to see if the two of them
can figure out why that doohickey on the right is always flashing.
Anyway, that's just the way things are now. I guess it's better
than walking three miles in the snow just to get to school. We
have traded that for three miles of cable behind all our
computers.
