My never-ending battle with Technology

Hey everyone! So there has been a minor, well actually quite major, change of plans in terms of the post I wanted to upload today. Last night I spent a good two hours writing what I think was one of my best posts. I hit that save button because I never trust Murphy’s law or my luck when it comes to the digital world and went to sleep, thinking that all was right with the world. Oh, how wrong I was.

This morning, I wake up relatively early to go for a run. Yes, you read that correctly. I went for a run by choice, without any external motivation (like my dad or something big and scary chasing me) because I’m trying to solidify my healthy mindset. And while it was exhausting and a wee bit unpleasant due to some lactic acid build-up (I may have gone a bit overboard with my workout two days ago), my morning was still looking to be in pretty good shape. I came upstairs, thinking that I would hop in the shower, have some breakfast and edit my blog so that it is ready well before the time I want to post it. See? My intentions were nothing but pure. However, something deep inside me told me to edit my blog before my shower. Let’s call it gut instinct or a supreme being sending me a message.

So, I get to my desk, where my laptop has been peacefully charging overnight, and open it up. I hit the power button and wait for it to whir into action, a beautiful arctic landscape with some Gentoo penguins greets me on my lock screen. I log in, open word and wait for my post to load. I wait. And wait. And wait. And … nothing comes up. I then start to think that maybe I’m being a bit of a techno dummy and saved it somewhere else or under a different name, so I go hunting through my documents only to discover that my post has disappeared. During the night, my laptop had an automatic update, and somehow during that process, my magnificent blog post got eaten and is now floating in cyberspace. Never to see the light of a screen again.

I know this sounds incredibly dramatic, but I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s nothing short of soul-crushing when you work on something for so long and then, through no fault of your own, technology decides they’d like to test your sanity and throw a curveball your way. Then all of your hard work is no longer, and the only proof you have that it ever existed is a crumpled-up page of planning and the wasted hours of your life because there is nothing to show for it now.

Am I the only person technology hates? Because I can’t understand what lousy karma I am putting out into the world that equates to this happening to me. Multiple times. Oh yes. This isn’t the first time that technology, which is supposed to make life easier let’s note, has royally messed me up and left me two inches away from putting my fist through a wall. During my grade 12 year in high school, I had to write a composition for music. I spent my entire half-term break working on it, and by the time I went back to school, my piece was five minutes long and sounded quite pretty, for an amateur that’s never written music before. Unfortunately for me, my laptop crashed. My work had been saved, but because I was using composition software, the crash meant that my saved file was corrupted. My piece was there, and yet I couldn’t open it, retrieve it or play it. So I essentially had to start from scratch. That was a fantastic day …

There have been documents that didn’t save, files that have mysteriously been erased, presentations that worked perfectly the night before yet as soon as it is time to present nothing seems to be behaving, and don’t even get me started on printers. I swear that printers wait for you to need them desperately before they decide it’s time to shut off and refuse to work. It only happens to you once – where you have a significant paper due, and you think you can print the morning of, only for the printer to decide that your submission just isn’t going to happen – for you to all of a sudden be extremely precautious when it comes to deadlines. Now, I make a habit of finishing assignments that need printing at least two days before the deadline so that if the printer decides to behave like evil reincarnated, I have enough wiggle room to come up with a backup plan. Why is technology so dreadful? We shouldn’t need to be this nervous that our digital devices will fail on us when we need them most, because they are supposed to be easier and more reliable than good, old-fashioned pen and paper. Well, I hate to break it to devices of the world, but I’m getting more and more tempted to going back to my notebook and gel pen.

So here I am whining about the devastation technology can bring instead. At least my deleted blog post provided a new post idea, even though I prefer to be a little more prepared than I am writing this now. Tomorrow I will most likely try to rewrite that blog post so that I can still share it with you, even though it brings tears to my eyes thinking of how good that post felt and that I may not be able to recreate it to the beautiful state it once was.

Now that I’ve had my rant, by the way, thank you all for reading it, I’ll concede that I don’t hate technology. I may have an extreme dislike for it at this moment in time, and it certainly hasn’t been kind to me at the best of times, but in spite of all these flaws, I can’t deny that it is still amazing and useful. My laptop is still my best friend when it comes to writing. I don’t think I would last a week without my phone (my entire life is essentially on that thing). I’m sure you’ve all felt your hearts drop when you think you’ve lost your phone and start searching frantically for it, even though it is just hidden in or under something. Plus it is so useful when travelling to be able to pack only my laptop, phone, a book or two and chargers instead of carting notebooks, stationery, a dozen more books and a stack of DVDs. Okay if I’m honest, I still end up packing notebooks, stationery and a dozen more books but the thought is there that the technology is making things easier.

On the flip side, though, I am going to be even more anxious and cautious when it comes to using the digital world for important things. If that’s possible. For instance, I’ll most likely end up saving my work multiple times in multiple places and taking pictures of it for safety and insurance purposes. Because clearly, even the full-proof ‘save’ button has moments when it decides not to function correctly. I think I’m about as cautious and paranoid as a person can get when using a printer, so I won’t be making any changes there yet, but I’ll let you know if anything new happens to change that.

What I would like to know is: is it just me? Am I the only person that technology hates? Do you have any horror stories when you have been counting on the digital sphere to save your hide and instead makes the situation worse? Please let me know in the comments section because I am starting to need assurance that this happens to other people. Otherwise, I have somehow angered cyberspace and all things digital and have a lot of grovelling to do to get my curse lifted.

Other than that, that is all I have for you today everyone. I know this post was mostly my raging about technology’s vendetta against me, but thank you for reading just the same. Please don’t forget to let me know your technological qualms or troubles, I’d love to sympathise with you, and maybe we can virtually sob over our lost work and eat ice cream together? Apart from that, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend free of any technological problems. I’ll see you Wednesday hopefully with a post that hasn’t been swallowed up into cyberspace.

Lots of Love
Blondey on a Mission xxx