Old age and technology do not sit comfortably together which is a pity as the older I become, the more I have to rely on computers, phones and the like.
Not too long ago, our phone and internet provider, decided that it was time to have a high-speed connection for just a few pounds more than I had been paying for a dire, slow and intermittent internet connection. I thought this sounded good, and agreed. I should have known better.
My landline phone used to be on a copper cable which tended to be a bit noisy so when I was told that I would – eventually – be provided VOIP through the computer (which they named grandly, ‘Digital Voice’), I was pleased. This was said to be high definition and carries no background noises.
The first thing that happened was that our phone (at that time still on a copper line), unaccountably stopped working. No background noise at all simply because it had been switched off. Not having a landline because of this ‘fault’, I reported it using my mobile phone. I was told (after they had run a check), that there was no fault. I thus asked them please to phone me on my landline number which they maintained was working for them to discover that – ooppppsss – they couldn’t reach me. Oh, and they hadn’t informed me of the date of changeover, nor had they sent me the necessary equipment to accomplish it. What wonderful customer service !
By next day delivery, the equipment was delivered which, of course, I had to set up. Eventually I was able to do what was necessary only to find that this new, super-fast and super-clear phone only worked within 6 metres of the router. Walk any further away and the line drops entirely as my wife discovered as she had a chat with a friend while she was wandering about the house. So this is what progress is all about.
Thus, this miracle of advanced technology is only useful if I stand close to the router. Happily, we still had a hands-free phone from former days and I was informed that with an adapter, it could be used with ‘Digital Voice’. Useful because it has all of our phone contacts on it, and it worked anywhere in the house. I requested the adapter.
Shortly after this, my laptop decided that it simply couldn’t connect to the InterNet. I tried everything in the book – finding that this ‘illness’ didn’t affect my smart phone nor our old, desktop computer – so decided that I should consult the local computer repair shop where I was served by a polite and very young man who listened to my comments. He said that it sounded like a software problem – would I leave it with him for about an hour ? “Happily”, I said.
An hour later, I returned. He’d managed to find the problem and was in the process of updating Windows, but I could complete that when I returned home. The young man treated me with deference and considerable forbearing. It was necessary as he is less than a quarter of my age. . . . . .so don’t ever tell me that young people are a waste of space.
I returned home, checked the laptop was completing a Windows update, and made myself a cup of coffee.
That’s when the ‘Digital Voice’ handset warbled at me, indicating it needed attention. This was becoming rather repetitive. It had on its tiny, tiny screen, a message saying that I would need to re-register the handset which I took to mean that the fault on my laptop had been caused by the same ‘blip’. I checked the User Manual for the phone indicating that I had to hold it close to the router and press the WPS button on that router for 6 seconds when all would be well.
My router resides in the loft over my study, so I had to climb the ladder into the loft and then lie down in the dust to hold the phone next to the router and press the button. Old age struck again, it seems. I think I got the wrong button as it seemed to reboot the router with all sorts of lights flashing on and off. I imagine that is when the damage was caused, as the ‘Digital Voice’ handset now has no phone contacts on it, whatsoever. It had taken me around 2 ½ hours to set up that list up originally, so I was not impressed. No backup available. Progress again ?
It is definitely time to bring back the cleft-stick runners.
Oh how true your dilemma is for our senior cohorts ! As one of the dinosaurs in the age of techies I fully shared your frustrations with all these new fangled "improvements" in our daily lives. We recently switched our TV set to an upgraded voice prompted technology called Helix, but have a new problem, similar to yours, in that our new router cannot even provide enough juice to work both the lap top and the TV set because they are in two separate parts of our apartment..seems that we need an extension or add-on gizmo to manage. Of course, this has to be bought from our provider!
ReplyDeleteThe happiest time of my long UNICEF career was being Representative in Hanoi where my office in the hotel Hoa Binh had no phone. The nearest phone was in a room three doors away in our admnin. section. What Joy ! Nobody could could call me from anywhere !!!
Since I resonated soundly with Ken Gibbs' News and Views frustrations re modern technology, I sent his delightful piece on that subject to my adult children. That's because they are periodically besieged in turn with queries/cries of help from me in dealing with internet challenges.
ReplyDeleteHere is my daughter Lisa's response, detailing her own exasperation levels, having resonated with Ken's piece.
Mary
FROM LISA HOLLNSTEINER VELUZ to MARY RACELIS, MOTHER
I sure know that very frustrating feeling!!
I just bought a brand new I-Phone 13 since the kids insisted my I-Phone 8 was outdated. Dhong [hustand] also had an I-Phone 6, which was even older and also apparently needed to be replaced, although both of our phones worked perfectly fine! After all, all we needed were texts, emails, photos and a few applications.
Well, we both gave in and each purchased an I-Phone 13. After exactly one month, the front screen of my phone disappeared. If I was on a FaceTime call, I could see the person I was talking to but the person couldn’t see me.
So I went to the Verizon store near me and was told I had to go back to the store in Chandler I bought it from, which, although called Verizon, was actually a third party working for Verizon. Interesting! So Dhong and I drove 30 minutes to the Verizon store in Chandler.
When we got there, the salesman at the third party store for Verizon told me I had to go to the Apple store where they would be able to repair the phone. They couldn’t do it for whatever ridiculous reason, even though I purchased the phone from them.
So now it was off to the Apple store, where I was told they would have to order a part to replace the damaged piece and that I would have to come back the next day when the part would arrive.
We drove back the following day to the Apple Store. They told me I would have to wait 3 hours while it was being fixed. Sheesh!! So we walked around and after an hour, I checked back to see how the progress was coming along. Well, after all that, it turned out that they wouldn’t be able to fix it and would instead just give me another brand new phone.
Of course I was happy although it still took another 2 hours before they completed the transfer of all my information from the old phone to the new phone (even though the old phone was only a month old).
It’s crazy how fixing the front screen of my phone became so complicated! In any case, all's well that ends well! But life before cell phones was surely a lot simpler!!
Lisa
I suppose most of us have had similar experiences, frustrating at the time, but funny to look back on later.
ReplyDeleteAh for the good old days when the diplomatic pouch arrived once a week, and we had a whole week to consider our reply and answer whoever it was who had remembered that we even existed out there in the boonies.
Warm regards.
Tom and Mary,
ReplyDeletewhat about those messages we received on a teleprinter? The telex from HQrs was another of those distant communication channels - to redress the time zone difference in New Delhi we had a roster for telex duty on Saturdays😀 just in case we had an urgent msg from NY on a Friday evening! I must have done this duty several times but nothing exciting came through except perhaps the transfer of P-3 and supply order confirmations for drilling rigs!!
Another important weekend feature was the dispatch of information by the Planning Section toHQRs on Fridays at 4.00pm by pouch !
Yet, we managed to deliver services to children and their families.
Sree
Hi Jim!
ReplyDeleteReading Sree reminiscences about awaiting telexes from NYHq after office hours. I remember you had a famous quip if someone called you from NY at 2:00 a.m. in Nairobi. But I can't remember what it was exactly. Do you? It's worth recalling.
Incidentally, I'll be In New York from June 22 to July 26. I'd love to see you and Elayne sometime then. Any chance?
Mary
Mary
Hi Mary, yes we would love to see you. We have moved to Harleysville, PA near Lansdale. It is reachable by train from Philadelphia, but on the line that goes the opposite way from Thorndale. Or, we could meet somewhere in the NYC area depending. We have a guest room and have downsized considerably.
ReplyDeleteIn Nairobi, I sent a cable or telex (?) to HQ (Fouad Kronfol) saying there were 3 motives that someone should call me on a Friday, or any day, at 2 AM Nairobi time (6 PM NY time). Often a meeting would adjourn at 6 PM in HQ with a question hanging. Invariably, someone would say, call Jim in Nairobi. He should know the status. And my home phone would ring because they learned that the office was closed and they could not reach the RD who was perhaps on travel.
Many months later, Manou called me at 2AM on a Friday. He reminded me of my request concerning phone calls in the wee hours. I had written to Fuoad indicating that reason one was that I had died and HQ was advising me of my death benefits. Number 2 was that I had been fired. Number 3 was that I was being promoted. Tongue in cheek, calmly and with a smile in his voice, Manou told me that HQ had met my indicators and I was being promoted to be the first Rep to be posted in La Paz, Bolivia. I spent the next 5 plus years with a great team of staffers and we seem to have had a wonderful impact in the country. Of course, I bragged that I was the highest level UNICEF Rep at 4,000 meters above sea level.
The 3 years as DRD in Nairobi, working in tandem with you, Mary Racelis, included 3 of the best years of my and my family's lives.
All the best. Jim
INCAN GOLDEN RULE:" Ama Sua,Ama Llula,Ama Quella" (Do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy).
George Orwell may have been referring a priori to the current GOP. He wrote, " The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command". Or was it FOX News?
More on the subject of today's technology replacing the old......
ReplyDeleteFouad
PS Jim... My own take on this was as Dir DOP when offices from far corners of the world called me at home at 3 or 4 am to inform of a coup d'etat or earthquake or other catastrophe; my reply was usually, "thanks for the info, but there is no one I can wake up to do something about the issue until 0900 am. EST !"
Subject: New York Times on the demise of the payphone by Melissa Kirsch
Last email for the next seven days from me on the last of a romantic vestiges of our previous life. thank God, Brtain was able to save some of its iconic payphones around the coutnry!
"A crowd gathered in Times Square recently for the removal of what the city promoted as New York’s last public pay phone. “End of an Era,” declared the news release headline, even though the era when pay phones played any meaningful role in New Yorkers’ lives certainly ended long ago.
One might be forgiven for feeling a bit nostalgic. Pay phones are vestiges of the analog world, before the “I’ll be 15 minutes late” text, when long-distance was a consideration and people on calls in public got their own private booths.
“People miss a period of time when a call meant something,” Mark Thomas of The Payphone Project told The Times. “When you planned it and you thought about it, and you took a deep breath and you put your quarter in.”
I’ve been considering the familiar refrain about smartphones, that they’ve made our lives easier to navigate at the expense of our manners, our attention, our safety while driving. We may be physically present, but we’re never really there.
Pay phones were stationary monotaskers. Before cellphones, if you wanted to talk to someone, you did it at home, at work or in a booth. Your telecommunications were contained to these discrete spaces, separate from the rest of your life. Pay phones may be nearly obsolete, but there’s nothing stopping us from reinstituting some of their boundaries in a post-pay-phone world."