Help!

We’re a little behind on blog posts because of major—and literally life-changing—technical difficulties. We decided to blog about dealing with our computer problems and what we learned in the process. Read on to experience the highlights (and lowlights) of our “computer crash” journal.

Day 1: Sometime early February. The recovery drive is full—how strange. What’s up with that? Google the problem and find out that we are not the only ones, but the solutions offered are either written in undecipherable tech-speak or simply don’t work.  Ignore problem.

Day 4: A few days later. Pick up the phone and call the warranty hard drive tech service of our computer company (rhymes with smell). After an hour on the phone a different (and very disinterested and rushed) technician takes over our desktop and—faster than you can say “geek”—proceeds to empty the recovery drive. He also, unbeknownst to us, proceeds to disconnect us from both our online back-up system and our online virus protection system.

Day 5: 6:45 A.M.: Wake up and notice the icons for the virus protection and backup programs missing from desktop. Immediately log on to the virus protection site, download and reinstall, and do the same with the backup program. Breathe sigh of relief.

Day 14: Late Evening. Attempt backup. Recovery drive immediately appears full. Breathe deeply and call technical support.

Day 15: 2 Hours later. Still on phone. Mindfully breathing while drinking cups of favorite chamomile-lavender tea. No resolution. Anxiety takes over. Under strict orders from therapist in the house, we give up and go to sleep at 2:16 a.m.

Day 15: Monday morning. Ignore problem. By mid-afternoon the computer is definitely not working right, call in the hardware tech support department. Several diagnoses and solutions later—no go.

Day 16: Tuesday. 1:15 in the afternoon. Computer is acting crazy. I called my old friends at tech support, though of course no matter how many times we call, we never speak to the same person twice. There must be millions of them, sitting in a mammoth cavernous hall, in row after endless row, the noise deafening. They escalate the call to a senior technician. It is 5:30.

Day 16: 9:30. After a rollicking evening attempting to diagnose the problem we now know this support staff’s name, the city in which he lives, and what his favorite snack is. Really.  I am feeling delirious, so when Sri, my new friend, sells me a new wireless printer, 2 additional 1 gig memory cards, and two additional packages of ink, I agree. He tells me how much he enjoyed the talking to me and I get teary-eyed. What do they pay this guy? He’s good. At 1:30 we go to sleep, still slightly delirious.

Day 17: Early morning. I wake with a fever of 101.6, sore throat, and cough. Windows isn’t loading correctly. I call my old friends in the hardware service department. By noon, they give up and sell me a software tech support warranty for a couple hundred dollars. He also “strongly recommends” that I buy another clean-up program for the computer. I surrender my account number and am transferred to the software department. We get disconnected. I call back. We get disconnected again. I call back again and speak to someone in a different time zone and on a different continent. She sniffs in a superior manner and tells me that the tech support people on the other continent are very inefficient and that I can trust her to solve our computer problems. We promptly get disconnected.

I finally get a new tech support person who knows how to operate the phone and we begin to diagnosis the problem. Sort of. I decide to take a breather for an hour.

Day 17: 3:00 in the afternoon. The doorbell rings. It’s UPS. They deliver the ink, but no printer. I drink 2 cups of herbal tea in rapid succession, and breathe deeply and slowly. A client calls, frantically asking me where his work is. Richard calls in between meetings to remind me to take a break and to remember what’s really important in life. I take a prayer-break.

Day 18: 1:37 A.M. New day, new techie. I ponder the mysteries of psyche and personality. Software techies are a different species from hardware techies. First, they don’t use first names. They call people “Ma’am” or “Sir”. Second, they are too dignified (at least I think it seems like dignity) to laugh or chat, kind of like funeral directors or oncologists. My stress levels are definitely escalating. I make a note on a post-it about the importance of bedside manners. I guess their manners aren’t too bad because right before I go to sleep, one of the software techies manages to sell me a two-year warranty extension—to my hardware service contract! At 2:45, I crawl into bed with a box of tissues by my side.

Day 19: They deliver the printer. It isn’t wireless. I actually feel chest pains. Richard calls and says, “Take everything step-by-step. Slow down—we will work it out.”

The saga continues, hour after hour, day after day, and the misinformation, miscommunication, and stress escalate. I develop insomnia and wake early each morning with a start.

Several frustrating and anxiety-provoking days go by. Suddenly, I give up. I can’t do anything else until a technician comes to the house. I can’t get work done except here and there on the computer at the library. I have no choice but to accept that I am not in control.

I feel strangely free and light. I am not chained to the computer. I have an urge to giggle. Or skip. For a while a small voice had been whispering inside me that I was addicted to work and the computer. There had been virtually no boundaries between work/computer and life. I visit with a friend and her adorable children. I take a walk and buy some vegetables and fruit and a candle. I do some laundry and talk on the phone with another friend. Wow—it’s been ages! I make a real dinner with a few dishes, not just soup and salad.

I poke my nose into the various “departments” of my life. Where else am I over-amping, trying to control, not accepting, and seeing failure instead of opportunity? What else am I neglecting?

I thank God for the gift of the “computer gone wild”.

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    Last reviewed: 3 Mar 2010