Tied to Technology

Are we a slave to our tech? Do you feel a little lost when you're without your computer, or some other piece of technology that you use daily?

I've had that experience before, but it never fails to amaze me when it happens again.

The office bought me a new computer and it finally arrived late last week. The techies took it downstairs and did their thing, but then they had to take my computer to transfer stuff over. They used to come up to your office to do it, they'd get out their little laptop (it was almost a handheld), start up the process and an hour or two later, it was done.

Now, they take your computer with them.

So from Friday morning around 10:30 or so, I've been without a computer. I've been using our office laptop, which at least let me do my email. But I had access to none of my files, so it was really hard to work.

They called Friday around 3:15 (I leave at 4:00) and said it would be about another half hour.

No computer.

I called this morning when I got in. Left a message because I'm always here before everybody else.

Got a call-back. Should be about half an hour.

Two and a half hours later, they finally bring it back! So I'd been stuck on that laptop for almost a day, overall. It's slow, kind of old, and I had no files.

I felt lost all day Friday, and also this morning, too. Spent the morning researching stuff for our podcast that we're recording Wednesday, because at least that stuff I can do on the web.

So the guy comes up, shows me a bunch of stuff, and then we discover that he didn't bring my Chrome bookmarks over.

The faculty supports Firefox, not Chrome, so they set up Firefox for me. But I use Chrome, and all of my bookmarks are still on my old hard drive. He's coming up later today with some cables. We'll hook up the old hard drive to the new computer temporarily and bring those files over.

Until then, I still feel discombobulated. I can work now, and I have access to my files.

But I have no bookmarks.

Yes, I realize that's a minor thing, and I can just type in the addresses.

It's just not the same.

Are we too slaved to our tech?