I Love Technology……But It Doesn’t Love Me Back

I love technology.  Most days.  I’m sitting here in my car, using my cell phone as a mobile hotspot, and blogging away on my laptop.  Sure, I’m getting a few strange looks as people walk by, but who cares??  I’m doing what I want, where I want – well, for the most part, anyway.

When it works, technology is great.  When it doesn’t, it’s Katie bar the door, Whoa, Nellie!, and woe betide any IT person who can’t fix what needs fixed – like yesterday! (Where do these expressions come from anyway?  What the heck were Katie and Nellie doing, and ‘woe betide?’ Is that from Shakespeare?)

But I digress.  I’ve been having some problems with my home internet recently.  My service is intermittent and I keep getting ‘time out’ errors – even for something as simple as checking email.  (Something I do frequently – did I mention I have at least 5 email accounts?)  It’s very frustrating.  How can I play FarmVille if I have to refresh my browser every 5 min???  (I don’t really play FarmVille – or any of the other -Ville games out there.)

Yesterday I found out that my ISP has been bought out by another company and that over the next few months, they will be doing upgrades that will boost my speeds by 15X.  (No, I don’t have dial-up, but many days it seems like that would be faster.)  I told them about my connectivity problems.  They very nicely responded by telling me to ‘power-cycle’ my modem.  For those of you who don’t speak ‘IT,’ that’s a fancy way to say turn it off and then on again and see if that helps.  Why can’t they just say that??  Does it make them feel smarter to say ‘power-cycle’ and then have the person they’re supposed to be helping go, “Whaaaa???”

It was annoying.  Partially because that’s the same crap answer you get from most IT people when you tell them your computer/laptop isn’t working correctly.  “Have you rebooted it?”  Really?? After graduating from college with a degree, your best advice to me is to reboot????  It’s like having your TV repairman ask you if the TV is plugged in.  -.- (Just a little ‘anecdote’ for illustrative purposes – who actually repairs a TV anymore? You just buy a new one, right?)

Anyhoo – I plan to ‘power-cycle’ my modem later today, when I’m back at home.  Cross your fingers that it works.  Maybe I’ll get rid of the cable internet and just use my phone.  It likes me.  Most days.