I’m not an especially ‘techie’ person, but it is strange how you get so used to needing the technology which now surrounds us.
Take the Internet, as an example. It has become, at least for me and ‘she who must be obeyed’, more of a necessity than a luxury.
And that’s the danger, isn’t it?
I feel dependent on something that I never even needed just 10 years ago. Just recently, the Internet stopped working in our place in Portugal. I am currently in Dubai, so communication between ‘she who must be obeyed’ and I tends to be Internet-based. Text messaging and calls, mobile to mobile, continued to function, but not anything which required an Internet connection.
It was unsettling to find that we felt somehow cast adrift; incommunicado. Partly it is a money thing, I suppose.
Communication via an Internet-based conversation is pretty much free, but a phone call, even at cheap rates is not cheap! But it is more pernicious than this. It is a gradual, almost imperceptible effect; there is a reliance factor, too, as well as the financial.
A product has been created which really is very useful. It is a great alternative to the ‘old’ way and very quickly, even luddites such as I can master it. Then the Internet fails!
It’s not exactly panic, but it is jolly inconvenient, because a routine has been established.
At a given time, most evenings, we enjoy a free chat, keeping each other up to date and, if we’re lucky, even being able to see each other. Family issues are discussed, pet habits reviewed, even mundane issues are gone over. It’s great. Then it’s not there. All of a sudden.
I have never broken my leg and had to walk with crutches, but I imagine it would be a bit like having the support of crutches removed. Walking is still possible. A bit clumsier and awkward but do-able. But not as convenient. Not as simple. Not the way you have become used to.
And there is the delicious irony of the Internet provider which has failed to remain connected only having a telephone number to use for the support system.
I cannot contact the provider via email either. I end up calling the international 24 hour helpline, to discover that they work office hours.
It seems absurd and somewhat contradictory to be a hi-tech international telecommunications company and not have an email or chatline way of communicating. Surely this would be the favoured method of such a company? Other big businesses have them and it is a successful way of managing customer issues. Why, it is almost as if they are deliberately making it difficult to get in touch with them!
Not only am I not very ‘techie’, but I am by nature pretty calm and unperturbed.
Despite this rather sanguine nature, however, I am getting rather cross!
I am about to make a telephone call, as office hours are now available in Portugal. I will do my very best to be polite and calm, but I make no guarantees.
l Mike Gaunt is a former assistant headmaster at St Christopher’s School, Bahrain – mikegaunt@gmail.com