Does not Compute

In the old days, moving into a new house was considered the height of stressful.

Well...forget making copies of keys.

Or hanging art on the walls.

Today, getting a new computer has trumped that as the high intensity frustration experience of the century.

If you think about it, moving to a new computer is just like moving into a new house. You gotta find and reinstall your programs, program keys, you gotta transfer your files, docs and bookmarks into the new place.

On top of that, you can’t find anything. In a house move it's: where's the cat?

With a computer its: where's my sanity?

The technology has improved so much you can't figure out how anything works. That's a little, bizarre, no? Things you took for granted now seem like insurmountable obstacles. (Where the hell is the start button?!)

In the old days, a knock at your door was probably the neighbors welcoming you to the 'hood with a pie or plate of cookies.

Today it's more like this:

Knock knock. Who’s there?

Your 67 passwords from various sites and programs...remember us?

NO!!! I don’t! f***ck!

Hell, I'd rather build a new house. From scratch. By hand. By myself.

But instead, I get the distinct joy of jumping through hoops to gain access to the many sites and servers that my new employer needs me to get into.

It's like jumping a security fence at a prison only to find another one that is taller, built of razors and surrounded by angry gunmen.

All I'm saying is: it's kind of frustrating.

I'll get over it...

Someday.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Out my window I see a man wearing a giant, white space suit.

I’m not kidding.

From the office of my new job writing for a technology giant, I can see the laboratory where Space Suit Man does his thing. No clue what he’s got going over there. Something freaky that requires the wearing of space suits, that’s all I got.

I don’t feel so different from him. My space suit is office-friendly. The scientific jargon I speak is filled with acronyms and puffy words like ‘leverage’ and ‘bandwidth’.

My fellow space travelers in this capsule are kind to me. But I can see how life in the Cube can squish out the soul of things. Quietly, non-threateningly. And it happens quickly.

I get home after two long bus rides and enduring whatever weather the skies have shared. It’s dark. I feel confused. I’ve forgotten what it is that I usually do in my own space.

Perhaps it will come to me.

I sit in front of the TV and hope to remember soon. The kitty climbs in my lap and that’s real nice.














What was I saying?