Gabrielle, I love this! You are light years ahead of me because you can manage this blog! Once, I called the help desk for assistance and the patient man asked me to read the numbers on my router to him. “1128,” I said. “Oh wait, it just changed, 1129!” He really did sigh out loud. There had to be another number than the clock display but I never found it!
HA HAAA! This is also my experience of taking a computer course: the tecchie is speaking so fast, running through visuals so confidently--often without pointing to the line he is referring to on the screen--nope, not following, though it seems to me everyone else is nodding agreement--and at the end of 40 minutes of utter confusion in my brain, asks if anyone has A QUESTION.
I feel your pain, Mary. Luckily, our shared genes have blessed us both with such radiant charm of personality that the technological stuff doesn't matter at all.
One time, the system went down in our building - the only one of the local authority buildings affected. Someone reported it to the help desk and was told that's get onto it right away.
After about an hour we'd heard nothing so I rang for an update. I got a very sniffy reply, and was told to make sure that nobody turned on their machines and not to contact them because they are busy and they will tell us when it's repaired.
By 13:00 we'd hear nothing, so some of us went off for lunch - a rare treat - assuming that the system would be back before we were.
At 14:00, we returned and help desk had not been in touch.
"This is ridiculous", I said. (There may have been an additional adjective in there.)
It was still ridiculous at 14:30 so I said that I was going to ring the help desk. People told be not to because the IT people were sensitive and - we hope - busy.
I rang, and - feigning an apologetic rather than sarcastic tone - asked if they knew when the system would be back up.
"It's back. We sorted it this morning after you rang."
ME: (hiding my true feelings) You said you'd let me know when it was back.
HELP DESK: We did. We sent you an email at 10:30.
ME: (failing to hide my true feelings) You did what?
HELP DESK: We sent you an... oh... erm... (embarrassed silence)
Mind you, on the plus side, we did get quite a bit of filing - this was the 1990s - done.
Bren, this made me laugh like a drain - as we used to say back in the day - and also mightily amused the very many people to whom I have directed it. Thanks for brightening very many days!
Gabrielle who has me holding in my bladder not for the first time. I’ve just woken up in the Gynaecology wards at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. [Ed’s note: always best to overload the description detail of your prose work] After an anaesthetised sleep of wondrous depth after A hysteroscopy.
Fortunately, the hospital provides sanitary pads the size of a pillow, so no damage done.
Thank you for getting me laughing my bed socks off.
Well, I'm glad to have amused you, Pauline, and hope that your recovery is speeding along at a grand rate. And I am in awe of your restraint, I'm not sure our friend Les could have managed it, in the unlikely event that he found himself in the circumstance
Haha! I feel your pain, but in my case it's exacerbated by the fact that I was a technology teacher for twenty years. But, as I carefully explain to people, I taught the creative bits, and I had technicians to call on for the techy bits, which is why I am so very often stymied by the simplest thing now.
Oh, Louise, try being married to a technical type and find out how quickly you become pathetically enfeebled on all fronts! It's very sad personally and does not lead to harmony maritally, but luckily we like each other enough in other areas that we battle through ...
Well done and success I hope, but... you might encounter the fact that some astute programmer thought that building in an auto-save function would be smart...
I'm glad you liked it Bob, and would attempt a cogent response to the second part of your comment, too, except that, to misquote Renee Zellweger, you comprehensively lost me at hello there.
Gabrielle, I love this! You are light years ahead of me because you can manage this blog! Once, I called the help desk for assistance and the patient man asked me to read the numbers on my router to him. “1128,” I said. “Oh wait, it just changed, 1129!” He really did sigh out loud. There had to be another number than the clock display but I never found it!
Lorraine, you have impressed me! And given Mr. Los Angeles a morning chuckle, so thanks from both of us!
And again, thanks for the giggles.
Glad you enjoyed it, Anneke!
HA HAAA! This is also my experience of taking a computer course: the tecchie is speaking so fast, running through visuals so confidently--often without pointing to the line he is referring to on the screen--nope, not following, though it seems to me everyone else is nodding agreement--and at the end of 40 minutes of utter confusion in my brain, asks if anyone has A QUESTION.
I feel your pain, Mary. Luckily, our shared genes have blessed us both with such radiant charm of personality that the technological stuff doesn't matter at all.
Ah! The help desk!
One time, the system went down in our building - the only one of the local authority buildings affected. Someone reported it to the help desk and was told that's get onto it right away.
After about an hour we'd heard nothing so I rang for an update. I got a very sniffy reply, and was told to make sure that nobody turned on their machines and not to contact them because they are busy and they will tell us when it's repaired.
By 13:00 we'd hear nothing, so some of us went off for lunch - a rare treat - assuming that the system would be back before we were.
At 14:00, we returned and help desk had not been in touch.
"This is ridiculous", I said. (There may have been an additional adjective in there.)
It was still ridiculous at 14:30 so I said that I was going to ring the help desk. People told be not to because the IT people were sensitive and - we hope - busy.
I rang, and - feigning an apologetic rather than sarcastic tone - asked if they knew when the system would be back up.
"It's back. We sorted it this morning after you rang."
ME: (hiding my true feelings) You said you'd let me know when it was back.
HELP DESK: We did. We sent you an email at 10:30.
ME: (failing to hide my true feelings) You did what?
HELP DESK: We sent you an... oh... erm... (embarrassed silence)
Mind you, on the plus side, we did get quite a bit of filing - this was the 1990s - done.
Bren, this made me laugh like a drain - as we used to say back in the day - and also mightily amused the very many people to whom I have directed it. Thanks for brightening very many days!
I can now laugh at this (immoderately), but at the time I discovered levels of fury that I didn't know existed.
Forgot to say
See what I did there? Avoided the lamentably poor pun of writing the screamer ‘HYSTERICAL!’
Gabrielle who has me holding in my bladder not for the first time. I’ve just woken up in the Gynaecology wards at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. [Ed’s note: always best to overload the description detail of your prose work] After an anaesthetised sleep of wondrous depth after A hysteroscopy.
Fortunately, the hospital provides sanitary pads the size of a pillow, so no damage done.
Thank you for getting me laughing my bed socks off.
Pxxxx
Well, I'm glad to have amused you, Pauline, and hope that your recovery is speeding along at a grand rate. And I am in awe of your restraint, I'm not sure our friend Les could have managed it, in the unlikely event that he found himself in the circumstance
Soooo familiar!
Isn't it though, Cathy!
Haha! I feel your pain, but in my case it's exacerbated by the fact that I was a technology teacher for twenty years. But, as I carefully explain to people, I taught the creative bits, and I had technicians to call on for the techy bits, which is why I am so very often stymied by the simplest thing now.
Oh, Louise, try being married to a technical type and find out how quickly you become pathetically enfeebled on all fronts! It's very sad personally and does not lead to harmony maritally, but luckily we like each other enough in other areas that we battle through ...
Well done and success I hope, but... you might encounter the fact that some astute programmer thought that building in an auto-save function would be smart...
I'm glad you liked it Bob, and would attempt a cogent response to the second part of your comment, too, except that, to misquote Renee Zellweger, you comprehensively lost me at hello there.
Hilarious!
Thank you, Charlotte!
You really are quite clever!
Thanks, Karen, although the young man at the Help Desk might just venture a different assessment!