29 Sep 2013
“My name is Liz, and I hate technology.”
For a long time this didn’t have an impact on my life. I could work the telly and email my friends and I was happy with that. I was aware that others had sound systems that could also make supper and phones that looked like the flight deck of Concorde, but somehow I never got interested enough to learn about them for myself.
Alas, technology has made creeping advances, and despite my resistance it has forced its way into my life. I cannot work freelance without an IPhone, laptop and printer at the very least, all of which I have, and all of which I cannot understand.
I am clueless about the things they require (backing up being one, apparently, although I have no idea what that means). They also do things in clouds with photos and in Gmail with email and in iTunes with my money but if this is useful or interesting I have yet to discover how.
But the item I hate above all is my passive-aggressive printer. I have lovingly installed her in my home and given her a prominent place in the room, but this is no guarantee that she will co-operate. Rather, I know for a fact that whether or not she will condescend to work bears no relation to anything I have done. She chunters bitterly in the corner, and when asked to perform a simple task will declare that she is “not responding” or “has a communication error” and without fail the impression given is that her refusal to work is entirely my fault.
This week I had to give a presentation, and just before I left, I needed to print off three copies. I switched her on, opened the document, and pressed print. Nothing. I know this routine quite well now. I try not to let her see that I’m in a hurry. I turn her off, delete everything in the print queue, check the plugs and leads, reboot my laptop, and try again. I’m about to miss my train. I press print. “Printer off-line” she says. Not so bloody off-line she can’t speak to me, I mutter angrily, which is a fatal error. Rule One of owning a printer: never let it feel your fury. I try again. She pings, squawks and replies “Printer cannot locate computer”. And this is how I find myself, on a sunny afternoon in September, standing in my sitting room, two minutes before my train arrives in the station down the road, yelling: “It’s there! It’s there! It’s RIGHT THERE!” whilst pointing at a piece of electronic equipment. And then, without a word of a lie, I picked up the laptop and showed it to the printer.
