I bought a new car this week. It's beautiful sitting on my
drive where all the neighbours can admire it. It'll be even better when I get
an engine to go in it. They had plenty in stock in the garage but none that fit
my particular model. I was a little disappointed when he told me that, but never
mind. To commiserate I went to a bar for a cocktail, a nice refreshing Sea
Breeze. The barman gave me the grapefruit and cranberry juice with lots of ice.
I paid him the full amount and tried to enjoy what I had but it didn't quite
seem right. 'No sir,' he said. 'You need lots of vodka for a proper Sea Breeze.
I'll send that on to you in a few weeks.'
Do the above scenarios sound ridiculous? Of course they do
and you wouldn't put up with either of them if they happened in real life
(sorry, I was telling fibs at the start there). So why do we put up with this
kind of treatment when it comes to technology?
I appreciate that when I go to buy a car I can have optional
extras like alloy wheels, kid leather seats or metallic paint. None of these
things actually change the working of the machine, they're just posh add-ons to
lift me above the crowd. I pay extra if I want something out of the ordinary, I
get that. But if I don't want them I still get a basic vehicle that works
perfectly well.
So it only makes sense when I buy a new laptop that I'd have
to pay extra for a fluffy cover to keep it warm at night. But a power cable?
Surely that's something that you most definitely need, not an optional extra? Nor
are other connector cables, or internet connections, or a basic set of programs
or, it could be argued, a printer.
I got a new mobile phone this week (really). I opened the
box and everything that I'd expected was there, even a plug to charge it with -
bonus! So I took the back off my old phone, removed the battery and took out my
sim and memory cards. Then I tried to take the back off the new phone to insert
them. After thirty minutes of doing the man-thing of trying to work it out
myself I relented and looked at the instructions. They left me no wiser so I struggled
on. After an our and a broken thumb nail I went to the internet. There I found
a lovely video of some chap showing me how 'easy' it was. He had three goes,
including one where the phone flew out of his hand and landed with an
unpleasant tinkly crack on the table. So it wasn't just me, but at least he
taught me the knack.
I eventually got the back off and the memory card inserted
but then… then I found that the sim card
in my new phone was of a totally different size to the one in my old. it just would
not fit. So back to the internet I went where I found that I had to get a new
dual sized sim, then cut that one down to mini-sim size before I could use
it. *sigh* Was life this hard when all we had to worry
about was being fire-bombed by the Luftwaffe?
I carefully trimmed the card to the correct size and
amazingly it went into my new phone perfectly. Except my number and all my
details were still on my old phone. It turned out that I had to do something
called an online sim swap. Of course? Why didn't I think of that, I mean it's
obvious really. So I did the sim swap - which involved typing lots of different
numbers and validation codes into a screen on my provider's website - and got
it wrong. Fair enough, I must have mistyped a number somewhere. I tried again.
And failed again. After the third attempt it told me that I'd had too many goes
and, for my security, I couldn't try again until the next day.
For my security.
I checked that great font of knowledge, the internet chat
forums, and found that I should have prefixed one of the codes with the number
8933442. Of course. It should have been obvious really. Or maybe it should have
been in the instructions, I'm not sure which. But I tried the next day and it
worked. I now have a lovely new phone that makes calls and texts to people that
I know. It won't access the internet but hey, you can't have everything. I
might have a go at that next week.
Is it too much to ask that things work straight out of the
box?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and smash some looms.
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