Mayhem, Mike and Me

If I have been quiet of late, chalk it up to Murphy: my electronics are once again revolting.  It started with a file from a client which, unbeknownst to me, had a teeny, tiny bit of corrupted text.

I fed the file into my database software, which promptly crashed.  

Windows, in solidarity, immediately followed suit.

I emailed the software company in Spain.  They sent me a patch.  It didn't work. After considerable discussion, we concluded I would first need to reinstall Windows.   

Because my life is apparently not exciting enough, I decided to take this opportunity to upgrade to Windows 8. 

The upgrade and installation of Windows took about 30 minutes. Reinstalling the gazillion other programs that I use and all got wiped out by the Windows upgrade took another 4 hours.

When it was all done, I ran my database program - it worked!  I congratulated myself. 

And Murphy promptly laughed: my old printer wouldn't talk to Windows 8. 

Since it really was old (broken springs, smudgy glass), I decided it was time for a hardware upgrade.  Off I went to the store.  As the salesman put my new printer in the cart, a thought skittered across my mind.  "Are you sure it works with Windows 8?" I asked. He assured me that it did, and I drove home with my new printer.

(This happened around 8 p.m. the Friday before I was scheduled to teach a seminar, and I hadn't printed out the workbooks yet because of all of the above.)

Back at home, I hooked up my new printer and began to install the drivers.  Seconds before the install was complete the whole process ground to a halt.  An error message popped up on my screen: my brand-new printer was indeed fine with Windows 8 - but incompatible with my "old" computer.  I tried adjusting configurations, searching for solutions online, begging, threatening and cajoling my electronic servants to cooperate and do their job.

It was no use.   Somewhere around 3 a.m., faced with the fact that I had:

• New software that would talk to my 2-year-old computer but not my 4-year-old printer;
• A brand-new printer that would talk to my super-brand-new software but not my semi-old computer;
• A room full of students expecting handbooks and lucidity from me in less than 6 hours;

it finally occured to me to install the drivers on my laptop computer.  By the time I stumbed into bed, materials ready, I was down to 4 hours before the alarm would sound to wake me up for class.

Bright and early the next Monday, my telephone rang.  Somewhere in the sleep-induced fog of that night, I had emailed the tech support department at my printer's manufacturer.  They had read my email.  They had not only read it, but they were calling me back. The shock of it woke me up instantly. 

Mike, the technician, listened to my woes.  He asked for permission to access my computer.  For the next 20 minutes, I watched the cursor move around on my screen like a drunken amoeba. On the phone, I could hear Mike muttering to himself.  Finally, he stopped, sighed and said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't fix the problem.  We'll work on it further and let you know if we find a solution." His courtesy, his straightforwardness, his honest admission that they hadn't found a solution - yet - charmed me.  With knowledge comes power, in this case the power to let go.  I would simply have to find a workaround.  

And with that, it seemed the digital revolution might be over.

Until this morning.

I had missed a program in the Grand Reinstall.  Since it was needed for today's project, I ran the software and searched my records for the license number.  It was nowhere to be found.  Out of hope, I emailed tech support in Australia; out of realism, I began to search for other options.  Not 10 minutes later, a return email from tech support dropped into my inbox and I had my missing license number.

Yes, Murphy may still lurk and laugh at me. I'm going to have to call the mechanic (again) about that little light on my dashboard that came on (again).  The microwave is acting weird.  And my computer speakers suddenly sound like 50-year smokers.

But I'm not worried. Turns out, there's a whole wide world of Mikes out there to balance things out.