Technological Black Thumb: Confessions of a Tech Junkie

When it comes to electronics, my "inner guy" comes out to play like a desperate and lonely, fan boy demanding some sort of emotional release. My passion for gadgets, gizmos, consoles, and all other things that are shiny, has over the years branded me as someone who has a "14 year old boy trapped in a woman’s body". I’m the kind of girl who prefers to pass on makeup and pretty clothes and dives head long, straight into the electronics section of any store she encounters. I love electronics, but unfortunately, the relationship is extremely one sided.

I can spend hours pacing the aisles of an electronics store, dreaming about all the things I could do with a flat panel computer with TV capabilities and a DVD re-writer or a digital camera that can do everything from taking movies to opening garage doors. Stalk through electronic stores, keeping a mental wish list, but I seldom commit anything to paper. Paper notes or research comes only after the initial stages of infatuation and lust pass and I am prepared for a commitment. Doing such things is like preparing to move in with someone, you don’t do it unless you are absolutely certain that you can tolerate facing that thing every damn day.

Things always look so simple when a "techie" sits there, holds your hand, and walks you through the operating procedures of the smooth, sexy technology, but it’s when I finally drop the funds on the purchase and take it home that the trouble starts. The magic forged with the "techie" vanishes instantly, like a mirage. All the simple instructions are thrown to the wind and a hefty manual takes its place. The holy book of knowledge is full of strange, undecipherable symbols and complex diagrams. It’s a language unto itself and without a proficiency in technological jargon, playing with new toys becomes an epic battle of me against technology. However, unlike David who threw rocks at Goliath, I would sooner be stoned myself then to put so much as a scratch on any of my technology.(1)

I’m the biggest sucker for computers. Since I was a high school student, I’ve had four different computers, and with the exception of Abyssinian 2.0, every last one of them has required me to summon the grand powers of "tech support". I hate calling for tech support because 95% of my experiences with tech support involve some punk ass jerk who thinks he’s the gods’ gift to computer problem solving and has an extreme chip on his shoulder when dealing with inexperienced users(2). I try my best to refrain from making computer purchases online because I want to play around with my prey until I find it’s sufficient to go for the kill and bring it home. I like to research the company and see what support and service they can give me before I take the plunge. There are two places that I recommend over any other for buying electronics, Best Buy (with the best in-store service team) and Apple (the only company to date that I have purchased from online and had absolutely zero problems with).

The performance plans are what really get me. If I purchase the more expensive, we’ll send a person to your home or office to fix it, that’s all I can do. I can’t sit there on the phone with a disgruntled techie and have them help me or ask for new parts. I have to sit and wait for some guy to come to my house and spend at least an hour trying all the things that I tried myself to make it work, and have him turn around and say, "Yep, it’s broken. We’ll need to send her off and get the replacement parts."(3) I don’t even want to go into detail about how much time I spend fighting with this company’s customer service lackeys, but for a company that toots their own horn about their customer satisfaction ratings, I couldn’t have been more disappointed.

My picks for my electronics purchases as mentioned above are Best Buy and Apple. This is primarily in part to my multiple summonings of their "techies". With Best Buy, I bring my ailing, dying, or dead equipment in and the nice "techie"(4) goes out of their way to help me, including explaining everything that needs to be done or will be done in plain English. They are a class unto any other. Primarily because they realize that the average computer user is not an elite computer programmer, which novices like me can really appreciate. I also have to thank my parents for encouraging me to be the good little girl scout that I was raised to be and "always be prepared". Prepare for the worst, and you’ll never be too disappointed, right?

In June, I purchased a third generation iPod from Apple, and no sooner did I bring it back to Japan in August than it died after only being here two weeks. Naturally, I purchased Apple Care, but I was terrified that I would have to pay an arm, a leg, and several internal organs to ship it back to the US for servicing. I was also afraid of calling technical support here in Japan, for fear that their "English assistance" would be more frustration than its worth. When I finally got the nerve to call, just in the off chance I could ship to Apple Japan in Chiba Prefecture, I was amazed not only by the response time of their "techie" but by the individual’s ability to help troubleshoot the error on the phone in flawless, natural English. Within 20 minutes, not only was my issue with the dead iPod(5) resolved, but I hung up the phone feeling completely relieved. It was the most painless phone call to a customer service support center that I have ever made.

I honestly don’t know what I keep doing to make all the technology around me act ridiculous. I consider it my latent mutant ability to be able to break machines just my attempting to use them correctly. I sometimes feel like I rely too heavily upon my more knowledgeable and tech-savvy friends to help me cope with my technological ineptitude, but honestly, I swear that machines really hate me. From my PCs to my 2002 VW Turbo Beetle that bit the dust a couple of months after purchase(6), I just can’t win when it comes to machines. Why must this love be so one sided?

Footnotes

1. It’s also counter productive to the trying to get the damn thing to work challenge if I go and break it.
2. Dude, I’m never ever buying a Dell again.
3. See note 2.
4. I’ve never met a Best Buy "techie" that I didn’t like.
5. An internal error that forced the iPod to begin ignoring the FireWire connection, thus preventing it from being synched with my PC or allowing the battery to charge began in early August, when I used the iPod updater to download the latest software patch.
6. There was a problem with the Turbo chip and the automatic transmission that caused a timing error when shifting from third to fourth gear. The shop called my car "The Anomaly" because it was brought in three times until a national recall on the engine parts started. It killed me to part with that car, but it was for the best.