Yesterday turned out to be a nightmare.
From the moment I staggered across the office to my Windows PC, everything I touched went wrong, failed to load, or couldn’t be found. I am not a lover of technology, but as long as it does what it says on the tin, I can usually cope well enough.
Until it won’t do what it’s supposed to, and then I turn into Chewbaca from Star Wars.
I earned this nickname when I worked behind the counter in the Post Office. I was happy in that job, meeting people, helping with pensions, postage, and the million other things the Post Office supplies. When dealing with the general public, though, you get to meet the deliberately awkward people, the ones who like nothing better than to get up your nose with their unreasonable demands, the ones who have made a career choice to be as rude and obnoxious as they can.
I always tried to be patient, but my colleagues knew that when smoke started coming out of my ears, I was about to erupt. This is when I was supposed to ask them politely to wait, (so I could walk away for a minute to regain my composure, or better yet, find a solution)
This rarely worked, as tempers risen don’t want to calm down, mine included. This is when one of my colleagues would lean over and ask the customer not to annoy me, ‘as you wouldn’t like her when she gets angry.’
A very angry man once punched his fist through the screen in front of me. He didn’t have ID, so I couldn’t cash his welfare check.
I tried very hard to keep Chewbacca in his cage yesterday, as one by one, the problems kept coming. Normally, I would shrug off technical problems, knowing I would probably solve them eventually. I mean, there is no point getting angry with a machine, is there?
However, one of these problems was quite serious. We get our shopping on line these days, as I can’t leave the house, and yesterday was the day I complete our food order and confirm delivery.
Only I couldn’t do this. Visions of letting the family down, seeing them starving to death, waving their fists at me, was the last straw. I kept trying to find a way to do this, but nothing worked.
I gave up the struggle and retreated into a semi meltdown, and desperation had me screaming inside. Until number one son came home from work. He assured me that his Apple laptop would allow me to complete the shopping. I didn’t understand the whys or the wherefores, but he was right and peace returned to my world…
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