Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless IT Equipment
If it’s gettin' old, it’s gonna fail, or at least some part of it will.
Just like bodies and cars and power tools, our digital devices have their healthy life spans. Problem is, we don’t like to believe this. When one of our devices is chugging along, maybe not as well as in the past, but still tolerable, we hope the state will last.
Wishful Thinking
Even though I’m an IT guy, dealing with hardware and software failures day in a day out, believe me, I don’t want my stuff to fail. (And I’m always secretly hoping I won't have to deal with the problems my clients have!) It’s a classic mental state called wishful thinking.
Glitches, noises, sputtering, etc… we like to shake ‘em away, re-adjust, power cycle, or say some kind words (or not so kind ones!). Hope springs eternal!
Anthropomorphism
Just like every other object we encounter, animate or inanimate, we like to project our feelings and our relationship expectations onto our devices. So in our heads, the essence of the message is: "Hey machine, my friend, I treat you a certain way, please treat me the same."
But when things don't go well, you know the drill, something like this comes out: “Come on printer, I just installed new ink! I’ve cleaned you out with compressed air. I’ve power cycled you and put in clean paper. Can’t you just print these two pages I need right now? Just one more print job is all I need…”
Rant at the Machine
Then if our expectations aren’t met, the rant begins… “You p.o.s.! I’m never buying this brand again! I’m never buying from “Store A” again! I’ve only had it for 3 years, shouldn’t it last for like 4 or 5 (or 10)! My husband must have bought that damn refilled ink from that site online.” Yada, yada.
I’m not getting on my high horse here. Trust me, I’ve been there. Problem is, stuff happens. Problem is, we are short tempered when it comes to our electronics these days because we are so spoiled.
What We Lack is Appreciation...
The made-in-China electronics mill churns out stuff that’s gonna break before our expected device lifecycle. Guaranteed. Actually, it’s pretty amazing how well things do work, like our powerhouse phones, most of the time, for all we put them through. My daughter dropped her phone in the toilet recently, then quickly put it in a bag of rice to dry out, and voila, it still works!
...And Resilience
The thing is, we really need to work on being more resilient. It would help our mental state if we could do these things: 1)be more grateful for devices that do work pretty reliably most of the time; 2)be more flexible about asking for help, such as leaning on a friend at times when a device is not working – maybe asking to use their printer, for example; 3)be able to step away from a failed device, and get some space, some perspective, to consider our options, to see the pointlessness of ranting at a piece of equipment.
Karmic Payback
And who knows, maybe inanimate objects have feelings too. If they do, maybe a device fails because of the way we treat it (like rarely doing maintenance or ignoring the warning signs of glitches). On second thought, that’s not about feelings, just basic karma in the physical world.
Here’s to wishing all of us more patience and compassion and wisdom when our precious yet under-appreciated digital devices fail.
Thanks for reading!
-Sam
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