By Shannon Williams
I don’t know about you but sometimes all this technology is really too much and keeping up with how it is ever changing just wears me out. To say I have no more “bandwidth” to deal with it is an understatement. These past several days has seen me struggling with two issues that involve technology and I am at my wits end and just not getting the needed outcomes on either issue.

So, my hubby recently had a medical issue and was in the hospital for a few days. I am not one to call out people or businesses by name, so you will just have to guess on which hospital and business I am talking about. We were discharged and told we needed to follow up with a cardiologist within 2 weeks. When I asked if an appointment had been made, I was told we would have to make our own. Ok, I can do that, after all I am a social worker and did medical social work for years. Thus, the journey began… after more than a few phone calls and emails, I was final informed that they did not have an opening for a cardiologist till mid-fall. Ok, not good, but after ten days at least I knew why I was not getting an appointment. Luckily Paul’s mother had a cardiologist in the Houston area that she used for years prior to her death and they made us an appointment for the next week! The hospital uses an electronic medical chart, so I thought there would be no problem, I will print out all of the records for the new doctor. Guess what, he had three heart procedures done and not a mention of any of them in the file!

So, the next round of calls and emails starts. It took three days, but we finally got a summary; OK, now we have something. The new doctor requested a “CD” of the procedure so he could see what was done and what the outcome was. I had made a few phone calls and was not getting anywhere, but hubby had an appointment so he turned on that Cajun charm and came home with a CD!! We are in business, or so I thought. My computer is new and thus does not have a CD slot, so yesterday while I was running errands in Galveston, I go by a local office supply store. Well, all of their computers with CD slots are “broken”. Well, there is a whole store of computers and they do computer repair, what the heck. They suggested a local drug store, and I was told, “the person who knows how to do that is out.” I had to go to Walmart, (only giving this name as they were helpful) so thought I would try there. A very kind young girl helped me get it all going. I had to wait while the images downloaded, all 1064 of them. Well as soon as it finished downloading, 39 minutes later, a message pops up, that states these imagines cannot be copied! OMG

So, I returned home with no copies. Paul had also tried to call his computer friend who works on his computer, and come to find out, his has a CD slot. OK, we are back on track, but wait we have not blank CD. He runs to the Big Store and both dollar stores and they don’t have them either. A post on Facebook and sweet Nelda saves the day as she has some CDs. We try to burn a copy here and discover that we need blank DVD not CD’s! We will make another trip into Galveston tomorrow to get a blank DVD.

At the same time all of this is going on, I was dealing with my own tech issues. My printer and scanner work hard for me and both were not doing well, eating papers and black ink spots on most things that it printed. No problem, I order both a new printer and a stand-alone scanner. I do lots of scanning, so use both my printer and a stand alone that does it fast! They both arrived the day after I ordered them right to my front door. I spent most of Friday afternoon working with my IT to get them both hooked up and running. Had to fight the dust bunnies and figure out what cord goes to what. After several hours, it was discovered that I needed a special cord, which I did find in Galveston. So, this am, we again, try to install and get me going. Well it was not meant to be; each action we took caused another action!

I had written this article mid-day and it would not save; in fact it lost it! I am wondering why the computer gods are so upset with me! So as of now, I can scan one page at a time, (I have a 94-page contact to scan ugh!)

I feel like I have decent computer skills considering I started my professional life with a typewriter and 5 pieces of carbon paper to type my reports, which were at least five pages double spaced and I am an awful speller. The day they gave the social workers a tape recorder so we could dictate like the doctors was a red-letter day.

It should just not be so hard to get things done these days, but the barriers just keep coming. With poor customer service to no service and people being overwhelmed it just is not fun! For years, I would say… “you know what you can get at Radio Shack? Dumb looks that is what the employees have to give you” It appears that the Radio Shack business model is still being practiced and we all know how that turned out.

I will start anew tomorrow and hope we can find a DVD and get the copies and be grateful for my wonderful IT guys and know they will get me up and going. But for now, I am going to get my canyons and a Big Chief tablet just in case!

[August-17-2021]