I just want it to work!

It doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it? We just want things to work given our busy lives on the go, in constant communication, publishing our statuses in sound bites of 140 type characters or less. Houses and cars have docks for iPods and talking hands-free. Music stored on computers is played through televisions and controlled via iPhones. You can even start certain cars remotely out of state.

“Don’t forget to change your clocks and check your alarm”, my parents warned with the daylight savings imminent. “Oh, our phones will adjust themselves”, I told them, “and we don’t really rely anything else.” Of course they do, and of course we don’t. After all, we may not consider ourselves the type that might comfortably bark obscenities at domestic help, but woe betide the misbehaving smart-phone that steps out of line.

Even as I write, my blood pressure is still simmering after battling with my wireless Epson printer. It’s hands-down my cleverest recent acquisition: it prints from my iPhone, talks to my laptop, intuitively knows when a document needs photo paper or bog-standard letter, until today -- when I really want it to print – and it acts up like a bolshy five year old with selective hearing.

Like many, the morning alarm signals the departure of an unstoppable train: The Day. But first, in bed, ever so quietly, before the rustle of moving eyelashes changes the atmospheric pressure and automatically wakes the children, you check texts, prioritize urgent email, and make several witty comments on Facebook. Then it’s on: hurtling around, clothing small children, smearing butter on toast, packing lunches, throwing on clothes, wiping sticky fingerprints off that clean cream top, chucking in laundry, feeding pets, checking for panda eyes from last night’s mascara. And somehow it’s accomplished with a good degree of patience, even when the two year old has a small explosion on your way out the door. No, if you want to see real frustration, it’s when those small fingers have mashed all the keys on the universal remote (a.k.a. life support for the TV, DVD, and DVR combined) and now there’s no way to get the button-less, flat-screen, television to turn on, or off.

That palpable frustration creeps up when I can’t find features on my Mac that I used to use on my PC. It’s when the printer says there’s a paper jam, though there isn’t. It’s when I want a gadget to do something, and it just won’t work. Let’s call it Tech Rage.

On the heels of Facebook’s now infamous changes, my email service, Gmail, has decided it needs a facelift too. And it’s dreadful. I realize the people who actually work at these companies are paid to spend their days dreaming up ways to improve and sexify their product. And make no mistake, it’s more of a product than a service because, in the cut-throat world of social media, competition is fierce and your data, I mean loyalty, is the goal. Gmail won its devoted followers by grouping conversation threads and being completely different than anything out there. The facelift means buttons are in different places, drop down menus reign, and… who on earth has time for this? I just want it to work in the five minutes I have between emailing my editor and school pick up.

If I’d wanted to treat myself to an experiment of Bedlam, I’d have chosen October and crammed as many houseguests, germs, and sick days into one month as I could -- and then I’d sign up for two online courses. After an early submission faux pas, a personal communiqué to a class lecturer via email (Sacré bleu!) instead of the online site (“…that’s the way it’s supposed to be and the way I prefer it”) I was in a race to catch up on two weeks of homework, several critiques, and a submission to my class. Chastised, and desperate to make amends, (call it a classic abuse scenario), I called a sitter, slogged away in the library, served up a home-made National Trust Cottage Pie (call me Martha), sailed through the bed-time routine, and scurried to turn in my homework at 11:25pm.

12:01am is the online bewitching hour when your posted homework appears on the class chart in yellow, the scarlet letter of late submissions, instead of the refreshing apple green of ‘submitted on time’. I was not alone. Online Tech Support told me the site had detected an unusual amount of activity, and shut down to reboot services. Fortunately the exchange was via email so noone had to see the exhausted woman, clutching at her hair and screeching, “I just want it to work!”