computers

by

Happy Hamster Computers Sucks

I bought a computer from Happy Hamster after struggling to maintain an old laptop I use for work years past its sell-by date. When it finally crashed, they managed to scrape some material from the hard drive for me. Windows 10 had recently reared its ugly head and, upon hearing my complaint that I did not want a computer with Windows 10 on it, sold me a business-class laptop with Windows 7. I paid more than I would have for something at Costco or the like, but figured with the warranty from HH and Windows 7, what could go wrong?

Plenty, as it turned out. The thing started crashing nearly immediately. I took it into HH. They blamed my anti-virus software, highly rated anti-virus software a close friend has used without issue for years. I removed the anti-virus software. The issues persisted. Blue screen 2-3 times a day. Crashing constantly. I took it in again. And again. And again. Each time, they blamed something in the software, everything BUT the computer (which turned out to be refurbished, not new, but whatever). They tried to sell me their service to seek out dangerous viruses, because that had to be the problem. It couldn’t possibly be that the computer they sold me was a lemon. They finally said they could send it back to the manufacturer, which would take at least a week. Now, maybe all of this wouldn’t be such a problem for some people. Doubtful, but it’s possible. However, I used this computer for work. My livelihood depended on it. In addition, I was in a master’s program and using it for school too. In no way was it possible to be without it for a week. I didn’t have another computer to use as a backup. I didn’t have $800 to throw at another computer. Never once did they offer a loaner or offer an exchange. They just kept shaking their heads and doing really nothing at all.

Finally I took it to another shop who set up another user and charged me $250 to do so, something HH had done during one of my many visits and had not worked. It didn’t work this time either. They also wanted to reinstall Windows, something I would have done, too. However, since the install disks weren’t given to me by HH, neither of us were able to do so without, you guessed it, sending it back to the manufacturer. One thing they did confirm and determine was that none of this was being caused by some big, bad virus, HH’s go-to answer for all I was experiencing. I finally determined I was going to have to suffer through until I really had a week to send it back to the manufacturer.

Nearly a year later, and close to the year warranty deadline, after dutifully backing everything up 20 different ways, I was able to leave the computer for a week while I went on vacation. I took it into HH, gave them the mile-long list of trouble I had been documenting since minute one. (Every time the thing blue screened on me, I would save the report Windows gave of the problem.) When I returned from vacation, it turned out they had not sent it off to the manufacturer, but had reinstalled Windows. I brought the computer home and the blue screen issues had resolved. Yet immediately upon return, any time I booted up the computer, I was shown yet another warning, that my battery capacity was “dangerously low” and that I needed to do something about it. The one day I took the thing off electric power and ran it on the battery, it died within ten minutes. I dashed off an email to HH asking why the battery suddenly had no capacity. I was told that batteries are notoriously iffy that way and I could get a new one for about 40 bucks. This for a battery I had been using less than a year, and mostly plugged in.

I have no faith in Happy Hamster. They might be able to recover lost data for people, but don’t buy their computers. If the computer you buy from them does not work, they will not fix it or replace it. They will give you the runaround and expect you to figure it out alone. If I were reviewing them, I would give them 2 stars instead of 1 only because the one fellow with whom I mostly interacted was extremely sweet and polite. I really liked him. Happy Hamster I don’t like. Not one bit. Today I spent 35 minutes getting into my computer after another, yet ANOTHER blue screen. What a joke.

by

How to Crap Your Pants in One Fell Swoop

This morning I came into work (early, I might add). I turned on my computer. I usually just send it to sleep, and it wakened without any issues. Then in the corner a little box popped up from my anti-virus program to remind me yet again that I needed to reboot for changes to take effect. What the hell. I’m in early. Why not?

Why not, indeed.

When the computer came back to life, it was not my computer. I logged in as me, but everything that defined this computer as mine was gone. All the programs. All the files. All the everything. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Commence crapping.

This is how to crap your pants in one fell swoop: Turn on your computer, reboot at the instruction of a sinister little box posing as one of your friends, and discover all of your work, work that is not backed up because every time you tried it would freeze your computer so you stopped trying, gone.

I’m now backing up using an online program. Thank goodness for system restore and thank further goodness it worked. I’ll get back to you all later and let you know how it goes. Google docs? You’re my new friend.

by

The only time I will use staples will be in a stapler.

I have been very busy lately. I have to use a PC for work because the software I use in my job is only windows-based. As is the case with PCs, the damn thing started running really sluggy and slow. I knew it needed a cleanup and defrag and all that crap, but I just didn’t have time to sit around and stare at it while it wound its way through all that stuff.

One day while in Staples purchasing my latest round of toner and paper, I saw a circular advertising PC tuneup services for $9.99. Ah, I thought. Good deal. I’ll let them stare at the stupid thing for two hours. It would be worth it not to have to. I called and was told that if I dropped it off on Wednesday I could pick it up on Thursday morning. Even better. Wednesday after work I headed on over to leave my non-trusty-computer at the store.

It should have been clue one to me that there would be problems when, contrary to the information I had been given over the phone, I was informed nearly immediately that it would be three days to get the computer back. Oh no, that won’t work, I told them. If it was going to take three days, I was going to have to do this another time.  The salesman hemmed for a moment then said it could be done the next day.

Clue one, Lara.  Clue one.  You weren’t paying attention…

I then said I had to get going because I had an appointment.

Clue two, Lara. Clue two.  Mr. Computer Fixit guy kind of sauntered over to look at something else another Computer Fixit guy was doing, then went behind the counter and got a little widget to insert into my computer. He inserted it and stood there talking to me, telling me how my computer was the nicest he had seen come through the tune-up station in a while. He looked like Napoleon Dynamite, only without glasses. He kind of sounded like him too. In the end I spent a half an hour in there, in spite of my constant assertions that I needed to get going.

I explained that my computer had been running slowly. I explained that on vacation, my colleague had used the computer and claimed it had been infected with malware, but our office computer guy and she had removed this malware with some program from the web.  I explained that in spite of this, the thing seemed to be running slowly.

Do you use Norton?  No, I don’t like Norton. I have BitDefender. Bit Defender? Never heard of it.  Well, it was top-rated on PC Magazine’s choice for virus protection, and I bought it based on that review, and I haven’t had any problems with it. (Incidentally, since all this went down, I perused the web and saw that PC Magazine had again rated it in their top three.)

Well, I have never heard of it.  Okay, so that makes you a superstar.  Can you just take my computer and let me go now?

They told me they would call me when my computer was done and sent me on my way.  I wasn’t kidding that I needed the thing the next day for work.  It is all I have for work and all my work is on it.  Without it, I can’t do 99% of my job.  Well, more like 85%, but you get the idea.

The next day, Staples had not called me by 7:30 p.m.  I was beginning to worry, because I had a big response due on a file in less than five days and could not afford to be without my computer.

I called Staples and was patched to the computer center. The guy on the phone informed me that he hadn’t been able to get it to update. He had tried two times and it failed at the end each time. Okay, yeah well, I need my computer. I don’t care about the updates. I’ll get to them later. I need my machine. He said I could come pick it up.  It was late and baby was going to bed, so I said it would likely be in the morning. Okay, fine.

The next day I got busy with a bunch of other things and since I didn’t have the computer, I waited to pick it up until after picking Milla up for school. When I went in, I was told it had three viruses, and that if I wanted them removed, I would have to pay $200.  I asked what the viruses were and was told that they didn’t know, but it would cost $200 to have them fixed. The guy told me that the Staples tuneup hadn’t even detected BitDefender (See?  It’s such a horrible program!) He said I should have gotten the Norton antivirus software, and was told that Norton had picked up the three viruses on my computer.

At this point I began to believe this was all a scam to get me to pay Staples 200 more dollars. Whatever, I said to the guy.  I needed my computer yesterday so can I have it now? It was frozen in update land because, in spite of the fact I told them the night before that I was going to come and get it and to forget about the updates, apparently they had tried again multiple times anyway.
That evening I sat down to work. The computer had seemingly passed through its updates, although this proved false. Later when I had to shut down because of the other issues that arose, it turned out the thing still wanted to keep updating. I finally had to go in and manually choose updates, leaving off the last one. It’s still screwed up and every time the thing shuts down, it tries to install the last update and fails, freezing and requiring a hard reboot.
The machine ran slower than it ever had before I took it to Staples. Frustrated and worried I wasn’t going to be able to finish my work, I did something I should have done this in the first place, and called Costco support. Remember though, I was up against a deadline and out of time, so it did not occur to me to call them sooner. In this, please cut me slack for my lack of foresight.
After 45 minutes on the phone, the computer was running speedily again. However, there was one problem that the tech could not figure out.  I now have to log into my wireless by going through the control panel, going into network preferences, and re-entering my security key every single time I log on. I used to be able to right click on the now disabled icon on my taskbar, click my network, and voila!  Logged on. Not any more.

The worst thing though, did not appear until I sat down to finish drafting the response due in five days. My Adobe Acrobat did not work. Every time I opened it I received an error message letting me know the registration had been corrupted and I needed to uninstall and reinstall. I ran an uninstall repair, but this did not fix the problem.

Frantic, I called my office to see if they had a serial number.  The only serial number they had for me was one for Adobe Standard. I had Pro and needed Pro. The Standard would not work. I kept trying to do my job around the error, but it wouldn’t work. I optimize scanned text. I insert and delete pages. I enter in text boxes and rectangles. I used Acrobat. A lot. No more. Finally today, up against the deadline and sobbing in frustration, I uninstalled and reinstalled a trial version. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow the user to do any of the functions I use. In tears, I called my friend Debbie. She took my documents, made them into PDFs, stuck in the Exhibit words, and bundled them all together, then emailed it back to me to file.  I wasted so much time on this problem, the response wasn’t nearly as tight and good as it could have been, and I filed it near 4 in the afternoon.

During this, I called Staples. I have a salesperson online who helps me with purchases. I had written him an email on Sunday after wasting two hours slogging through computer problems. He called me Monday. We played phone tag until today. He said the store had told him I said the computer had viruses. No, I never said that. He wanted to three-way call with the store to get this straightened out, so we made an appointment for tomorrow, after the big monster response was turned in.

Today, during my frustration, I called the store and asked to speak to the manager. He knew my case. He said the techs told him I said the computer had a virus. I never said that. He said my computer was “riddled with viruses.” That’s funny, because that’s not what they said and if their “tune-up” was supposed to clean viruses, why didn’t they do it? Why did they say it would be $200 to do that or give me any information at all? He said the “tune-up” had failed. That’s interesting, because my receipt says it worked just fine, that only one update failed. Well, your computer is riddled with viruses. So you’re telling me that my computer, which worked just fine and dandy until the day I got my computer back from Staples, magically developed viruses that only affected Adobe after I got it back from you? No answer? And are the viruses the reason the internet hookup icon on my taskbar is disabled and that no amount of tech support with Costco will bring it back? Yes, it must be. No apology, only an offer to bring the computer back and let the trolls get their hands on it again. Not on your life. Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me. I’m not G.W.

What a load of horse pucky. Seriously. These yahoos want me to believe that my computer was riddled with viruses and that these viruses worked their magic only after my computer was left in their store. That, my friends, is a pile of steaming poo, a lie, a foulness, a thing most unclean.

I decided then and there to tell my story. My hope is that even one other person will read my words and decide that staples are for staplers, not a place to shop in. Take your business elsewhere. I’m going to. Office Depot is right across the parking lot.

by

Personal, Life, Weather

It’s raining again today, but it was sunny for three days in a row even though they said it would only be one, and I got to wear shorts yesterday it was so warm, so I can’t complain about rain today.

Apple took away my brand new MacBook Pro.  I have to say, my apple products are on the shit list right now.  I bought a new MacBook Pro.  Immediately upon bringing it home it started having this issue where the screen would not light up when I opened it.  It did not happen every time I opened the computer, but a lot of the time.  I figured it was brand new and should not do this so I exchanged it for another one.  What a mistake. The new one had the same issue, only it happened every single time I opened the computer, and it was difficult to get it to come on.  So I called Apple.  They said it was a “known issue” and told me some key fix while turning it on.  It didn’t fix it.  Every morning I have a tiny window in which to write before my baby wakes up.  I spend most of that tiny window trying to make the computer wake up, so the other day, in complete frustration, I called Apple again about this issue.  During the conversation with the Apple support representative, my ear touched my iPhone and hung it up.  Ears aren’t supposed to hang up iPhones.  I tell you, at that moment, Apple was at the height of the shit list and I was mad as hell.  While on hold during my call back, the guy I had been talking to called me again.  He apparently used my serial number to get back to me, which is a good thing because it was the only information I had given him before the call hung up.  We spent the next half an hour working through a bunch of repair things behind the scenes in the guts of the computer’s programming.

Didn’t work.  Yesterday I opened up the computer and the damn thing would not come on no matter what I did.  Here I have been touting Apple products to anyone who will listen and I am having all these issues, although I can say I am typing this on my 3-year-old MacBook that still works just fine.  I just wanted a computer with more space and RAM, which is why I bought the Pro.  Maybe I shouldn’t have.

Anyway.  In frustration, I made a Genius Bar appointment between court and my next client.  I took it in there and left it with them.  Of course the piece of shit opened up and worked just fine in front of the Genius Bar guy so I looked like a hysterical female.  However, he looked at some history thingy in the guts and saw something that backed up my story, and agreed that they would do some tests and get back to me.  They had not gotten back to me yet by late afternoon yesterday so I called, and they said it would not be ready until today.  They said they “had not finished looking into the problem,” which means “We have not gotten to your computer yet.”  Duh, I’m not dumb.

My small writing window is rapidly closing here.  Isabel woke me up today, but she has been running around and is now eating the pancakes Milla decided to make for breakfast before school (I wonder who will do THOSE dishes?). It will not be long before I am the only person in the world with whom my baby would like to interact and there are other writing things I need to do that are more important than cheering the sun or complaining about computers.

by

Spam

I have to wonder, do the originators of the spam selling Penis Enlargement Pills and Best Orgasm Jelly Ever actually ever sell any of their crap?  Seriously.  What is their incentive in continuing to send these ads to our junk mail folders?  Is it cost effective to pay to send the ads and hope one moron in a million will actually click and buy?  I just don’t get it.

by

Library Thieves

When I signed on to edit books for this small publishing company, the owner convinced me to buy Adobe Indesign.  Because the bundled software with 3 programs gave me way more bang for my buck, I bought that rather than just the individual program.  As part of this bundle, I got Photoshop C4, a program I had long been interested in.  Unfortunately, I have no experience with even the Elements program, so I was pretty useless when it came to trying even basic photo editing with the thing.  I’m like an infant with a space ship.  I went online to find instructions, but mostly ran into those useless advertising sites trying to get me to download “free” teasers that I could replace with a full instruction program if I wanted to pay for it.  Um. No.

I decided then that I would go to the library and look at their instruction manuals.  If I found one that was really good, I would go buy one somewhere.  Well, guess what?  Every single copy of every single instruction manual at the New York Public Library that I looked at was missing.  Some jackasses out there are ruining it for the rest of us.  Gee, thanks.  I called the library and discussed with a helper person.  He confirmed that this is indeed a problem.  He helped me do a more advanced search to sort and ensure certain books were available, but all of them had 15 or 20 holds on them.  I’m thinking maybe Amazon used might be the way to go.

by

I Hate Windows

I’ve switched to mac. However I still own a pretty decent PC that I keep because of WordPerfect, the best and only word processing program, a program that makes stupid, counterintuitive Word look like the mangled piece of shit that it is. If only Corel would make a WordPerfect for mac, things truly would be perfect.  Anyway, I digress.

I have not had the PC out for about 7 months.  It’s been packed away in Oregon.  I used it yesterday to work on some documents in WordPerfect.  I forgot just how hideously obnoxious windows is.  I hate the constant updates.  I hate the stupid little messages telling me stuff I already got 4000 times ago without the stupid little message.  I hate that I have to give “Supervisor Permission” to do anything, even though I’m the only one using the damn thing, and even though I told it I was the only one using the damn thing.

Windows-based computers are called PCs, for “personal computers,” but the truth is they are anything but.  They are completely designed for work in an office with some IP nazi who wants total control of everything you do.  There should be some way to shut that shit off, but there isn’t.  I called HP when I got the thing new and nope, can’t do it.  Annoying.

Just now I came into my office after taking a shower.  The PC had turned itself on and was sitting there wondering if it could install updates.  Um, no.  Go away. I don’t want to have to sit and wait and give you permisssion and then hang out while you reboot and do all your foolish things. Leave me alone.  I’m going to go use my mac.

by

Welcome Back, Dear

My mac died on Sunday.  It turns out the hard drive was bad.  The funny thing is, I was so pleased with mac over windows I did not realize some niggling things were the result of a bad hard drive.  Now I have a new hard drive and the niggles have gone away.  Mac is even better.

While I realize it isn’t great my hard drive went caput after five months, I am very happy that I have a mac and could simply walk into a mac store and they would fix it.  No sitting on hold for 8 years with some techie somewhere to prove what I already know.  No waiting to ship it off, then shipping it off, then waiting for its return.  My mac was back to me this morning.

Another lucky thing for me was that the mac people were able to recover just about all the things that had not been backed up.  I literally had my external hard drive sitting here on the desk next to me ready to hook up and back up the day my drive finally quit on me.  I was on the phone with a friend trying to send her an email and it just stopped.  I couldn’t shut down properly and had to turn it off with the button.  It never recovered.  It went to a blue screen with a little flickering question mark.  Awww…..

My kind housemate allowed me to use her old windows computer while I waited for mine to return.  This was good for someone so tethered to the internet and the need to dump useless thoughts (like these).  I am quite thankful to her for allowing me to use it to check my email and to post on my blog.  However, while using this computer I was reminded of all the reasons I left windows in the first place. I do not miss the constant and ubiquitous popup messages giving me some piece of information I either already know or do not care to know. I hate those little messages.  I do not miss the constant and ubiquitous updates that are always on the ready to install, freezing things up, making the machine click and clatter and rattle.  I hate those updates.  I do not miss the random desire of pc’s to freeze for no apparent reason as they click and clatter and rattle.  Perhaps they are thinking up new little messages for me.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that I am SO glad to have my mac again.  I wrote my boyfriend a text message when I got my baby back.  It said I have three major loves in my life:  one is in school, one is asleep in Oregon, and the third is sitting here next to me in the car. Yes, I’m silly enough to count my mac as one of my major loves.  Welcome back, dear.  I missed you.

by

You Winner Lottery National!!

You winner in lottery national!

Ooooh!  Excitement!  I received an email today that said just these words.  Can you believe it?  Yeah, me neither.  Somehow I think if I won the lottery, several things would be different.  First of all, I would have had to have actually played the lottery, which I don’t, so it would be difficult to win.  Second, wouldn’t you think they would notify me in some other manner than email?  And finally, would the email really say, You winner in lottery national? Call me a fool, but I would think it would at least say You are a winner, not just You winner.

I hope I haven’t lost out by deeming this message junk and deleting it.  I really hope I have not done some serious damage or something.  Geez.  Oh well.  I have to hope I’ve done the right thing.

Tonight my computer acted like it had Windows installed.  Eeewwwww yuck!  Damn thing.  It kept freezing when I tried to do a find on Firefox.  I had to do forced shutdowns twice and had to just use the button to turn the entire computer off twice.  It was all very annoying and Windows deja vueyish.  I was finally able to restart properly and things appear to be on track, but that Windows behavior, it gets me all sketchy.

by

Land of the Stupid People

I am the QUEEN of the Land of the Stupid People! I love being a QUEEN! It is so much fun. Do you want to know why I am the QUEEN of the Land of the Stupid People? Because I am, that’s why. Because I have had trouble after trouble after trouble after trouble with my cussword computer and my internet connection. I finally ascertained that it is something to do with my wireless so I went on down to the handy dandy computer store and purchased myself fifty feet of ethernet cable with which to connect via wire. I plugged it all in and viola, it still didn’t work that great. It did at first, but then it went back to the same old crap. I troubleshooted. I rebooted. I thissed. I thatted. I still had problems.

So tonight I was sitting here trying to do God knows what on the internet and my computer kept up it’s usual blather, quitting, running slow, running quickly for a minute to get me all excited, then slowing to a crawl or stopping altogether and on and on. I decided since it is near eleven, I would call Qwest yet again. There wouldn’t be a wait at eleven at night. I know this. I know the timing for getting a human rather quickly because I am an experienced Qwest technical support caller. I have called them MANY times. I know their number by heart. I know the words to say to the automated system in order to get to a person in the fastest possible manner. Something to note, saying Fuck You to the computer automated voice makes the voice say, I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. It’s funny. Something else to note. Qwest hates me. I have called them and gone through every troubleshoot possible. I’ve had the wire replaced to my house since the wire came from 1945. I had the wire in front of my house replaced since it was frazzled and needed replacing. I have been through four modems and three computers. Over the last several years, I’ve had many technicians in my home. Sometimes they fix things, sometimes they don’t. It’s hit or miss. I have not called them in some time since I decided that the latest issues are my computer’s and related to this wireless issue.

Anyway, I called the little techie tonight. I went through the rigmarole of proving I’m me, verifying my address, verifying my phone number, giving my permission to access my account, all of this even though I am the one who called in and asked for help. Tell me, why would I call in and ask for help then tell them No, You don’t have permission to access my account? Who would do that? Actually, I might call in and try it just for the hell of it. Give some techie some fun. Just wondered what you would do if I said no.

The techie had me check some things. Actually, I was already where he wanted to send me. I went to the network connections place and saw that I was connected by wireless and not by wire. This even though the wire is strung across the middle of my house. The techie had me troubleshoot several things. No matter. The light for ethernet cable would not light up on the modem. Then he suggested I reverse the wire. This means taking the end from the computer and plugging it into the modem and the end from the modem and plugging it into the computer. Okay, sure. If you really want me to crawl under the desk and behind the computer and do this, hell, I’m willing to try it. I even keep a flashlight under there for rooting around in the back of my computer.

Guess what I discovered upon my visit to the back of my computer? Guess? You know. The ethernet cable was NOT plugged into the back of the computer. How long it has been this way, I could not tell you. How it became unplugged, I could not tell you. I plugged it in and waited a few more minutes to pretend to the tech that I was indeed switching the ends. Then I got on the line and said, It worked! What a miracle! Imagine that, switching the ends made the internet work.

For Christ’s sake, sometimes I have to wonder about myself. How many nights have I cursed this thing since getting that damn ethernet line and it’s all been because I’m the QUEEN of the Land of the Stupid People? Amazing. It is amazing I graduated law school and passed the bar. It is amazing I got an undergraduate degree with honors. Hell, it’s amazing I was able to complete KINDERGARTEN because a FIVE YEAR OLD could figure out that if you don’t plug in the cable, the line isn’t going to work. It’s as simple as that.

I’m going to go make a crown now and wear it with pride. That’s about all I can do.

by

The Corporate Addiction Palace Has My Number

Yep.  It’s on speed dial.  LARA!  It calls. Come on down here for a bit.  You know you want to.  Stop writing and web surfing and come on down.  We’ve got a yummy chai tea waiting right here for you.  Oh, it’s not that expensive and you know you want it.  Imagine that warm feeling running through your veins.  Imagine the clarity in your head once the drug bathes those neurons.  Imagine all the fantastic things you’ll want to do and accomplish under the influence of the drug.  Mmmm, now isn’t that nice?  Don’t you want it?  You know you do.

I can’t do big caffeine.  A diet coke sends me into shivers for hours, I’m that much of a caffeine lightweight.  But my brain has most certainly made full use of the small amount I imbibe on a daily basis, spreading it around to all parts.  It might be thin, but it covers.

Okay, non-sequitur here, but human bodies have some aspects to them that are just so yucky.  I know it’s a marvel of engineering design and all that, but some things like mucous…yuck.  And farts.  What is that, Mother Nature’s sense of humor?  Something sent to remind us we aren’t busy and important?  And other things I won’t mention.  Gag.  I just had to point this out.  Yech.

One other pointless rant.  Windows.  You click on something and nothing happens and it gives you a nice message that says, Such and Such is Not Responding.  No fucking kidding?  I couldn’t fucking tell when I clicked on it 800 times and nothing happened.  The stupid message makes me want to throw the computer more than the fact the damn program froze.  Piece of crap.  Some Microsoft techie created that message just because s/he knew it would put people into fits.  They’re having fun at our expense.  I know it.

by

Revolution

I have been thinking a lot about change. I am beginning to understand, on a more than superficial level, why we end up in revolution. Change can be so damn slow. It’s actually more remarkable when things change quickly because deep, fundamental societal change takes generations.  Revolution may be our only method in many instances to institute change, whether the revolt be violence or Ghandi. I have been seeing this on a micro level, which has made me it more obvious to me on the macro level.  Change takes damn forever. I have been working in an office where nothing really changes. It is such a dysfunctional place and has been that way for over a decade.  Nearly two, actually. There are people there I call the “institutional toxins” because they are part of the institution and never go away. The place stays completely and utterly dysfunctional. And office procedures and systems do not change either. Occasionally new systems come in, but the movement towards them is reluctant and gradual.

When I began working there in 2003, they were still using a DOS-based word processing program that I knew from personal experience had become Windows-based in 1993. That year they switched to the latest of that program, but they are still using it even though it has had two further incarnations. And they use a 1988 DOS-based client management program. Change to a system from the current decade has been promised for over a year, but there is always an excuse why it doesn’t happen.  By the time they put in that system, it will be 2015 and we will have moved onto an entirely different platform.

I suppose I should not be surprised at any of this because it is the owner of the company who refuses to change, and as long as he refuses to change, it will continue to trickle down. He pretends to modify some things, but the behavior doesn’t follow, and neither do real modifications.

But this got me thinking about societal changes. I am actually amazed we are where we are with racism and sexism and all those other ‘isms. People comment and question and remark how unbelievable it is that racism still exists. Lately I’ve begun to feel it’s amazing we’ve come this far in somewhat eradicating it. And no wonder there had to be riots and violence to get to this place. Humanity seems genuinely not to want to change much of anything.

Oh there are the few who are willing to do so, but look how backwards we have gone just in the last few decades. Forward and back, forward and back. Grinding into a different thought process. It’s like evolution. It seems like things are different because we have the ability to see how things were only fifty or so years back. But underneath, there is still that current of prejudice and bias that was there in 1955, even in people born twenty years ago.

I have a total non-sequitur…I heard a conversation on the radio yesterday with a plastic surgeon who performs laser hair removal. One of the radio hosts said she had heard scientists say we were “evolving towards hairlessness.” I got to thinking about that, and I do not think that is possible. I don’t think we will evolve towards anything anymore because there is no more human natural selection. We don’t let the so-called evolutionary “failures” die or stop procreating, so those “flaws” will continue. We may develop new features and breed those new features into each other, but the old features won’t go away if the humans with those old features do not die out or stop breeding. I am not advocating anything here; I’m just observing that evolution will be stopped from occurring on some level. Actually, I would advocate for stopping Paris Hilton from breeding, but that’s another matter entirely….  Hirsute people unite!  The hairless ones seek to eradicate you from existence.