Technology & Progress
My son and I went out for coffee and donuts to a new franchise of a large and popular chain that just opened in our small town. We watched them build it from the ground up. The site lay on the route to school and every morning as we drove by we would assess their progress. It only took them about three months to transform bare land into a bright new establishment. After they got the building exterior done, I figured it would be quite a while getting the plumbing, electrical, equipment, fixtures, and furnishings all situated. It truly was remarkable how quickly it all came together. After the place opened, we left about a half hour early for school one morning and stopped there to sample their wares.
There was an impressive assortment of donuts and pastries, and just about any way of preparing coffee that one could imagine. My order was rather conservative: a small coffee with cream and sugar and a double-chocolate donut. This posed no difficulty whatever to the young lady serving us. Her fingers flew over an array of buttons on a sleek point-of-sale processor, and it was so. She looked at my son. His order was a bit more involved: a café mocha and a bagel. A couple of taps on the POS box and the mocha was on its way. Her fingers poised over the array and she asked, "How would you like that bagel prepared?" My son thought a moment and then answered, "I would like jelly on it." The young lady froze. Her expression was blank. I had seen that same blankness any number of times before when posing questions to Jehovah's Witnesses who had come to my door that they had not been trained to answer. Soon her gaze began to race over the surface of the elaborate POS box. I could imagine the gears spinning madly in her mind, "Oh great, my first day on the job and already I am in the hot seat. This machine is so complicated. There is toasted or not; there is cream cheese and plain; but I don't remember jelly. Who ever puts jelly on bagels anyway? But I can't tell him that he can't have jelly on his bagel. I would get in real trouble for that. I know we have jelly here, but this stupid machine gives me no way to ring it up."
Finally, she looked up and, as calmly and professionally as she could, she said, "I'll have to get the manager." The manager came over and the two of them stood before the magic box pointing, gesturing, muttering. It truly was suspenseful waiting to see whether or not Richard could have jelly on his bagel. In the end the two of them looked up smiling. Of course Richard can have jelly on his bagel. On the plate with the bagel she placed two little single-serving tubs of jelly with the peel-off foil covers. I really am not sure whether they figured out a way to ring this up as a sale. It seems equally likely to me that their fancy machine provides no way to sell a bagel with jelly, and they just gave us the jelly because they finally realized that a satisfied customer is worth a hundred little tubs of jelly. I hope they also realized that the time they spent trying to figure out that nifty new POS box also was worth a hundred little tubs of jelly.
Technology sure makes things quicker and easier. That is, it does so long as people all conform to a certain profile. But there always will be anomalies that technology cannot handle so long as individuals continue to jut out of the profile. This is why bureaucracies punish individuality and attempt herding everyone into a standard practice. Technology is amazing when it truly meets human need and enhances human creativity. But it is stifling and maddening when it takes fifteen minutes to order a bagel with jelly, or when a secretary is unfamiliar with the function of the "Insert" Key - directly above the "Delete" Key - and can't figure out why the text she wants to enter in the middle of a paragraph is gobbling up the existing text. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they wanted to throw their computer out the window…
P.S. I fully intended to end this post as above with the ellipsis, allowing the reader to complete the thought, as I know any halfway reasonable person would do. However, my posting of this was delayed at least two and a half days due to a technology snafu, and the whole situation seemed so germane that I could not resist adding this footnote. Freezing rain brought down tree limbs and power lines and so plunged the area back into the 19th century for several days. This created a lot of hardship for a lot of people. These new fancy technology home furnaces - no matter what fuel they burn - require electrical energy in order to operate. Ergo, during this power outage these furnaces were not operating. Overnight lows were in the single digits. I once had one of these new fancy technology furnaces. Then several years ago the price of propane reached the point that it cost me over a thousand bucks per year to heat my house. I made a deal with the propane company: they can keep their propane, and I'll keep my thousand bucks. I took several giant steps backward technologically and installed a wood-burning stove. During the power outage I just continued to do what I always do and kept my house comfortable. We used oil lamps and candles after dark. Without any of the media that rides upon electrical power, we had plenty of time to read, converse, and contemplate. We are accustomed to speaking of electronics, such as the computerized POS device at the donut shop, as "advanced technology." Sitting in a warm house and entertaining ourselves without any electrical power, I was prompted to consider: Advancing toward what?
There was an impressive assortment of donuts and pastries, and just about any way of preparing coffee that one could imagine. My order was rather conservative: a small coffee with cream and sugar and a double-chocolate donut. This posed no difficulty whatever to the young lady serving us. Her fingers flew over an array of buttons on a sleek point-of-sale processor, and it was so. She looked at my son. His order was a bit more involved: a café mocha and a bagel. A couple of taps on the POS box and the mocha was on its way. Her fingers poised over the array and she asked, "How would you like that bagel prepared?" My son thought a moment and then answered, "I would like jelly on it." The young lady froze. Her expression was blank. I had seen that same blankness any number of times before when posing questions to Jehovah's Witnesses who had come to my door that they had not been trained to answer. Soon her gaze began to race over the surface of the elaborate POS box. I could imagine the gears spinning madly in her mind, "Oh great, my first day on the job and already I am in the hot seat. This machine is so complicated. There is toasted or not; there is cream cheese and plain; but I don't remember jelly. Who ever puts jelly on bagels anyway? But I can't tell him that he can't have jelly on his bagel. I would get in real trouble for that. I know we have jelly here, but this stupid machine gives me no way to ring it up."
Finally, she looked up and, as calmly and professionally as she could, she said, "I'll have to get the manager." The manager came over and the two of them stood before the magic box pointing, gesturing, muttering. It truly was suspenseful waiting to see whether or not Richard could have jelly on his bagel. In the end the two of them looked up smiling. Of course Richard can have jelly on his bagel. On the plate with the bagel she placed two little single-serving tubs of jelly with the peel-off foil covers. I really am not sure whether they figured out a way to ring this up as a sale. It seems equally likely to me that their fancy machine provides no way to sell a bagel with jelly, and they just gave us the jelly because they finally realized that a satisfied customer is worth a hundred little tubs of jelly. I hope they also realized that the time they spent trying to figure out that nifty new POS box also was worth a hundred little tubs of jelly.
Technology sure makes things quicker and easier. That is, it does so long as people all conform to a certain profile. But there always will be anomalies that technology cannot handle so long as individuals continue to jut out of the profile. This is why bureaucracies punish individuality and attempt herding everyone into a standard practice. Technology is amazing when it truly meets human need and enhances human creativity. But it is stifling and maddening when it takes fifteen minutes to order a bagel with jelly, or when a secretary is unfamiliar with the function of the "Insert" Key - directly above the "Delete" Key - and can't figure out why the text she wants to enter in the middle of a paragraph is gobbling up the existing text. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they wanted to throw their computer out the window…
P.S. I fully intended to end this post as above with the ellipsis, allowing the reader to complete the thought, as I know any halfway reasonable person would do. However, my posting of this was delayed at least two and a half days due to a technology snafu, and the whole situation seemed so germane that I could not resist adding this footnote. Freezing rain brought down tree limbs and power lines and so plunged the area back into the 19th century for several days. This created a lot of hardship for a lot of people. These new fancy technology home furnaces - no matter what fuel they burn - require electrical energy in order to operate. Ergo, during this power outage these furnaces were not operating. Overnight lows were in the single digits. I once had one of these new fancy technology furnaces. Then several years ago the price of propane reached the point that it cost me over a thousand bucks per year to heat my house. I made a deal with the propane company: they can keep their propane, and I'll keep my thousand bucks. I took several giant steps backward technologically and installed a wood-burning stove. During the power outage I just continued to do what I always do and kept my house comfortable. We used oil lamps and candles after dark. Without any of the media that rides upon electrical power, we had plenty of time to read, converse, and contemplate. We are accustomed to speaking of electronics, such as the computerized POS device at the donut shop, as "advanced technology." Sitting in a warm house and entertaining ourselves without any electrical power, I was prompted to consider: Advancing toward what?
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