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In our digitally loaded lives, its hard to imagine what we would do without technology. On the contrary, its not much difficult to imagine that we would achieve certain things faster if tech didnt play spoilsport.
Weve all read with sympathetic fervor about the system-bashing tendencies that a hung computer induces in the most non-violent of workers. There was even a short video clip, in which a man literally pounds on his machine and throws it off his desk. Poor chap.
Over time, Ive compiled my own hate-list of instances when technology, instead of increasing our productivity, increases our brain temperature by unwelcome degrees.
Let me begin the ordeal with the good old telephone. With most companies now using IVR (interactive voice response or irritating voice re-routing, take your pick), it seems easier to get access to Barack Obama than the customer rep. Some IVRs are especially configured to avoid giving you any option to talk to somebody or the option is hidden deep down several press-this-key-and-press-that-key loops. At times, when you finally get down to hearing the human hello on the other end, you are so tired of punching buttons that you just ask the person to hang up.
Those who are used to exercising their fingers on mobiles for SMSes would also have encountered this next item on my list. Its called Message not sent this time an error you get after your attempt to send an SMS results in failure. So you try another time, and another, and yet another time until you see the message fly away from your outbox. Ultimately, you end up getting an SMS from the party you are trying to reach: Stop spamming me, you fool!
The Internet offers its own share of irritating tricks to unsuspecting users.
Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and will be shut down, screams the message bang in the middle of the screen just when you thought you found what you were Googling for. No matter what you do, sir (or madam, if you are a madam), IE will shut down.
Automatic page refresh is another trick that can make you go bonkers while you are in the middle of reading something on a web page. I do not doubt the good intentions of the developers who wanted an automatic mechanism to update the page so the surfer gets current information. But imagine the spark of fulmination an automatic refresh causes when you are suddenly taken to the top of the page from wherever you were in your reading. You have to inch your way back to that place like Spider-Man crawling up a wall.
I could go on about umpteen other Netty things that get my dander up and probably yours too. But at the moment, in another window open on my desktop, Im just trying to figure out the stupid blurry characters in a patch that I must copy into the registration field of a website to prove that Im not a bot. Darn!
Sanjay Gupta is Consulting Editor IT Next & CTO Forum, 9.9 Media.
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