I’ve had what you might call a technological week in retirement. It has caused me to ponder whether technology, in whatever form, is a blessing or a curse for the retired person. I suppose there’s no doubt that when you look at such additions to our milieu as wheelchairs, stair lifts, artificial hips, etc, that we’re doing well out of technology. So why does it piss me off so mightily?
The answer is, I suppose, simple. It’s great when it works but when it doesn’t it generates a feeling of powerlessness that would cause me to tear out my hair if I had any. I know, I know, I bring it on myself much of the time. Take this very retirement blog. Without technology you wouldn’t be reading this blog. However, when my friend offered to set up a Facebook advert for me which would, for very little money, boost my readership, what could possibly be a problem? Fact is, I should have said, no thanks I’m quite satisfied with what I have. Fine, except, as you know, I’m not satisfied and, according to my grandma, never was.
So I enter into this Faustian pact with my friend. I was going to write Mephistophelean pact but I couldn’t spell that. I hasten to say he has been remarkably patient and we do have an advert. Whether it does the job I will let you know. It was never mentioned by the presenter of Turning your blog into a brand, but one must keep an open mind. But the questions, the decisions, the pain of trying to understand something I was never meant to comprehend. Oh dear. What I had hoped for was that my friend would take the retirement idea and sort it all out without any involvement from me.
But no, this wasn’t possible. He felt he needed my input. In my working days I used to irritate my team with that old cliché – don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. But I can hardly say this to an unpaid chum who’s trying to help. So the tasks were many – choose ten photos to represent your life as a blogger(and only use one); write the text; choose the demographic; set up a separate email account; something about a Pixel ID (no me neither); have you got this have you got that have you got the other? Please just make it stop.
Of course any blog about retirement and technology and I has to include a trip to O2. I’ve written about them before and it’s something of a disappointment to have to write that, this time, they were jolly helpful and barely tried to sell me a new phone. There was a part of the meeting with Josh, the guru, when he said of course you’ve only got 8GB of memory and now recent security measures have taken up 5GB of that. And yes, it does say remove apps to free up something or other, but no you can’t remove the ones the phone came with which happen to account for 95% of the apps I have on the phone. I’ve only put on a step counter app and a metronome. The hint, whisper it, was there.
Only a fool wouldn’t want a new phone with a bigger, better memory. Of course, Josh said, you could just buy an additional memory card. Would that help, I foolishly asked? Well no, because you can only store photos on it and they don’t take up much space anyway. Silly me. I should have known that. The cheap solution is never going to work. Even I understood the concept of a memory card and if I understand it then clearly it’s no bloody good.
But instead of persisting with the new phone tactic (maybe he knew I would have walked out – I’d already told him all about my last unsatisfactory O2 experience and I told you in a previous retirement blog), he said, I can do you a better deal, twice the internet connection whatsit for less money. Come on, do I look like a man who’s just been baffled by the question – does your blog have a separate email address? I reminded him that if a deal seemed like it was too good to be true, then it probably was. Yeah, people do say that, he said. Fair enough. Lead me to this new and better deal. I signed up for a year.
And why was it a problem that my phone had too many apps or files? Because I wanted to add a new app and because my phone had stopped working altogether. Josh did fix it but seemed a bit surprised he had. He could not, apart from the above, explain why it had stopped working or what he had done to fix it, but I didn’t care so long as it was fixed and stayed fixed. It was and it wasn’t. It did stop working again Saturday morning but started again when I took the back off and the battery out – which is what he did. Some version of turning it (whatever the item) off and turning it on again is all I have to offer.
I was about to explain why I needed to free up some space on my phone. It was because of the attempted break-in and the advice of another friend (protect me from Greeks bearing gifts and friends trying to be helpful). You need a security camera (the mysterious object above) round the back. I’ll buy it and fit it, he said. This is my kind of guy. Just do it, send me the bill and tell me when it’s done and don’t ask me any difficult questions. Not even, where do you want it to go? He did buy it but he hasn’t fitted it because I can’t free up enough space on my phone (it’s all connected) to download the app that goes with the camera. As of Monday morning I still haven’t been able to get the bloody camera to work on my phone or laptop. Hey ho.
The other aspect of technology that occurred earlier on this week, is me finally throwing some of it out. I had been looking for some photos I knew I had somewhere (and don’t get me started on talking about my very expensive printer that doesn’t work and so I can’t print any new ones off and had to look for old ones that were somewhere in the attic), but instead of finding the photos I found all these bits of technology – a hi fi stacking system, two DVD players and an item that I have no idea what it did or does.
It felt rather good to unburden myself of some of the technology (although I bought a new DVD player on Saturday) but then technology fought back. I’m still left with the question – is technology a blessing or a curse for the retired person? You become dependent on it and yet you can’t control it when it goes wrong. That’s my idea of a retirement nightmare. Or is that just me?
A quick technology update
PS. Facebook advert seems to be showing good results. I will keep you informed.
PPS. Security camera seems to be ‘working’ but not yet in position.
PPPS. Camera on my phone not working as you can see from photo with this blog above.