My Recent Computer Woes — The Flying Frame
I’ve written before of computer woes, a sad and unavoidable fact of modern life. They come. They go. These machines make our lives easier in so many ways (online bill pay and shopping, email, and my all-time fav, eBay.) And they make our lives so much more difficult when they fail. Then one must remember how to accomplish archaic tasks like writing checks and using stamps.
I’ve written before of computer woes, a sad and unavoidable fact of modern life. They come. They go. These machines make our lives easier in so many ways (online bill pay and shopping, email, and my all-time fav, eBay.) And they make our lives so much more difficult when they fail. Then one must remember how to accomplish archaic tasks like writing checks and using stamps.
Several months ago, an expensively-framed old diploma of my uncle’s (but obviously not well-equipped with proper, strong picture wire), decided to fly off the wall and attack my laptop. The force of impact was tremendous. The sound brought me dashing from an adjoining room to find the frame on the floor. I was so delighted the glass of the frame hadn’t broken that I didn’t realize for a few days (until the machine began acting squirrely) that the diploma had actually hit the laptop on its way down. There was a tiny dent in my almost-new computer. I needed reading glasses and good lighting to see it after my daughter Becca discovered it a few days later. “Maybe THIS has something to do with your computer problems”, she said, (rather sarcastically, I thought). Naturally, the laptop had been open at the time of the attack. Slow but not stupid, it was only then I finally connected the flying frame with the computer malfunctions.
After long and tedious calls to the manufacturer, after suffering what seemed like hours of automated voice prompts, it was determined that the problem couldn’t be solved by tech support agents with unintelligible accents (something I knew before I made the call, as sure as I knew the tech support folks would be talking to me from the other side of the globe). Another long and tedious call confirmed that flying diplomas are unfortunately excluded from warranty claims.
My daughter returned with the machine after her weekend visit — for her tech support guy at work to take a look. He was clueless. Two weeks later (after severe cyber withdrawal had set in), she returned with the laptop, and we called her brother. I don’t know why I hadn’t called him from the start. My son (the computer genius) solved the problem in less than five minutes. (Or so we thought). He did this through a series of impatient commands issued to my daughter as she typed away, following his instructions. It had never occurred to me that this might be only a software problem after that kind of impact. — Sort of a miracle that such damage could be so easily repaired (or so we hoped). The trick is to find someone smart enough to help. Lucky me. (At least temporarily).
Over the last few months, I definitely noticed that there were glitches in the computer’s operation. But it worked well enough for my meager needs. (I didn’t realize there were more serious problems under the surface, files that had disappeared, etc.). When my son arrived a few days ago for rare and long-anticipated visit, he started checking out the laptop for me. (Some way to spend a vacation with Mom, right?) His reaction was, “I can’t believe this thing is working at all.” These were words I did NOT want hear.
After hours and hours and many attempts to repair corrupted files, Josh determined the hard drive should be replaced. Through the wonders of the Internet, and using HIS computer, we ordered a new part that should arrive in ONE day. Overnight delivery is another of the miracles of this age. And my computer/Internet savvy offspring usually knows how to get it free or very cheap. My poor son has now spent hours trying to save old pictures and columns for transfer to the new hard drive when it arrives. If there is damage to other parts, we will find out soon enough.
It’s amazing how dependent we can become on our electronic equipment. I’m not proud of this. And I don’t even own an iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, eReader (Kindle), or Netbook. This new age of megapixels and megabytes and has pretty much passed me by (mostly by choice). The exceptions are my computer, printer, and cell phone (no texting, no data planning, no touch screen). I’m pretty certain the technology I already own (and have mastered in my limited fashion) is most likely all I can handle.
Are American Jobs Risking Becoming An Endangered Species?
Will workers become extinct? Not if Donna Conroy, executive director and lobbyist for Brightfuturejobs.com has her way. Her grassroots campaign is dedicated to counteracting claims that Americans can’t cut it in science and technology. “We lobby to require employers to seek local talent for U.S. job openings before recruiting abroad,” she says.
CHICAGO, Ill. — Will workers become extinct? Not if Donna Conroy, executive director and lobbyist for Brightfuturejobs.com has her way. Her grassroots campaign is dedicated to counteracting claims that Americans can’t cut it in science and technology. “We lobby to require employers to seek local talent for U.S. job openings before recruiting abroad,” she says.
The gutting of America’s economic democracy has been occurring for years and can be found in reams of books and volumes of eyewitness testimony, but, according to Conroy, for the past 40 years American tech firms have failed to adhere to EEO policies. “For the last 20 of these years, they have installed surreptitious strategies to legally discriminate against the entire U.S. workforce. The result: we now have an oversupply of STEM professionals along with new STEM graduates whom we have paid so dearly to educate. And beyond any reasonable doubt, American companies are going abroad for their top talent, before they recruit locally.”
Said Conroy, “We need US policies that address this systemic problem. We need US policies that stop corporations from stealing American livelihoods from Americans.” She is in the process of counteracting claims that “Americans can’t cut it in science and technology” and articulates “the corporate assault on America’s values, money system and our economic past and future. Our economy is not what we have been led to believe. The predatory practices of the Wizards of Wall Street and their corporate paymasters, concealed by economic double-speak, the true situation of the American job market.” Conroy unravels the deception of the Axis of Greed and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which Americans are heading, pointing out all the signposts, “unless we honor the American worker.”
According to Conroy, the DOJ has blindly looked the other way while merger after merger has consolidated market share and power into the hands of only a few giant multinational corporations.
She says that the emergeing tech companies, when they face shortages, hire unqualified Americans and “train the hell out of them.” But they resolutely refuse to consider American minorities or qualified American veterans.
She explains that, today, too many tech pioneers are now living the nightmare of contributing to their own obsolesce by training their foreign replacements. The younger pioneers, those approaching their 30s and 40s, too often are delivering pizza rather than higher bandwidth. “Permanent jobs are being replaced with perm-a-temp jobs. When workers won the perm-a-temp lawsuit against the corporations, they retaliated by reverting to immigration laws, knowing they could bypass American talent and legally recruit only abroad to fill U.S. job openings.”
“Corporations guard the secret of legal bypass closely,” she explains. “They tell Congress and the American public that there are ‘no qualified Americans’ capable of filling these job openings and that only citizens from abroad are the ‘best and the brightest.’ They make Americans feel hopeless in themselves and belittle American technical talent, calling them lazy, ‘washed out and unemployable.’ They say that only foreign citizens can keep them competitive.”
According to Conroy,”If history has proved anything, it’s that the kowtowing to Wall Street and Corporate America isn’t working and certainly benefits aren’t trickling down to Main Street. The result for everyday Americans’ lives has been overwhelming, and that’s a price we can’t afford to risk paying.
