I consider myself fairly nimble in the computer department. I can generally badger software and hardware into doing what I want them to do, both Mac (my native heath) and PC (where I work under duress).
If I poke around under the hood long enough, I can find the combination of keystrokes that forcibly ejects a spinwheeling external drive, unlocks a Word file in SharePoint, or splices imperfect audio perfectly. I’ve become adept at various book-making and video-editing kit, Word, Adobe and all their kin, and rarely lose my temper with any of it. (Except when I do, of course, and then the cats know to dive for cover.)
Today, however, its seemed every camera, microphone, computer and external drive had it in for me… Most especially, a bit of purchased software that eradicated its former name and behavior after an unassuming “there’s a newer version available, would you like to download it?” I mostly don’t worry about such softwarish self-awareness. Today, it sounded like Hal. This previously well-behaved video converter bodged all its convert-save-file preferences. When I spoke harshly to it, it spitefully took out the drive where it was supposed to save those converted files.
Restarting — the simple solution to many if not most computer headaches — made everything worse. And so I have spent three hours unpicking the tangled threads of the external storage drivers, the video converting software, and my lost converted files.
Everything bar one drive (of course, the one I was trying to save to) is working again, but I just can’t celebrate. I should not be this tired, but instead I am worn to a ravelling. Tears shed over software? Really?
The answer lies not with Hal or cranky software, but the departure — the uninstalling, if you will — of one of my dearest colleagues. A. is off to a new gig, one that gives greater scope to her smart and generous self. And so, those of us waving goodbye gave her a farewell lunch, a cake and gifts, and many sweetly soppy tributes.
But tomorrow, her desk, over the wall from mine, will be empty, and our shared daily tales of cats, wine, frogs, colleagues’ foibles, and even mildly malicious computers, will end.
Small wonder the instruction to “uninstall?” made my eyes sting.