It all computes

Next to TV there is no greater time killer than the computer. Unlike TV, however, with the computer you can almost feel like you're doing something worthwhile..Afterall it WAS the focal point of your job (when you had one) and was a highly functional piece of equipment. It's hard to imagine how anyone gets by without a computer..There are those - of all ages - who brag that they don't know shit about computers. They say it with pride. This is the same crowd who don't use ATMs. My favorite computer time (saver) is on-line banking. I've almost forgotten how to write a check..and e-mail? I can barely remember the last time I wrote a letter, put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it.. What the hell is a stamp? and how much do they cost.

One positive part of leaving the workplace is eliminating the need for about 20 passwords. Everything had a PIN. The level of paranoia was uncalled for. And at work you have to change them every 30 days or 45 days. And you couldn't recycle some of these until after 10 times. There are far fewer passwords on the home front. It's a much friendlier feel. At work if you had to call the help desk (always at 8 am) you frequently got somebody from another planet. My department all used Macs in a company with 40,000 PCs. When the tech support person heard the problem he took you through all sort of anti-Mac maneuvers. CTRL, ALT, DEL. It always made the problem worse but you had to go through it just to satisfy their process. Sometimes I didn't do what they told me and I just lied and said "oops, that didn't work". Mac users, I've found, are much more capable of solving their own problems. We rarely had to call tech support, but when we did it was the main topic of conversation of the day. In a real meltdown we'd call outside help or if you're lucky (like me) you have a former Apple employee in the family.. He keeps all of us on line and in line..