How has modern technolgy defeated you!

[Solunar Silver Studio]

I've been stuck here all morning while we have had a new front door and side window fitted...you know, one of those upvc jobs with multiple locks that get thrown when you lift the handle.

It's a lovely door - and makes this place look like a mansion now with all the shiny brass door furniture.

But - the man has just taken me through the dos and don'ts.....aka 1001 ways to permanently lock yourself out!

Now, technology often defeats me these days - so with this new knowledge that the front door is out to get me I'm not sure I dare leave the house again! And I have got to explain all the workings to 2 'whirlwind' lads of 18 and 20....

...troublesome times ahead!

What horror stories of technology biting back do you have to tell??....
Barbara

[Ominicci]

Oh Barbara . Where are the kids when you need them!! My othe rhalf is like that with everything - if it had more than 2 steps to it he doesn't want to know. Work gave him a blackberry and he had it 3 weesk before he turned it on - and that was only cos people kept asking if he had got their e-mail. I'm usually OK with things as long as there is an instruction book - didn't he leave you anything?

[Solunar Silver Studio]

No - no instructions except a very garbled list of what not to do - all delivered in a very broad Liverpool accent...n me a Cockney n'all guv. I only got maybe one word out of three. (Apologies to all Scousers - you are lovely folk but despite having lived 15 miles from Liverpool for 23 years I still struggle with the accent!) I've been playing with the door for a couple of hours and think I have got it now. I've just gone out to buy some extra keys (aren't they expensive now!!) - all cut with a special, fool proof, modern cutting machine - and one of them doesn't work and the other one sounds like it is about to break off in the lock when you turn it!! Groan!!

...and don't start me on mobile phones.....aaarrrggghhhhhhh!!!!

[The Bijou Dragon]

Aren't modern doors awful... my parents one is a nightmare... push the handle up, turn the key, push the handle down and open. Their front door though is one that tips back or opens and I just can never, ever work it out. When I used to love close by I used to look after their cat when they were away and I used to answer the door through the front window as I just could not open it!

Other than that everything's OK... I'm pretty savvy with technology but those damn fiddly loopy plastic things they have on fresh fruit juice cartons or oil bottles these days drive me insane. I've never managed to pull one off without the loop snapping and then having to ram a knife down the side to get the round fused bit out!

Having said that there have been a few times today I thought reverse action tweezers had got the best of me and they almost went out of the window twice

[Solunar Silver Studio]

The man who fitted it said that he had had a lot of trouble trying to explain the workings of the door to 'little old ladies'...It broke my heart to hear that. Before my Mum went into a Care Home she was increasingly confused and scared by a world she no longer understood. And I agree with the milk carton problem too. How can frail, arthritic fingers handle that?? My Mum often resorted to a knife before she could have a cup of tea. Wicked! The people who make these changes all say it is to do with 'Health and Safety'....Bah - what nonsense! There should be some nasty punishment for people who impose this sort of torture on people when it so affects their quality of life!!!

[myke]

progress is a wonderfull thing as long as it works.maybe there should be the things that piss us off thread.