Friday, February 15, 2019

Tech Knowledge - Gee!

No one ever comes to my door, knocks lightly on the frame, and waits for me to answer.
"Yes?"
"Mister Caven, I just wanted to tell you that everything in my room is working great. I really wanted to take the time to drop by and say how much I appreciate the way you keep things useful and alive."
Instead, I tend to get a sad-faced child, trailing wires and various peripherals wandering up to me while I am in the midst of teaching another class: "Mister Caven?"
Offering up the tangle of electronics, "This doesn't work."
The expectation seems to be that I will stop whatever it is I am doing and tend to the needs of this machine. Because it is not working. Kids don't care what may have precipitated this emergency. They just want it fixed. Much in the same way teachers call my room to ask me what is wrong with their technology. "Why won't it work?"
And I know I only have myself to blame. I have a bit of a reputation as some sort of wizard when it comes to things that plug into the wall. Before it ever lands in the electronic waste pile, why not let me have a go at it? I have rescued my share of Chromebooks, computers and projectors from landfill or worse. By jiggling a plug or pushing one more button, I have kept our school electrified for more than twenty years.
Not that I arrived here with that capacity. What I knew about computers and their associated brethren would have fit on a three by five card back in the mid nineties. What I learned over the years form practical experience is that the tendency for most users is the rage quit. By putting myself on that front line, I have created my own private circle of hell. I have my own special breed of tenacity to blame for the interruptions to my day. The suggestion has been made that if Mister Caven can't fix it, it can't be fixed. Which is flattering but patently untrue. There have been plenty of devices that have escaped my grasp to repair. Consequently, I work in a space that has become littered with bits and pieces of machines that have perhaps lived past their useful purpose, and are awaiting my learning curve to catch up to whatever it is that escapes me.
And the parade to my door continues.
Back to work. 

No comments: