Annoying technology pushes my buttons
BURTON W. COLE, Editor
By Burton W. Cole
I’m not opposed to technology as a rule.
When I was a kid, we had to rub sticks together or pound flint to get a fire started. In no more than three or four hours, we’d have a roaring flame, over which we could cook our brontosaurus burgers.
Finally, a few cavemen got together and invented the microwave oven. This was push button technology at its best. And we finally knew what to do with all those bags of microwave popcorn we found by the dinosaur tar pits.
Then we pushed buttons too far.
Want to set your sundial? Push buttons. Need to change channels? Push buttons. Even my car starts with a pushbutton.
Then department stores caught on. They invented something called self-checkout and told customers to push their own buttons. You know the joke: I had the grumpiest, rudest, most incompetent cashier ever at the store today. It was self-checkout.
That probably was me trying for the 17th time to get the scanner to read the barcode on a loaf of bread that I’m becoming less and less interested in buying with every passing “boing.”
Fast-food restaurants weren’t to be outdone. I walked into my favorite brontosaurus burger place, and instead of a kid at a cash register, there was a screen populated with pictures of the food they could rustle up for you.
“It’s touchscreen,” a guy near the french fries hollered. “Just push the pictures on the buttons.”
It’s like being back in preschool: “Can you find the cow? Point to all the squares that show a picture of a cow. What does the cow say? Would you like your cow well done, medium or rare?”
Hey, touchscreen, what does the frustrated senior citizen say? Are you allowed to use those words? How would you like your knuckle sandwich?
Technology took us from the Flintstones to the Jetsons, with plenty of comedy, but no one’s laughing.
What really pushed my buttons was when I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up my blood pressure medication. I was greeted by a touchscreen. And a sign that ordered me to check in by entering my information by pushing buttons.
No more do we approach the counter, where the pharmacist knows me by name and simply hands me my script. That process worked just fine. It was simple, efficient and friendly.
Obviously, a new system needed to be invented. A more complicated system. One to frustrate and infuriate customers. One that pushes our buttons. I thought my blood pressure was high enough already.
The touch screen won’t even let me near a human being until I type in more data than the pharmacist ever wanted before he handed me my amber pill bottle. Name. Birthdate. Birthdate of the seventh vice president of the United States. Your favorite Beatle. Do you remember where you were the 21st night of September?
OK, I exaggerate. But not by much.
The technology was so realistic that the keys on the touchscreen stuck like a real typewriter. My name came out as “Brtn ol” and the blank for Best Cartoon Dog ended up as “oooooopy.” (OK, I’m exaggerating again, but again, not by much.)
I didn’t think that I, a bona fide introvert, would ever say this, but I miss people. I don’t want a touchscreen nor an app nor a QR code nor any other fancy technology. I want my pharmacist back, the one that said, “Oh, hey there, Burt. I’ve got it right here waiting for you. See you at the game Thursday.”
I want my server back, the one who brought me my drink and knew my order before I said a word.
I want my cashier back. The surly guy at the self-checkout bags my stuff all wrong.
Why did someone have to put the touch on a friendly system that worked? No wonder we old people get grumpy. Technology keeps pushing our buttons.
Push these buttons, news@falmouthoutlook.com, to send Cole a message. He’ll read it when someone prints it out for him.
