This week my partner and I had to overcome mind-boggling sticker shock over the obsolescence of our business accounting software. When we called customer service for help transferring the old software to my new computer, the only option we were given was to pay a mafia-esque toll for an upgrade.
We had been avoiding this moment for months. I purposely ignored the “critical alert” signal every time I opened the software. I had developed a work-around to use it, knowing it might explode in my face any day, also knowing how avoidance ultimately works.
You see, rumor and research had it that the upgrade cost was phenomenal. Also, I use a fraction of the bells and whistles of the old software, notwithstanding the new version. Not to mention that retirement may not be that many years out. So, I delayed, until my options timed out.
A few months ago we got a new desktop computer for my end of the business. My old one ran as slow as molasses. I’m not exaggerating. I could open a program and go for a bathroom break, a coffee, walk to the mailbox and maybe it would have opened. Then I just had to go through it at least three more times to open essential programs just to start the day.
Thus the need for a new computer. I had already transitioned several vital software programs over to the new computer and it was a whole new world. I clicked and it opened; no time for coffee or a bathroom break, just ready to go. Except for the accounting software.
Throughout my months of avoidance, I juggled two computers for every transaction, forgetting too many times which keyboard I was typing on. In several long sessions, we valiantly tried moving the old software with my work-around, to the new computer. By the way, Google makes it sound easy, as in step one, two, three, and boom; but not so much, considering just one little significant detail. Old software, they insensitively call “sunset,” which is tech-speak for obsolete, can’t move into a new operating system.
It’s somewhat like trying to wear the same size and brand of underwear you wore as a teenager. Try it if you want a good laugh.
After we recovered from the two hour process of upgrading to a new system, we both marveled at the built-in obsolescence of so much of today’s technology. All of this is to make a buck off the backs of those of us with no more options.
Don’t you hate it when you’ve finally found a product that suits you just right and all of a sudden it’s been “discontinued?” Oh my goodness. For us, it happened this week with ham.
I reminisce that we used to get a certain cut of ham steaks at the Everett IGA Foodliner at a reasonable price. Before they closed, handing the reins over to a new store, we stocked up.
During the transition to the new grocery store in town, we were delighted to find those steaks in another local store, at the same surprisingly low price. We bought a few for the freezer but sighed a small gasp of relief that this silly little hiccup in life was solved.
Until this week. We went straight to the refrigerated section to check ham steaks off of our list and to our shock and dismay, a new product covered the section where those wonderful little ham steaks once dwelt. I stood a few seconds in statuesque disbelief. What once was redemption melted into a “what just happened” moment of disappointment.
I know it was just ham, but it felt more like cultural upheaval. I wonder why it feels so personal when stores discontinue items that we’ve come to expect will always be available. We depend on them being there.
It’s so disillusioning when you go to a store and head right to the spot where you “always” found a certain item and it isn’t there. You first doubt yourself, thinking you’re just missing it, your eyes are deceiving you. But you look closer, even at the shelf signs to make sure it isn’t miss-shelved. But nothing, nothing.
Even though you sort of know the answer, you check with a nearby employee who’s stocking shelves and they check with their hand-held computer device to reply puzzlingly, “we must not carry that anymore. They’re getting new stuff in all the time. I’m sorry.” Yeah, so am I.
It’s an all too familiar refrain these days. So much new stuff is replacing and discontinuing what we’ve gotten used to and loved. “Good grief,” said Charlie Brown. He’s probably obsolete too.
That phrase, “good grief,” is an oxymoron or contradiction, combining good which is positive and joyful, with grief which is sorrowful and wrenching. It seems to me that contemporary culture is filled with such oxymoron’s. Good grief, good grief, good grief.
New and better products fill the store shelves and upgrade after upgrade comes across our computers and phones. But is new better? Not always.
When new, not better is the only option that we have, we must choose option A, or option “only.” We can stay mad that option B has gone poof, we can grieve that option C is missing in action, or we can go back to English 101 in the school of life and examine the changing forms of the words and concepts, good, better, best; and bad, worse, and worst.
Life is a progression, like it or not. God forbid we should succumb to the concept of progress. Accepting new stuff, whether it’s literally material things or figuratively mental or emotional stuff, it’s an inevitable part of life as we live it in the twenty-first century. Good grief it’s good to be alive.