When did we become so completely and utterly reliant on tech??

When did we become so completely and utterly reliant on tech??  I’m usually banging on about having a break from screens, having a day of detox from your gadgets and I’m usually pretty chilled about having time away from my phone. However, recent events made me go into a complete meltdown. 


Last Tuesday evening we had the mother of all storms, there was thunder, lightning, torrential rain and some pretty hefty hailstones.  I’d literally just got home from running so I was counting my blessings that I’d only encountered about 10 mins of the thunderstorm on my last mile back. As me and Mr Bob watched the worsening storm from the safety of our orangery, there was an almighty crash, bang, wallop which sounded like an explosion. We discovered the lightning had struck the lamppost outside our house and the resulting surge had blown out the phones lines and therefore the internet. 

This is a pic our neighbour took and our house is directly across from where the lightning struck!!


I took myself by surprise when I went into meltdown mode - “I’ve got a PT client first thing tomorrow via zoom, I’ve got my group fitness session via Zoom tomorrow night and what on earth am I going to do about work, I’ve just had a week off, I’m already behind, I’ve got important meetings”. Mr Bob literally had to shake me and say “for god’s sake woman, get a grip”. 

Once I’d come to my senses, I started to think about how ridiculous I was being. It wasn’t exactly my fault for goodness sake, it was hardly something within my control.  In the end, I started laughing about how crazy life had become.  At what point had we become completely reliant on tech??  Ok, time to fight back and use tech to my advantage.  I couldn’t magically fix the phone lines or the internet router but I still had gadgets that I could use.  What about if I hooked up my laptop to my phone and used it as a hotspot?  I did a trial run and tested it out. Yep, that should work. 


The next morning, my PT session went perfectly with no hitches - result. Time to sort out work, would everything else be as easy. Yep, I hooked up my laptop to my work phone and hey presto, back online.  The same again for my group fitness session - in fact the quality was better than normal!!


Unfortunately, as I write, the saga continues.  Apparently BT said we had no account with them.  Fine, we'll stop paying our bills shall we?!  Once we'd got past that hurdle, the new router that should have arrived on Friday had managed to get lost in transit!  When we rang to say it hadn't arrived, we were then back at square one with "we have no record of your account" - aarrgghhh!!!  How come whenever anything like this happens, it somehow becomes your fault and your problem to sort.  Thankfully, the guy we spoke to was incredibly helpful and today we received a 'mini hub' to get us back online until the all singing, all dancing new router arrives.


But the whole point of this sorry little tale is how frightening it is that your whole life is sent into disarray because you have no tech at your fingertips!!  Tech has moved on so quickly in my lifetime and as much as I love it, I'm glad that deep down I'm still a pen and paper kind of gal and I had all my diary appointments written down.  Mind you, I'll still be pleased when our new fancy router appears!!


#2021




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