I admit to having curmudgeon blood in me. I inherited it from my father who always pulled his shirt above his head whenever anyone pointed a camera in his direction. My scrapbook is full of pictures of my father as a headless man.
Anyone who reads my blogs knows my Achilles heel is technological change. (See blog 7/9/13) I’m all for progress, but change has to make sense and frankly, some of the old fashioned inventions are as good or better than the new ones. I defy anyone to improve upon the paperclip.
Happily, I am not alone in my curmudgeoness. Stanley Bing warmed the cockles of my surly heart recently in one of his columns. (“Progress? Feh!”, Fortune, July, 2013, pg. 104) There, he casts a glassy eye on much that is meant to pass for improvement. He draws our attention to public toilets, for example. Those automatic sink faucets without handles are a horror. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t but they are always followed by the blow dry machines that cut off too soon, forcing people to wipe their hands on their clothes. Emails are another of Bing’s pet peeves. He calls them “a compost heap” of spam. (pg. 104) Smart phones aren’t high on his list, either. How are they a convenience when a boss can reach his employees 24/7, even when they are on vacation?
If Bing were an inveterate shopper, I’m certain he’d add those electronic machines that read barcodes to his list. Now that salesclerks are becoming extinct, a customer wanting to know the price of a garment must safari throughout the store to find one. I’m not sure how he’d feel about electronic car windows, but I hate them. I keep imagining I’ll drive off a bridge and the electrical system will short, trapping me in my car with the water rising.
Okay, enough of that. I’m making myself nervous. Time to pull my shirt over my head. Oh shoot! The zipper’s stuck. Someone should improve upon those contraptions
(Courtesy of www.indiaonrent.com)
