Woman vs. Machine

Much as I'd like to be a zenful person who never experiences rage, sadly there is no shortage of things that, even if they don't make my blood boil, certainly raise it to an active simmer. And while I normally consider myself to be fairly patient when it comes to the eccentricities of computers, there are a couple of issues that are guaranteed to have me making obscene finger gestures at my monitor. One of them occurred yesterday, when I'd written a lengthy email full of hilarious anecdotes and pithy comment, highlighted one word to edit and pressed backspace to delete it, only my computer didn't register that I'd highlighted a word and took my backspace-pressing to signify that I wanted to go back a page. Of course, when I returned forward, my lovingly-crafted work of minor genius had been lost forever. That certainly was irritating.

But far more frequently, several times a day, I have to suffer a greater injustice when my Bronze Age work computer struggles to keep up with my commands and freezes. Even a relatively simple request, say, saving an Excel spreadsheet, can be too much for my faithless friend. Wiggling the mouse is futile, as is frantically pressing any button. Nothing will expedite its return to normal. But in the meantime, although it is too busy to do my bidding, it can still manage to post a message on screen saying: 'Microsoft Excel [Not Responding]'. Just the sight of those latter two words sends me into a frenzy of rage, usually accompanied by some foul-mouthed tirade better suited to an East-End ganster. Really, which jobsworth Stanford graduate came up with this most irritating of concepts? I know you're not freaking responding you patronising machine, I've been sitting here waiting for something to happen for several seconds! Do you think I haven't noticed that you've done absolutely nothing since I pressed 'save'?! Do you think I haven't realised I can't move my cursor? Or use another programme? Or do anything remotely useful until you've finished having your attack?! Don't waste your precious few spare bytes telling me you're doing zilch! Conserve your energy and expend it on fixing the freaking problem! Do you think I would get away with that as an excuse? If my boss came in and found me incapacitated after a boozy lunch with a Post-It stuck on my head saying 'Not Responding', do you think that would be acceptable? Of course not! So why should we accept this shoddy behaviour from a machine, eh? Eh? Answer me you cretin!

Not that I have much pent-up aggression at the moment or anything...