[Critique Group 1] Leonard's comments on Cleora's piece

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

3280 words




 


Your word count is way off.   



It’s about two thousand words too many. 




 


This article echoes the problems we all have with technology. 



The title is right  on. 



The things you are describing is a bit more thanI can imagine, 



since I have a seeing partner who deals withthose technologies. 



But she has given up on almost all of them  



because of issues you have described.  



We, as blind people, have additional problemswith the equipment  added to those ofsighted people. 



Technology used to be simpler and just as useful. 



There is nothing I couldn’t  do with earlier versions of Microsoft  computing. 



Excet that, it was more reliable and much easierto do all the things I am doing now.  



The piece, well written, deals with things I canget the gist of, 



you loose me in the details. 



That may be my fault, rather than yours.  



If you lend me a hammer and a ticket , I’ll cometo your home and end all your problems.  



A well aimed hammer can do wonders. 



Of course, you’ll have to go back to the oldways of doing things. 



but, There won’t be anything else to take theplace of what you have now. 



You can’t buy an old x-p  computer.




 


scream, curse, throw things



by C. S. Boyd



I love the title.




 


Any of us who have had to deal with technologyto get something done, have experienced the frustration and irritation of thesometimes impossibility of accomplishing our goal.




 


We boot up our computer only to be confrontedwith its demands that we perform some update, reconfigure settings, or rebootso it can finish some update of interest only to it. We launch an app toperform a task and spend endless minutes searching for the magic link or buttonto take us to the desired feature and then struggle thru the steps to get theprogram to find and select the correct items to submit the task.




 


I just finished a two day, actually all told ithas been four days, project to make a simple deposit and transfer the fundsfrom one bank to another.



The first hurdle was to convince my bank app toaccept an image of the front and back of the check and deposit the funds in myaccount.



Next, is to move the money to an accountspecifically set up for transfers to the other bank.



No! Says the program. The money is not yetavailable even though I can see the transaction and that the money has beenadded to the balance.




 


The reason for this, as I'm sure you know, isthat the bank insists on confirming that the check is good before letting me doanything with the money.




 


So, I wait.




 


Now, I get an email from my bank informing methat I haven't used Zelle, an instant money transfer option that I set up alittle over a year ago, in the last 17 months, so If I don't use it in the nextthree weeks, my account will be deactivated. I am assured that if I decide touse it after it is deactivated, I can simply go in and set it up again. Sinceit took me a full day and the help of five different agents of varied knowledgeand ability to set it up in the first place, I determine that I will try tokeep it active.




 


Ok, I think, I need to transfer the money fromthe check. I'll use Zelle to do that. Two birds with one stone, as it were.




 


I check the next day and find that the fundshave been made available.




 


I log into the bank app, record by balances, tapon the menu button, select "Transfer with" and find myself in theZelle transfer option.



I select transfer to friends and family.



Can't believe, things are going entirely towell.



I press on



Now, what I need is a list to pick thedestination bank from.



There is no list.



I find a link that vaguely sounds like it mayhelp.



Hmmm...



After some fiddling, I call the internet bankingcustomer service number.



Fortunately, I get a representative that whilehe doesn't listen well, at least has some ideas how to get this done.



After 15 minutes of diligent labor, I amrewarded with a transfer of $2,000 of the $3,821.85 that I wanted to send.



Turns out there is a$2,000 daily limit. Ipropose that maybe I could transfer the rest from the other bank where Zelle isalso set up.



“No,” the rep tells me. “The limit is $2,000from my bank no matter which bank I make the Zelle transfer from.”




 


But, I have transferred more than $2,000 usingthe ACH transfer. The limit is on Zelle transfers only. Okay, I think, fine, Iwill set up an ACH transfer for the rest and the money will get there tomorrow.




 


I go to the transfer feature and find out theEarliest I can set the transfer up for is tomorrow. Since tomorrow is Friday,That means the transfer will not be processed until Monday delaying its arrivaluntil Tuesday.




 


The rep was right. It would be faster to useZelle to transfer the rest tomorrow.




 


So, next morning I'm lying awake in the weehours and decide to get up and make the transfer.



It goes smoothly. Sort of. It's really hard tofind the buttons and links sometimes. With Zelle, the screen is not logical atall and there is the worry that the app may decide to log me out before Ifinish.



After successfully transferring the remainingfunds, I now need to use the other banks app to transfer the money from theaccount that is attached to Zelle, to the savings account so it can earn higherinterest.




 


If my local bank's app was a challenge, theother bank is even worse, but after 30 minutes, I have accomplished my goal.




 


Now, what I have to remember is that 50 yearsago, I would have had to take the check to the bank to deposit it. Then, writea check and mail it to the other bank. This process, given the mail service atthat time, would have taken 3 to 5 days.



Despite the frustration, thanks to technology Ican deposit a check from my home, transfer the money back and forth betweenmultiple accounts almost instantly, and I could have done none of this as ablind person 50 years, and some of it not as recently as 10 years ago.




 


I think yhou go into too much detail about theank transactions.



After all, this is not about vanks .



It is about technology and  the problems.




 



 


All in all, as irritating and frustrating as itis at times, we need to pause and give thanks for the amazing capabilitytechnology gives us. Oh, wait. If I had deposited the check and then mailed acheck to the other entity to transfer the funds, or if I had just mailed theoriginal check for deposit to the other bank, it would have taken 3 to 5 days.So the only benefit from technology, is I was able to do it here at home usingmy apps, and didn't have to find someone to take me to the bank and help me maila check to the other financial institution. So, in this case, technology didn'tsave any time, it was just more convenient.




 


other technical challenges




 


The Automated Assistant that answers the phone.You know, the one that tries for three minutes to convince you that it can helpand a person isn't needed. Then there is the answering system with a menu ofoptions none of which fit the reason I'm calling. Once I'm finally in the queuefor a representative, it periodically tells me that I can Go to www dot blahblah blah for faster service. Have you ever tried that? If this option isreally easier, why is there a long wait on hold to talk to a person? Maybe theyare so sure that the website or automated assistant can help they only have oneperson answering calls.




 


If it weren't for technology I couldn't record ashow that airs at midnight and watch it at my leisure. For that matter, Iwouldn't be able to record a movie and watch it a few minutes at a time over aweek. One thing I particularly enjoy is being able to fast forward through thecommercials. I couldn't attend a worship service remotely, and I couldn'tattend far away conferences. So, I admit it, technology is great, but I don'tthink it really saves us that much time. In most cases, it just makes thingsmore convenient.




 


I recently heard of yet another innovation. Afriend and his wife went to a restaurant. When they asked for a menu, thewaitress told them it was the bar code on the table. They had to take a pictureof the bar code with their phone to download the menu and make their selection.What if you don't have a smart phone? Will it work with voice over? For anothertime, the things technology makes impossible for those of us who can't see, orwho don't have the latest and greatest gadgets.




 


I suppose this could all be  expressedwith  the 



Cliché, Technology , you can’t live with it orwithout it.




 



 



 



 



 


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