Wrinkles

You might think that when a 71 year old blogger posts about Wrinkles he’s talking about those lines on his face.  You might think that.  You’d be wrong.  For one, I’ve been blessed with skin that doesn’t wrinkle (maybe I’m permanent press).  And, for two, I’m talking about wrinkles in the fabric of my life not my skin.  These days, everything that happens, be it good, bad or indifferent seems to come with a wrinkle, some little twist that makes it … well … more complicated.  Let me give you a few examples:

Wrinkle:  Toward the end of last year, my company gave an end of year presentation to our biggest customer, who had shown limited interest in our work during the year.  However, they were very pleased with our results and decided to substantially increase our funding.  Good news, right?  Right …but with it came with new government regulations regarding protection of data on computers used on government contracts. It will take a significant effort now just to report where we are as well as both time and money over the next several years. Oh, yeah … by government decree this adds no cost to our contract.

Wrinkle: Our work requires use of a special electronic key to guarantee our identity and encrypt information online. Every year we have to pay a company to assure the government that we are us. But it’s all online, so what could go wrong? How about everything? The renewal process won’t work, so I email the helpline, which tells me I should try it with Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. But my version of Internet Explorer is corrupted and won’t connect to the website. I reinstall a new version and it will connect to the site but still can’t renew. Eventually I discover I need to start the process from scratch which involves provding documentation proving my identity again. Here’s the biggest wrinkle … If I hadn’t actually used the key, I could use the one I already have. But since I actually used it (go figure), I have to buy a new one.

Wrinkle: My friend Ralph was having issues with his email, which uses Outlook and gmail. After working for years, suddenly it wouldn’t receive messages. I knew gmail is making some security changes, so after an hours work, I got it working. Yay. Four days later, it stopped again and even with several more hours work, it still won’t receive messages. My reputation as The Wizard is fading.

I could go on and on but you’d only think I was whining. My friends say these are quality problems. I have a business. My business has jobs. I have computers and I have friends I can help. Yes, I get it. But the Wrinkles are wearing me down and stealing away time I could be spending on things I actually want to do. Do you suppose I could trade in my permanent press skin for a permanent press life? No? Then I guess I’ll be watching football today while I work on some Wrinkles using my laptop.

Have a great Sunday.

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Tags: computers, curmudgeonly rants, feeling older, humor, working

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