Blast from the Past

How has technology changed your job?

As I’m retired this is a tricky question, so I’ll go off piste as usual.

In some ways the advent of technology made my work a lot easier.

When you made a mistake on a typewriter you had to start the entire page again, which usually meant you made more mistakes the more tense you became. As such the delete key changed my life!

In other ways technology made it a lot harder. I always knew where a specific piece of paper was, I can easily lose something on a computer because where it felt sensible to save it no longer makes sense.

I’m not good at housekeeping on a computer either because it’s so fiddly.

• Cull your photos means open them all, scroll through them, get carried away, lose two hours, you can’t decide anyway. Close the folder and go back to it later. Then forget.
• Deleting old documents is easier. Except will you need that piece of information in the future? Okay keep it just in case. However, deleting your writing means reading it all to see if any of it’s worth keeping, which could come down to just a few lines or ideas. You get carried away editing it. Lose two hours. Close the folder and go back to it later. Then forget.

You get the picture, well my picture. I’m sure there are millions of people more disciplined than me, but I’ve never found a computer as easy as a good old filing cabinet with my own filling system.

Dominant senses

You may feel that this is a generational thing, and you could very well be right, but I think for me it’s more about the sense of touch. When I hold something it feels real in a way that the things hidden behind a computer screen don’t.

One of the abilities of a psychic is psychometry. You can hold an object in your hand and tell people about the person who owned it, or give the history of an object.

I once held a ring that a lady gave me and knew that it was two rings, the shank of one and the stones from another, I was right. I was also able to tell her about the two grandmothers whose rings they were, and aspects of herself and her life.

You are in the walls of your house. I can get a feeling about who you are from just walking through a door.

As such if I can touch a piece of paper there’s a connection for me. Switch off a computer screen and it’s effectively dead.

Touch my computer screen and you will pick up a lot of gestation around updates, and a version of “for goodness sake, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it, you’ve unimproved this program and over complicated it far too many times!”

Breadth and depth

There is so much more to technology from the safety features built into new cars, which means ours panics when it drives past long grass, but in truth many features are excellent.

Technology within business and the sciences that I know nothing about. Technology in our own homes, from the tv to the oven you can text on your way home that will switch on and your tea will be ready when you walk through the door.

I have real issues with that. Fresh Fish in an oven all day in the summer? Frozen ready meals ditto? Chilled ready meals? Meat? Plus most house fires are started by white goods, and even if my oven is black it’s still electrical which means it’s not authorised to work without supervision.

I’m not nuts, my neighbours garage went up in less that three minutes when their dishwasher malfunctioned. Ten minutes later the fire brigade were thinking of clearing our house, a detached house 16 feet away! So if I’m nuts it’s for a reason.

There are steps too far and technological inventors don’t know when to stop over complicating and being clever. If it works brilliantly and does what’s needed efficiently, improve the security measures and leave it alone.

We’ve already got technology spying on us. I can watch my cat food station (camera name, it’s just a mat on the floor covered with dropped food), and their litter trays. I daren’t tell them of this invasion of their privacy. I blame the vet who needed this information.

“Is your cat drinking too much?” “One definitely is but we’re have four!” Then I got indoor cameras. Problem solved.

I would quantify tech as enough is brilliant and too much is too far!

It’s made life better and far, far worse at the same time. Social media being possibly the worst. Anything that a human can misuse really.

Deb xx