Computer-literate, wot, moi?

  I came into the computer field comparatively late in life, after disliking them for some years. Many years ago I pottered happily with a ZX81 (remember those?) which was really a games-player, though some computer capabilities were available. But then, at work, the computer disease struck. The Cooperative Insurance Society, for whom I had happily worked for many years as a Claims Examiner, started to computerise many of its operations `to save costs`. The fact that they had engaged many highly qualified staff at head office, bought hundreds of expensive machines and used up untold reams of paper did not, of course, count as costs! At a stroke, staff who had been competent workers for many years were supposed,with little or no training, to become computer experts practically overnight. A boffin from Chief Office descended on us for a couple of days, rattled through an insanely complicated procedure and said ok it`s all yours. Computer buffs can never understand how, to the uninitiated their pet machine can appear completely daunting. We didn`t even know how to type, let alone operate a keyboard and the results were less than impressive! From the experience I developed a deep and abiding hatred of all things informatic, which lasted a number of years and which still breaks out now and then, when the ordi is being particularly stupid or obstinate. One example was the complaints procedure. All complaint letters had to be laboriously copied into the system, replied to in a day and entered into an infuriating file which could not be deleted even if some silly error was made, which it often was. A good two hours work for unskilled labour ( only five minutes said the boffin) at a time when the firm was reducing staff at a great rate. The un-intended result was that all complaints were immediately solved by the harassed claims worker, if necessary by paying the happy client whatever he wanted, justifiably or not, and thus didn`t have to be entered! Luckily I was within a couple of months of retiring and in the end blythly refused to undertake this work, which nonplussed the management  a bit. If you dont do it who will, they said. Not my problem I replied, the same chap who will have to do it when I retire. As I was of course not replaced the problem must have caused a bit of havoc, which the CIS solved shortly after by closing the whole claims office and replacing it with a call centre `Oop North` manned by inexpensive labour. I got out just in time!
  Phew, just writing this has brought me out in quite a sweat, it all comes back to me, as the skunk said when the wind changed. All over ten years or more ago, but you can see that computers remained for me somehow reminiscent of an unhappy time, a symbol of the changes in conditions which still, I think, have changed employment into a stressful and unpleasant experience.
  After that, I instinctively avoided anything to do with computers, having almost nothing to do with Kim`s machine apart from the mechanical problems of setting it up. However, when digital photography began to establish itself, I started to take an interest in entering and later, in improving photos on the screen. Then, when it became advisable to back up our increasing store of frames, I decided, instead of getting an exterior hard-drive, to buy an old Mackintosh from Adrian Brown who restores and re-homes these machines, once top-of- the-range but now almost given away as obsolete. Kim bought me one, a Leopard, for my birthday, and gradually I took an interest in its non-pictorial possibilities, including the writing of this blog. Strange how things turn out, isn`t it? And I think you will agree that I am no longer completely computer illiterate.

   Bye for now, going to tear myself away from the keyboard to experience some real life!