Recently I have begun to feel that my ability to make technology malfunction could and should be honed to become some kind of superpower.
Before anyone imagines that this is an exaggeration for comic effect, let me put you straight. Devices of all shape, size and function just lose it around me. Picture the technological equivalent of your typical straight man’s reaction to Scarlett Johansson: cogs spin, high-pitched noises emanate from an unidentifiable source, everything shuts down in a cloud of smoke. It would almost be flattering if it wasn’t so damn inconvenient.
Because make no mistake, this affects my daily life in a series of ever-evolving, creative ways that would give a Bond villain food for thought. Take, for example, the office sign-in machine that records the arrival and departure times of all employees using our fingerprints. Standing beside said machine for up to half an hour every day as it repeatedly tells me (with mounting hysteria) of my failure to successfully complete the simple action of having my fingerprint recognised, while colleague after colleague glides past (blithely signing in and out, living their lives) is one giant exercise in futility. I’m a simmering ball of frustration before I’ve even had my morning coffee.
With such encounters creeps in paranoia. They say that dogs can smell fear and I’m now convinced the same thing is true of all forms of technology. The devices hate me, I’m sure of it.
Not only do they hate me but there is some kind of sinister conspiracy between them to disrupt my life to the greatest possible extent. The history of my phones alone is evidence of this. Every phone I have ever owned carries with it a legacy as singular as each of Henry VIII’s six wives.
There was the phone that would take an incoming call as indication that it should switch itself off –perversely, only when the call came from someone I actually wanted to be in touch with. So telemarketers were given free rein but I couldn’t communicate with my grandmother.
Then there was the phone that decided to arbitrarily filter my text messages so some would come through immediately and others would take weeks to make an appearance. You can imagine how many potential relationships that succeeded in ruining.
The phone that had to be carefully balanced on a window ledge in order to register any kind of activity at all was a curious case. You could argue that this was primarily an issue of network coverage but I’m too jaded at this point to make such fine distinctions.
Meanwhile for years people extolled the virtues of the Smartphone to me. All these problems will disappear if you just buy a decent Smartphone, they said. Clearly – clearly – they underestimated the strength of my dubious power.
My current phone, in the first heady months of our association, had dazzled me with a veritable treasure trove of wonders. I can use Whatsapp! I can access Facebook wherever I go! I can Shazam! I can make calls! I can take pictures! A whole new world opened up ahead of me.
The honeymoon period was bound to end, of course. Now, for no discernible reason, my Smart (arse) phone insists on trying to connect to any wifi network in the vicinity, even if I ask it not to. In doing so, it eschews (read, scoffs at) 3G connections. Unfortunately for the phone and even more unfortunately for me, it has stopped being able to successfully connect to any wifi networks, meaning that in order for me to use any internet on my phone I have to literally escape from any potential wifi connections. Cue a lot of contorting out of windows, running down flights of stairs in order to receive important messages and learning not to care about social etiquette as heads turn when I wail at the phone in a fit of rage or despair.
As the years have passed, I have essentially resigned myself to the fact that I am Bad With Technology. I try to update my computer and it loses functionality. I attempt to casually navigate a touchscreen and everything disappears. When I see those memes instructing you not to laugh at your parents for needing help on the computer, as they taught you how to use a spoon, I find myself nodding sympathetically. If only I could at least say that I had once taught someone how to use a spoon. What kind of Millennial am I anyway?
Now I feel the time has come for me to do more than simply accept this as a character deficiency. Isn’t life all about turning challenges into opportunities? I am a source of great untapped potential here. A secret weapon. Kryptonite, if you will.
So whether it’s small-scale sabotage or full-on catastrophe, consider me the woman to call. Want the internet to come crashing down at work so everyone has to go home? I’ll just stroll by your office building. Want to disrupt all communication between the hottie you have your eye on and whomever he’s messaging on Tinder? Just buy me a drink and I’ll make it happen. Hell, let’s send me off to North Korea and really have some fun with this.
Every new technological innovation is marketed as breaking new frontiers and as the technology evolves, so will my ability to make it self-destruct in new and spectacular ways. Devices, be warned; I’m coming for you.
