I grew up in the age of the rotary phone. Our TV had a dial and no remote.  No microwave, games were placed with game pieces and spinners.  Who needed a car when you could get anywhere on your 10-speed bike. You looked up information using a card catalog to find a book or look in the encyclopedia.  Paper and pencil ruled.  None of this required buttons.

I remember when buttons came along.  Touch tone on your phone, remotes, food cooked at the touch of a button.  Pong.  A world of information at the touch of your finger.  How cool, right?  Like something out of the Jetsons.  Without the flying car.  Speaking of cars, my husband’s new car starts with the touch of a button.  Not a key – a button. But we’ve been lied been to.  Buttons may make things seem easier but they unleash a a flood of busy-ness  that takes over our minds and lives.   Even if you want them to.

Technology is a part of everything we are and do.  I wake up to an alarm on my phone and then read about what happened overnight on that same phone.  I pop the bacon in the microwave for breakfast, pushing the buttons for the number of seconds I need, I drive my car to work and work on a computer.  I am able to zoom and talk face to face with people anytime, anywhere in the country.  I click on a button, the screen opens and it truly is the Jetsons.  The problem is that the ease of the button gives us an excuse to say “hey, let’s zoom” to the point where we’re zooming all day long.  Our eyes are literally popping out of our heads, bloodshot eyes screaming at the idea of contacts ever again.

Despite the fact that I have to work with technology every day, it is the bane of my existence.  I don’t get how it works, the language of technology seems to change every day and I don’t understand.  And I don’t want to get it.  I’m not intrigued by all the latest and greatest, in fact it scares me.  I’ve been told you can’t make a mistake, that I can just take it back a step but it doesn’t matter. It’s the one area of my life that makes me feel stupid and completely inept.  The problem is that it’s impossible to do anything in my jobs anymore without it.  And I don’t get it.  The buttons that are supposed to make things easier just complicate things for me.  As I think of poor teachers who are having to deal with teaching remotely while also teaching in person, I begin to panic for them.  It’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful not to be teaching this year.

I think because I am a relatively smart person, people assume I get this tech thing.  (Except the ones who really know me). So they speak to me in this tech language and in an effort to keep up the facade, I listen, say ok and then try to figure it out.  Sometimes I luck out and despite the fact that it took me 10 times as long as anyone else to figure it out, I do.  And if I remember how to do it again later, good for me, but most of the time it takes me multiple times to figure out how to do it again.  It’s frustrating and infuriating.  It pushes all my buttons, which is ironic because it’s all about buttons isn’t it?  See, even pushing someone’s buttons has a negative connotation.

I lost it last night with someone over technology.  I didn’t even know where to start. I literally stared at a screen for 45 minutes not having a clue as to what I was reading and what I should do.  This person was asking me to do my job and I didn’t know where to start.  All the tapes in my head began to play.  I was stupid, I was a failure and people were finding out just how big a failure I was. I sobbed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help, I didn’t know how and worse yet, I couldn’t even speak the language. The whole imposter syndrome kicked into gear and my greatest fear, the idea that someone was going to figure out that I didn’t really have any idea of what I was doing took over my whole being.  The flight instinct, something that seems so illogical for the circumstances was overwhelming.  I was done and ready to quit.  I was embarrassed for so many reasons, but the greatest one was allowing someone to see me so out of control over something as simple as a button.  A button that everyone else seems to understand but I just don’t get.  Oh, and when my husband finally convinced me to ask someone for help, that person figured out what I had struggled with within minutes.  Grateful, but chagrined yet again.

Chances are I was really tired and overwhelmed by a myriad of things before this ever started, but there’s no doubt that the technology request sent me over the edge. My hope is that there are others out there like me.  Others who are tired of the sigh you hear when you ask someone to help you with the same thing they’ve helped you with before.  Others who see and hear the condescending tone in someone’s body language or voice because you can’t figure out how to turn something on, much less how it works.  Sure, technology is fast if you get it.  It feels like it takes a lifetime if you don’t.

So, what to do?  I need to learn to ask for help and deal with it or delegate.  There are people in the world who live to push buttons.  I’m just not one of them.  I’m more than willing to trade in the buttons for paper and pencil any time.