5 Stages of Tech Grief

Had this realization today and well, thought I would share:

The 5 stages of Grief is something I've heard about in the past and may have even referenced at times. Best guess I think it might have been a post with a touch of Dead Like Me in it.

Anyway the 5 stages of tech grief are:

1. Denial - - No it's not broken, it's really working - see flashing lights. Are you sure you're using [insert tech here] correctly, that you didn't just tweak a setting or something? It was working fine before.

2. Anger - - "Why Me?" Why out of all the people on this planet did you call me. It's not my [insert tech here]. Just because you broke it doesn't mean I NEED to fix it. Oh, you broke it when [time is usually measured in weeks or months here] - and you need it fixed by when [time usually measured in minuets or hours if not sooner]?!?!

3. Bargaining - - Have you tried rebooting yet? If that doesn't work how about we try and talk you through some of the basic troubleshooting, checking the connections and such. What if we get you a swap [insert tech here]? Can you drop it off/ can I pick it up to work on [insert tech here]? If I can fix it will you just go away?

4. Depression - - They have no idea what they are doing, and I'm going to be trapped on the phone feeling my brain liquefy and my eyes ooze and bleed. Who knows maybe they will have an epiphany and figure out what it is they are trying to login to - possible bonus points if they remember who they are for their login. Yeah right, better chance of meeting death before they figure out copy and paste. If I had one bullet would I be better off using it on them or me?

5. Acceptance - - hard call for total acceptance - most things are just resigned. Joyful bliss ensues when things get fixed - maybe there is hope for humanity, maybe even a little hope for this person. Usually you just learn to live with the reality that no matter how many times you teach someone how to fish they will still attempt starvation and call again for another attempt. All you can do is hope that you'll be out, helping someone else when they come back. (I guess you just accept that there will be others and move on to the next tech triage case.)


Oh and on happier notes DI hit it's 3rd Anniversary last Saturday (27th of Sept) when my home net connection was down. It feels good to have a solid connection back up again - almost like the return of balance that was missing before.

This is definitely the longest web presence I've ever had :)