Tech Support

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor...
--Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods

 

I attended a graduation this weekend. More specifically, I attended a graduate hooding ceremony—the culmination of a hard-fought master’s degree program for a good friend. The nostalgia and brief thought of maybe I’ll get a PhD so I can do another one of these hooding ceremonies will have to wait for another day. It was a nice ceremony—but that’s not what I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about what happened before the graduate hooding ceremony started.

I had arrived about 20 minutes early and was sitting near the top of the arena, amusing myself with the Sudoku application I had recently downloaded for my iPod Touch. (Yes. I’m a nerd.) After a few minutes, a man sat down in the row behind me. I didn’t really notice him until he asked jovially, “Are you winning?” He was an older man, and there on the hard basketball stadium seating, he looked about as pooped as if he’d just come in from chasing too many grandkids around the yard and had sunk gratefully into an easy chair. I smiled and answered his question. I was indeed winning. It was, after all, a one-player game. And I returned my attention to it.

Very soon he kindly interrupted me again. “Would you dial this for me?” he asked. “I can’t see it well enough.” He handed me a cell phone, possibly a pre-paid one you buy at the big box stores. You know the kind. Functional. No frills. It felt inexpensive, and looked to be several years old. By that time, his wife had joined him. She stood in the aisle next to him, her eyes scanning the crowd on the opposite bank of bleachers, looking for any sign of the others attending the graduate hooding ceremony. Their others.

“Did you call them?” she asked him.
“She’s going to dial it.”

I looked at the phone in my hand. I was only about 87% sure that I could help. I’m not the most tech savvy person when it comes to navigating a device I’m not familiar with. But I agreed to try, and he started to tell me the number. I pushed the buttons, 8-0-1, and nothing happened. “Is it on?” I asked. I wasn’t really surprised when he didn’t know. It wasn’t, so I turned it on, proud of myself that I knew how to do that by holding down the red button. Three years ago I wouldn’t have been able to get him even that far!

I wish this story ended with me saving the day by dialing their loved ones for them. It would be nice if my actions had actually helped. But when I dialed the phone—nothing. Connection Error was all that the less-than-useful phone had to say for itself. I tried again. Same result. Just as I was about to offer my own phone to make the call, his wife spotted the group they were looking for. With a quick Thank you from them and a Good luck from me, they were gone.

I returned to my game, and I stared wondering: Why did this man assume I could help? I’m not really that tech savvy, and I’m not really that young. I am from the generation granted access to the mystery of setting the VCR, but I’m not from the generation born with a mouse in their hands. And then it occurred to me: I had been playing Sudoku on my iPod. Of course he assumed I was young and hip and savvy. So, thank you, my iPod, for misleading strangers and giving me the opportunity to help—even if, in the end, I didn’t.

btw: Did you know Word doesn’t know the word Sudoku? But Studbook is a suggested alternative. Studbook. Yeah. That might be an interesting download for my iPod. Is there an app for that?