AliceFraser
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For want of a nail...
🕑 Added 2020-09-21 12:37:42 +0000 UTCToday was a fascinating exercise in admin. It made me think of that, “for want of a nail, the shoe was lost/ for want of a shoe, the horse was lost...” poem and also the lady who swallowed a spider. I’ll try to describe the most boring thing in the least boring way.
“An epic quest. A simple task. A wizard’s request. The file space was inside you all along.”
I decided I wanted to write a long form script. But so far I’ve only ever written in word documents like an absolute pleb. A very nice person sent me some script writing software, which I went to download.
- I needed a higher level of operating system on my laptop to allow me to install it. Cool cool.*
- Then I went to download the new operating system but had no room on the hard drive for the new operating system. Cool.**
- So I plugged in an extra hard drive which I’d bought for just such an eventuality to put my large video files (weird flex) on that. (So prepared! Extra cool!) ***
- But I need to format the external hard drive. (Cooool) ****
- But I need to choose whether to format it to my current operating system (so I can get the files off the laptop) OR the new operating system, so I can access the files post-Operating-System-Update, but not both (???) (not cool)*****
- So I decide to upload my large video files to Dropbox instead, and THEN upgrade the OS and THEN format the external hard drive for Next Time (there will definitely be a Next Time) this happens. And THEN download the script writing software. (Cool) ******
- Dropbox says it will take two days to upload the files from my computer. (....) (.....) ********
- It has begun. *******
* this is like when you find out you are the long lost king, but first you have to find your crown.
** you find out the only person who knows where your crown is, is a wizard. But nobody knows where the wizard is.
*** but you find out that the innkeeper you’ve known all your life actually used to be a hero and has been watching over you, and knows where the wizard lives!
**** he tells you that you need a spell to wake the wizard,
***** but if you wake the wizard, he’ll only speak in riddles.
****** but it’s okay, because the wizard’s attendant knows what book it’s in.
******* but it will take her a while to translate it, so I guess she’s coming along on the quest, too and she’s soooo sassy!
******** you set off on your quest, walk all day, look at the map, and realise it’s going to take you six months to walk there.
********* the quest begins.
Today, I planned to do some script writing. But a lady ate a spider and a horse lost its shoe and I need to get the horse to the shoe shop but I need to get the spider out of the lady first because the spider has my credit card.
Xx
A
P.S. I do understand that if I were more on top of my IT, this wouldn’t have happened, so this is me definitely reaping what I’ve sowed. I hope this doesn’t come across as a pointless whinge, because I have found it pretty funny throughout the day. It’s just like an epic quest but so much more boring, you know? Like, I’d love this if it were some sort of narrative about gems and dragons and solving wizard riddles.
P.P.S. Do share this around if you like it. The more people come and play around here the more we build a beautiful little paradise of nice thoughtful people. Sharing with someone who might like my work is still the best way to help. Follow me over on twitter and instagram, too, at @aliterative or @aliterative. Performers and writers these days often get booked on the strength of their fanbase and follower numbers.
Xx
A
Comments
Precisely true
Trying to get my mom to write an email over the phone. Me: "is there a little box with a pen in it?" 10 minutes of back and forth later. Mom: "nothing like that but there is a square with a pencil in it"
That would happen to me all the time back when I was always trying to help my father solve a problem with his computer, via the phone. Just to ascertain whether there wasn't something obvious on his screen that he wasn't describing to me, I'd walk him to the steps to take a screenshot and then mail it to me, so I could open it and try to talk him through the process. But getting a screenshot into an email to me would take another ten minutes, by which point the initial problem was receding deeper and deeper into oblivion. Good luck!
Alice, don't worry about not being on top of your IT. The very last thing we want is creative people worrying about IT. Or IT people writing comedy (sorry IT crowd).
In software development, it's called Yak Shaving: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yak%20shaving
As a map maker you can't underestimate the necessity of scale.
Tim Parsons
35 years in IT speaking here and all I can do is sympathise. Although I tend to stick to the OS that I think may not be the same as yours, so I can't offer much in the way of assistance. (But I'm horrified that a mutually acceptable file system wasn't an option for your external drive!)
Over my sadly long and mediocre career in Tech I have defined two relevant concepts. I leave it to you Alice to determine which of the two you are using. Concept 1) Disabling Technology - any tool or technology that actively prevents you from accomplishing your task. Concept 2) Futilities - any tool to technology that has the stated objective of making your task easier for you but in fact reduces your efforts to a futile exercise in mental masturbation.
Solution: Rob a horseshoe store and crown shop and skip the steps. Might introduce new problems but cross that bridge then - on the horse for pace.
It’s probably some awful life lesson about the value of focusing on the work rather than the result or something
Ben Ward
Everything I do usually requires 7 extra steps.
Peta Thames
I worked for nearly 20 years in IT and was at a very senior level when I thought fuck this shit and jumped careers 3 years ago. I can vouch that IT professionals, ok me, regularly fall down this same frustrating rabbit hole when you just want to do That One Thing but spend all day chasing your tail getting the platform on which you want to do that thing ready instead. It seriously happened to me tonight when I went to update my website. Though your story actually reminded me of when I learnt that painting a wall is 90% prep and 10% painting. Saturday morning start cleaning, drying, nail hole and gap-filling, drying, cleaning, taping (optional for some but not me)... only to put my unopened paint tins back in the shed Sunday evening. That preparation is a thing that takes time as well as the task itself is still not a concept I've really grasped.
Philip Arnold
You should never let spiders have your credit cards.... they're always on the web 🤪
The same principles work the other way around as well. Many years ago I heard the modern anti-hero story (predating Breaking Bad) of a woman who received a DVD as a gift but since she didn’t own a DVD player... one thing led to another... she moved into a larger home to accommodate the size of the surround-sound speakers that were needed to accompany the big screen TV which had been utterly necessary to appreciate the video quality produced by her newly purchased DVD player. A real lesson for the ages, that one.
