Where’s a Typewriter When You Need One?

With regard to all things technology, I’m sort of like the Washington Generals; you know the hapless basketball team and perennial losers to the Harlem Globetrotters? With regard to tech malfunctions, I’m a summa cum laude graduate of the Woody Allen school of repair – I speak nicely and try to reason with it for at least a minute.

After that I start to hit.

So, it was about a mile past ironic that last week when attending the AICPA’s Digital CPA – one of the year’s most prestigious tech gatherings and where inexplicably, the organizers asked me to present, that I should suffer a humiliating software glitch that apparently even our IT consultant performed a terrific impression of the Washington Generals in their inability to solve it.

It started innocently enough. We received a number of advance warnings that we were migrating to a new version of email and were even provided a link to ease the download process.

However the timing for the conversion was far from perfect as I found myself 2,000 or so miles away from my office and forced to use a hotel’s often suspect Wi-Fi service. So when I tried to send myself a test email – it apparently became stuck in some sort of cyber queue  far, far away and infuriatingly reminded my every 30 seconds or so, with an alert that said “message not sent.”

And this went on for TWO DAYS with no recourse or method to shut it off.

Do you know what’s it like to have your phone vibrate some 1,440 times during a 12-hour workday? As I previously mentioned, I tried in vain to remedy the situation with frantic phone calls to our IT consulting service, which in equal parts frustration and annoyance, eventually advised me to call my wireless carrier as their knowledge of my particular smartphone was admittedly, limited.

Long story short, the tech support team at Verizon Wireless took exactly 30 seconds to diagnose the problem fix it, and subsequently restore my sanity.

My next road trip is scheduled for shortly after the holidays and I’m wondering if you have to take a typewriter out of the case at the airport security line.

Just kidding.