The stress of changes

I resent many of the changes to technology, but for me the biggy is my local Waitrose. Everything has been changed and I hate it. I’m sure if the security man didn’t walk around he’d find himself in a glass cabinet next to the jams and spreads. Meanwhile their stock of pâté has dwindled to give very few options. I’ve joined a tribe of lost souls who wander around desperately hoping that at least one item will still be where it used to be. It hurts

Chat GPT is my new best friend. I use it all the time for just about anything I want to know. It also makes great birthday cards and writers wonderful poems!

I have an eye op next monday and I had a text from the hospital asking me to ring DORA their AI receptionist to confirm my appearance at the hospitsl. She/it was very jolly and said she would like to ask me a few questions. She confirmed my day and month of birth and asked for the year. I told her/it the year . Silence. "I didnt quite catch that could you repeat it".
I repeated it at least 6 times. Each time she had difficulty catching it. My voice was loud enough, clear enough and no strong accent. Finally she got it. Next question went down the same path and the next. I put the phone down. Life is too short to deal with a rather dim robot.
I rang the hospital on the number on my letter and said I would be attending my appointment. I told the female nurse what the DORA service was like. She said it was an outside company and she would note my comments.

Has anyone else had this difficulty with DORA? Weused to have a human ringing to confirm a hospital appt. I expect those days are well past.
Be prepared it looks as though she is coming. Thats not a change for the better!

This is a great thread. I am glad to meet my fellow Luddites.
I used to be good at IT at work, I started using computers back in the 80s, but struggle with things now.

Calendargirl said There again, as someone else said, I don’t understand some of the diagrams they use.

My ds and his wife went to meet her mother at Heathrow airport. She was coming to visit her first grandson and they had the baby in his new pram. When they got back to the car, they could not fold the down the pram chassis for love nor money, because it only had diagrams and no written instructions.

They couldn’t get the uncollapsed pram into the car along with both of them, the baby and the MIL so he had to drive his wife and baby home, leaving the MIL (who doesn’t speak English) at the airport with the pram and her luggage, then go back and get both MIL, her bags and the pram. When he got back he tried again to collapse the pram and it folded up immediately! 🤣🤣

I’m an Apple fan too, I find it so easy to use. My phone and iPad talk to each other, and when you change your kit, the new one downloads everything from the old one so easily. I’m usually fairly handy at DIY, but can I fit a new strimmer twine - no, it does my head in, to the point where I’m going to buy a new strimmer from G-Tech, purely because it uses little plastic snap on blades instead.

I'm with you. I don't like change either especially technology! I just get used to doing something and it changes! Also lost 3 of my neighbours recently....

It's reassuring to know that I am not alone in this. I'm very not old - don't even get my state pension yet, thanks to the last change in age, but I recognise all the scenarios described on this thread.

I feel like I've found my tribe, as the younger generation often say these days.

I thought I had my new phone all organised until it just wouldn't ring or play sounds at all today. After prolonged investigation it turns out it was on weekend mode! Well I certainly hadn't done that. Apart from anything else why not ring on weekends?
Oh dear.

Just gone through all of this as my new I pad when setting up I was told my Gmail was full. Long story short I hope this iPad lasts forever! Hate change not just an age thing been like this all my life!

Love your thread Aveline.

SueDonim was it a Bugaboo stroller? If so we had the exact same problem every time we had to use the blessed thing. Incidentally, we were interested to see on its packaging that its a 'transport system'. No buggies for our DGS!

I’ve had my mobile phone for years, deliberately didn’t update. Now out of the blue every morning without fail I get a message saying I’ve got a voice mail! There isn’t one there, I can get rid of but just annoying every morning.
Daughter and granddaughter have both had a go at stopping it without any luck.
The phone is from Tesco, no joy there either.

I get that too. Looks like it's just a reminder. I delete them.
Just when I think I've got my phone organised, my PC won't let me type responses on other forums. My cursor has developed a mind of its own and plays hide and seek. Och!

I could have written many of these posts myself!
The trouble is technology moves so fast.

I think Doodledog made a very valid point about no more manuals being issued with new items.
We can always follow instructions and return to the manual to remind us when a problem arises.

We all need a ten year old alongside us permanently to sort such issues out!

When my daughter went away, i couldn't get her vacuum to work.
I spent every day on my hands and knees sweeping through the whole place.

And she knew, when she got back, too! She'd shown me how to use it, but she just seemed to throw her arm forward, and the vacuum became like a transformer, with all lights coming on, and brushes appearing...

No, not a Bugaboo, I don’t think, Aveline though I’m not sure what make it was. They ended up using a baby carrier more than a pram and then Baby solved it himself by walking at 10 months.

Maybe a 10yo should be standard issue with modern tech, Blue14. A job creation scheme for kids and they’d get to have money to burn in their pockets. 😂

It seems nonsensical to me that big complex items such as TV have no instruction manual, but you get one with small items such as a kettle.

You can find the manuals online. Just use the serial/model number of your piece of tech to search for it.

I guess it saves paper to have them online, with maybe just a paper a quick start leaflet in the packaging.

I also hate technology - and as some others have said, I've been using it since the year dot. My DH was a computer programmer and later a systems analyst and taught those subjects at University. We have had home computers since the first Sinclair ZX (which we still have!) and now we are useless with it all.

I try my very best, but often am stuck. Our DDs are no use either, referring to their work IT departments when they have a problem.

Last weekend my oven switched itself off for some reason and it took me six hours to find out how to switch it on again. Today it was my induction hob. I have had them both for ten years! And don't talk about the TV. I have not a clue what we watch but I know I have seen everything at least ten times before!

We have Alexa but I don't know 5 per cent of what she can do. She used to tell us if we were expecting a package from Amazon but has got fed up of doing that.

We are in a very small country town with few places to ask for help, so I despair of the next change to anything at all. But at "only" 74 I can expect a lot of changes still to come in my lifetime.

SueDonim

You can find the manuals online. Just use the serial/model number of your piece of tech to search for it.

I guess it saves paper to have them online, with maybe just a paper a quick start leaflet in the packaging.

Good point.

The more expensive things need very big manuals.

It always amazes me that peo0le suddenly know "stuff" about tech.
"Oh you just need to screen shot it and...."
"Well how do I do that, and who taught YOU how to do it?"

"Scan the the thingy with your phone..."
Phone suddenly has a square on screen that the thingy fits into.
How do they know that??
I'd need a full term of night classes to learn.

How do they know that??

Play with things, google them, Youtube etc eventually it clicks into place - might take a day or so 🤣

Banks too, Halifax is becoming Lloyds, Mastercard is becoming visa

Just use the serial/model number of your piece of tech to search for it.

I often have to go on you tube to ascertain where they are also. Often in a hidden place!