Hit Counter

25 Sept 2010

Bullied By A Box

If you have used (or still use) Microsoft, you know about the innumerable patches they seem to force us to download every day or other, threatening that the current software would not work otherwise. One such day incident interrupted my beautiful life.

There is this little blue chip flashing at the bottom right corner of my screen, saying "Hello, look at me, click on me, get your updates. Do it now. Do it now! Do it NOW! DO IT NOW!"

With a gun to my head, I click on the 'Get Updates' button and allow MS to download all the updates it wants to. Everyone is happy now. Right? Wrong. 

You must restart your computer for the changes to take effect, MS says. 

I am in the middle of a very important status update on Twitter. Or maybe I was writing a blog. Or reading one. In any case, I do not want to restart right now. 

"Fuck you", I say as I close the window. 

A few seconds later, a message pops up discreetly, at the bottom right corner of my screen. It warns me that it will restart the computer, unless I notice it accidentally and set a time that it should wait for before reminding me again. 

Remind me after 10 minutes, I clicked, and went back to whatever (un)important activity I was involved in. Choosing a theme for my Twitter homepage.

Five minutes later, the little blue window appears again, taking up a quiet corner of my screen, so that I don't notice it and it can restart because I did not select on the remind me option again. I'm too smart and sharp for a dick-head computer, you moron! 

Remind me after 10 minutes, I click again, laughing inwardly at the computer's stupidity, for I intended to do exactly the same thing in another 10 minutes. Whatever happened next, I did not see it coming... Although, now that I think of it, why didn't I?

All hell breaks lose after that. MS gets irritated. The screen goes blank. When the screen comes back on, couple of windows flash on and off. It threatens to close my windows but, thankfully, it doesn't. The screen goes blank again. A few seconds of tantrums before everything is back on and things go quiet. 

I mean, really quiet. Really, really, fucking quiet! I click on a tab on Chrome and it refuses to budge. It won't tell me if it's doing anything. It will not even acknowledge that I clicked on something. A few frustrated clicks and it comes to life. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it starts to shift from one thing to another, pretending to be dragging itself to action one click of mine to another, while all I can do is watch and wait. I dare not click again, for it will insist on heading there too, before it will let me do anything else. Finally, I think it has covered all my clicks and I can click one more time to get to where I want to actually go. 

Hell, no! Windows flashing again, switching tabs, more tantrums. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I've hit the 'Start' button, so the menu pops up. I can hover all I want but it won't select an option. Maybe it would have, if I had waited another century! 

Silence again.

Okay, I give up. I'll let you restart. Show me what you have got, I'll hit the right buttons. The buttons YOU think are right, I mean!

Yes, I am mighty pissed! Can you blame me? I am supposed to be the master of my computer. How can a dumb-fuck machine tell me what to do? Yet, here it is. Bullying me. Throwing me ultimatums - Either you restart me or you can stare at my screen like an idiot, unable to do anything.

I click on the little light blue icon again, mentally cursing, the angriest words popping in my head. I'm too scared to speak out aloud and offend the stubborn monster in front of me. 

Why does it give me the option of restarting later if it won't allow me to do anything until I restart? Why the lie? I didn't refuse to restart, merely said to wait a bit. If you cannot apply the updates until I restart, so be it. Let me just work with the old version until I am ready to restart. What is your bloody problem, Mother?

Now, where was I? Oh yes, I click on the evil blue icon. Nothing happens. What the??! What now? I have accepted defeat. I want to restart now so I can get on with my pathetic life. What is the problem? It seems to take pleasure in torturing me. After what seemed like ages, during which I was terrified of clicking on the icon (or anywhere else) again and so waited patiently (seething inside), the small window quietly comes up on my screen. Restart, I clicked hastily, before it would disappear on me and taunt me for not being quick enough!

You would think the computer would just shut down all the windows (@#$*$##@^&*@#) and restart. Think again! After being such a bully and forcing me to abandon whatever I was doing, in favour of restarting my session, the fella wants to make up. 

Now that I've had my way, let me be nice to you, you poor little idiot. (I'm pretty sure that's what it was thinking)

The screen lists all the sessions I have open, with two buttons at the bottom asking if I want to Cancel or Force Restart. What a joke! If you are thinking it's waiting for me to make my choice, try again! It knocks off one item after another on my list anyway, closing windows as I watch powerlessly. 

When it stopped a few windows later, I click on Force Restart, ignoring the cautionary warning in italics just above the button. It says that if I force restart my machine, I will lose all unsaved data. How funny! Don't I know that? 

Are you sure you want to Force Restart? You will lose all unsaved data. Click cancel to go back to your session.

I am paraphrasing here, of course, but really! Really! Is that even an option? If I cancelled whatever it is that you want to do, will you really let me continue to work in peace? Even if that were remotely true (I don't believe it for a moment, by the way), what about all those windows that you just closed? There was nothing to save there but for God's sakes, I need those damn windows open to continue what I was doing!!

Seriously, what option do I have? So, I authorize it to forcibly close all my windows and restart. As it proceeds to kill my sessions, I can almost see it smiling. The Evil Grin of a victor. The ruffian cruelly forced me to act against my wishes, yet made it look as if I authorized it. What better way to win than humiliate your opponent as he helplessly wriggles under the strength of your grip, especially a mental one?

A lovely way to begin my weekend. I can't wait to experience the rest of it! (Hint: sarcasm)

2 comments:

  1. Let me remind you! It's not ZOS. It is Windows :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right! Yet, people scramble for more of MS, more updates and constantly harp about phasing out ZOS. Pity, ain't it?

    ReplyDelete