Intermittent Connections

So I wrote about the windows day I had last week over at The After Mac. It wasn’t really Windows fault. I was mostly venting. But the outrageous number of options for Window’s Operating Systems is kind of ridiculous, especially when you can’t get all of them in any local retail stores.

Anyways… the actual problem that triggered the crappy day (which turned into a crappy weekend) was a failing hard drive. The creepy part of the whole scenario was that this exact hard drive had the same problem 3-6 months ago. I stuck it on a shelf (I have pack rat issues) and ruled it out. But when my other POS (that’s point of sale, not what you were thinking (although its that too)) started having problems, I tried this computer again on a last ditch attempt.

And it worked. It has worked for the last month.

Until it didn’t.

So after a long weekend of debating my options (rebuild data from paper and accept missing data vs. sending off for recovery ($900-3900), I was pretty much worn out. So why not plug the hard drive in for one more try. What do I have to lose, right?

And it worked. Sort of. But it at least worked well enough to get my data back.

And that’s why I quit my potential IT career. I couldn’t deal with intermittent problems. How can you feel confident that you have fixed something if you didn’t actually do anything and the problem just goes away (and comes back).

But this has got me thinking about relationships and human interaction issues. Do we have solid consistent connections with reality and others? Or… Do people see as intermittent problems? We are inconsistent, so avoiding us for fear of the uncertainty of how we’ll react.

I try hard (especially over the last year or two) to be consistently me. Good or bad, I’m me. You see the beauty of a consistent problem is that it is recognizable and addressable. Often, it is recognizable before it becomes a critical problem. So while I want to consistently me and have that me be a problem free experience, I want my problems and issues to be consistent as well.

So for future computer experiences and for my own life, I pray for problem free experiences. But when there are problems, lets hope for some consistency so we can identify the problem, troubleshoot it, and move on with life.