My Greatest Fear: The Digital Dungeon
Hmmm, will I be trapped in the dark andgloomy digital dungeon for all time?
Ask a group of friends what theirgreatest fear is and they will likely cite one or more life or deathsituations. Ask me that question and the answer will be: Getting hopelesslylost in the digital dungeon and never finding my way out.
Everywhere I turn these days I have to dobattle with online systems or the guts of digital devices. Applying for retirementpensions, product registrations, set-up or troubleshooting a mobile phone or laptopor wireless printer. Every time I have to do one such thing I half-expect to besucked into the bowels of the system through a phantom portal with no escape route.
It is not unlike the series StarTrek: Voyager where Captain Janeway’s starship is sucked into a black hole,spit out in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy and condemned toroam for years trying to find the way home. My every foray into an onlinesystem or digital device feels like one wrong menu selection away from fallingprey to a black hole.
Within a minute or two of accessing these systems or devices, I am disoriented and at a loss what to do. The instructions in the online User’s Manual or How To page are like a foreign language to me. The screen illustrations included in them never seem to match what I am actually seeing and are of no use to me.
Invariably, after one or two tentativescreen taps or clicks, I stumble into an area I do not want be in and do notknow how to exit. There is no such thing as a Back Button to rescue me. Themore I flounder around the deeper I get into sucked in and the more damage Ido. My only option is to shut down and hope the system lets me out.
I feel like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbitas he enters the Smaug the Dragon’s lair in The Lonely Mountain looking for theArkenstone in a mountain of jewels and gemstones. In my case, the Arkenstoneis the magical and elusive solution to my problem which lies somewhere beneathlayers and layers and layers of technical jargon and dead ends.
I hear the digital Smaug proclaiming: Hah!Got you now, digital incompetent. There is no escaping the labyrinth of mylair. No black arrow for you. Feel my fury!
Attempting to use the system or companytech support is just wandering into another dungeon. The techies one-third myage ask me questions I do not understand. They assume I have a basic levelunderstanding of the technology which I never do. I can sense them fuming at theirend: What a dolt! I don’t get paid enough to deal with idiots like this guy.
On the rare occasion that I actuallymanage to get where I need to be or do the setup I need to do or solve the problemI have, I have hopelessly messed up two or more other functions in the processand am further behind than when I started.
I expect that my obituary will readsomething like this:
Last seen entering the digital dungeon and heard cursing like a drunken sailor. Assumed to be lost forever. Celebration of Life next Saturday unless the system spits him out half alive before then.
~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Untilthe Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which wasa double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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