Taking a Swipe at Skype, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

March 3, 2010 Whitney Farmer 19 Comments

I just bought a new notebook –  a little Toshiba – and I am doing my best to master a new touchpad. I guess it’s been too long since I’ve tried something new.  Right now, I yearn for no new challenge. I’d just like to live my life with my obsolete tools and toys, minding my own business.  But that’s not an option because I wasn’t born into or dated into wealth.  A girl’s gotta make a living.

So, for a while, everything will take three times longer and hurt twice as much and I will tell myself that this is a good idea.  I’ll feel dumb and clumsy as I try to point and say, “Gimme!” to a machine that doesn’t really care about me. And I’ll accidently delete work projects. Like blogs.

What started all of this was a new business associate asking me to participate in a Skype video conference.  I told him that I wasn’t on yet, but could remedy the situation.  The problem was that I had a computer that had aged past quirky favorite status into obsolete relic.  I assumed that I could purchase some component upgrades and easily have them installed.  I learned that this strategy would leave me with a duct-taped word processor with a glued-on video camera and a solid rocket booster needed to help it start.

A better solution was the same one I chose after my divorce: a fresh start with new equipment.  I decided to go get Fry’d, as in a Fry’s Electronics immersion.  I don’t know if the whole corporation has the same marketing strategy, but in the L.A. area, each store has a different design theme.  One in the Valley is Alice in Wonderland. One in Burbank is 1950’s Sci Fi movies.  The one I went to was decorated like a medieval cathedral.  So, walking all alone into this place filled with columns and cherubs and seraphim, I prayed all the way.  There I found what I had been searching for.

Taking my new electronic baby home to my parents’ house, I felt very smart.  I quickly took it out of the packing and began to get to know something that I might spend more time with over the next…five years?…than with the love of my life who is just around the corner.

As I was waiting for the video call to connect, my mother walked into the room and began to change her clothes, all the while telling me in a voice that was just a bit too loud (because she is having some hearing troubles since chemo) that her shingles rash is acting up. Not knowing what the camera was able to capture, as well as not knowing how to use the new touchpad to click on the “Disconnect Call” icon, I almost pulled the plug on my new baby and threw it out the window.

Finally, after days of analyzing and implementing and ramping up before finally dialing in, I was connected on the call.  And no one else was on video. But they could all see me.

Here’s the question:  I understand why a person would like Skype if you are off at war and you want your children to remember what you look like.  But isn’t its function the antithesis of why people choose not to work in an office?  I can be effective after a 15 hour day on the phone, but not if you see the train wreck that my hair has become. I want that to be my awful secret.

At  the end of the Skype Swipe – as I will now call them – I thought that I had made a good impression about what a diligent techie I was.  Then, the man who called the meeting asked “Have you signed up yet for Google Phone…?”

It’s time for chocolate.

Quote of the Blog from Ed, Dude of Light and Fog, “When my mom used to speak French, I knew I was in trouble.”

—
Whitney runs a rock music club in L.A. She has an MBA and no one cares.