Mark Bennett’s internet disappeared.  My VoiP telephone got lost in the ether.  Ah, technology.  Isn’t it grand?

But the one that strikes me as particularly troubling is the Visa debit card commercials.  You know the ones, where everybody sails through cafeterias, sandwiches flying through the air, until some miscreant wants to pay with cash.  These are the Visa cards where you just swipe them over the sensor, no receipt, no muss, no fuss.

And no way to know how much you’ve spent.  And no way to tell if you’ve been debited correctly. And no way to tell if something has gone wrong.  Imagine how wonderful the world would be with every $2.39 purchase painlessly done with a swipe.  But who would remember all the itty bitty buys, the amounts, the simple number of them on any given day. 

Multiply a dollar here and there, or even a penny, but millions every day.  Have you ever wondered why your fixed cost phone bill comes out to a different number every month?  That shouldn’t happen, right?  Yet, somehow it does.  We don’t really look, because it’s all done by computers and we’ve come to trust and rely on computers.  They couldn’t go wrong, could they HAL?

Lawyers do their legal research online.  People get arrested because computers spit out warrants for people with the same name.  Defendants get sentenced because rap sheets from other states show prior felony convictions.  Fingerprints and DNA match victims with their killers via computer analysis.  But they can’t keep Mark’s internet working or my phone number activated. 

And when something with some distant company does go wrong, assuming your capable of even catching it, you end up on a 37 minute hold to speak with a lovely Customer Service Rep who was working at Dairy Queen last week, and is very sorry for your inconvenience.  But more often than not, she can neither answer your question or resolve your problem because she just doesn’t have the authority.  No authority?  What do they know about her that we don’t?  Besides, is it really worth your time to sit on hold for 37 minutes for $2?  They are counting on you to say no.

Technology has given us incredible opportunities, and opened vast new horizons.  But it’s not perfect.  Not even close.  Just ask Mark.  Or me.  And ask us before you swipe your Visa for that Starbuck’s mocha frocha caramel flappacino.