I consider myself a pretty smart gal and to some degree tech savvy, but recently I found that I could not figure out a lot of things without checking manuals or “help and support”. The first sign of tech-neuron degeneration showed up, actually, a couple of years ago-when a friend reminded me that I could actually fast backwards and forwards the music/podcast using the skip buttons on iPod, which I was not aware at all for a very long time (so I either listened to a podcast from beginning if I missed anything or I missed the part forever) . Well, you can’t blame me, I don’t read user manuals, and I never know pushing a same button longer or shorter can trigger different functions. Now this button thing is even more confusing with the Jebra Bluetooth headphones-on top of the mysterious single “main button”, the speed of the blinking lights can also mean different things. Since I’m never able to remember what’s the difference between each 3 seconds or each second, every time I push the button, it feels like playing with a slot machine, you never know what lights will comes up. Regarding mobile technologies, I still haven’t figured out how I can dial numbers like 1-800-DISCOVER on a Smartphone, since alphabetic and numbers don’t show up on the same buttons anymore.
Speaking of dialing 1-800 numbers, I can’t help to share my long journey of cracking Starbucks code for their free wifi connection. I owned a gold card over 6 months now, but was never able to enjoy free wifi as promised until recently, when I was determined to claim my “exclusive benefits” so I can resumed my happy Starbucks working hours I started from my dissertation era. Since there was no way I can log in to Att account on the default homepage, I decided to ask customer service for help. I translated 1-800-starbuc on the back of my gold card to 1-800-782-7822 and type it on my Moto Q9C, and listened through a very long and strange menu including options like “press 4 if you have business ideas” and “press 7 if you want to buy a large quantity of coffee” (sounds like some secret codes, no?). Finally I was led to “press 4 if you want to use Att wifi for the first time”, but the instruction was read in such fast monotone that I had to listen to three times before it makes sense to me. When I was asked to type in my card number as shown on the back of the card, I could not find the 16 digit number until I accidently tilted the card to a certain angle where the 3pm sunlight struck on a series of digits that I could not see otherwise. While I almost felt like Robert Langdon who solved all the puzzles that lead to the door of some secret society, I wondered if I there is a possibility that I am too dumb as a coffee house consumer. It took me 6 months to get to this door and it hurts my ego at the thoughts of that Starbucks may actually considered an average gold card holder are capable of redeeming this “exclusive benefit” without going through much trouble. Maybe I’m two Standard deviations from the average consumer. Yeah, that hurts.