How tolerant are you?

I bought a MacBook Air this week and Microsoft Word for Mac.

They offered to install it there and then but I requested an appointment to come back this morning to have it installed to give me the opportunity to play with my new toy and put a list together of things I needed some help with.

So I transferred files from the hard drive, some are corrupted, photos were moved over, the iPhone wasn’t authorised and I couldn’t find the hash tag key #### I also didn’t know how to open a download to have it installed and where to store files and where the search function was. Otherwise I’m more than happy with my new toy.

Now at 42, I know my adult kids think I’m past it when it comes to technology and my 14 year old certainly thinks I shouldn’t be allowed access to the internet, however my Mother thinks I’m a genius in all things technological J.

So when I’m greeted for my 30 minute tutorial by an employee the same age my eldest son, I must admit my hackles were up and I was ready for a fight, but I was so very wrong. He first asked me if I had any experience of Apple OS and I replied ‘other than my iPhone, no’. He then offered to file, move, sort everything for me, authorised my iPhone, discovered he didn’t know where the hash tag #### key on a UK keyboard was located (we found it together) He gave me instructions on how to migrate files so they weren’t corrupted, rather than just copy them across from the hard drive.

He demonstrated the click, 2 finger click (right click) how to close a file, rearrange my icons, open downloads for installing and not once did he demonstrate any kind of frustration with me or make me feel as if I was stupid and shouldn’t be allowed near technology.

Now this is how things should be isn’t it? I have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things and an awful lot of experience, which I use to help others on a daily basis. I’m often approached for advice from child welfare through to international shipping and I give my knowledge and time freely, to strangers off the net and to friends of friends etc.

However I often find I’m on the receiving end having asked for information on how a product, service works and if I can’t get the assistance I need from people who have personal experience I do what we all do, I turn to the professionals, often a free service, they call it customer care on the end of the phone, face to face in a store or via email, letter or telephone and I often find that these people just sometimes don’t care, treat you as if you’ve asked a stupid question or that you are actually stupid.

I tend to find that most visits that involve any kind of request for help for medical aid, cell phone contracts, opening bank accounts, registering a vehicle start like this:

I’m NOT South African, I know how things work in the UK, because that is where I was born, raised, have experience of things. I know in the UK how to phrase questions correctly to get a response, but here I don’t. If I want to ask for a mobile phone contract or ask for a demonstration on a sat nav or god forbid not understand how medical aid works, because where I come from it’s free, then I’m going to ask aren’t I? How else do I learn?

I don’t expect to be laughed at any more than I’d expect you to know how things work in my country either. So that’s why my hackles were up this morning when I entered the Apple Store, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Hello and Goodbye

I get so emotional at airports, whether it is saying Hello or Goodbye.

Since moving to South Africa, we've had a stream of visitors, both sets of parents, a sister, two of our kids that stayed behind in the UK, both on their 2nd visit and my friend @cantbarsed2.

You realise how large the world actually is when you move to another country, people say 'what a small world' because of all the technology, because it 'brings people together' It doesn't, it reminds you how far apart we really are.

I tend to leave home for the airport about a 40 minute drive away about half an hour before the plane is due to land. I have a favoured parking space, I grab a coffee and stand at arrivals watching people come through. I'm familiar with the airline staff and their uniforms so with one eye on the arrivals board and another keeping look out for the captain of the flight I'm waiting for. I sip my coffee, I tweet and I people watch.

In anticipation of family and friends arriving I get really excited, I think of all the place I want to take them, all the things to show them and all the things we need to catch up with. As they walk through arrivals, I have a habit of breaking into tears, hugging them, while they look perplexed. I'm not know for public displays of emotions.

Poor old @cantbarsed2 was spared that sight, as I was just approaching the terminal when my phone rang, she'd landed 20 mins early and had already cleared customs and collected her bag, seeing as we hadn't met in 20yrs she must have thought this was one big, nasty joke, as she looked around for the hidden cameras.

i'm much better with goodbyes, I think about why I'm pleased to see the back of the visitors, how we've had a row, or they've got under my feet, anything to stop myself clinging to them, begging them not to go and leave me on my own. I stand there, blinking back the tears with my 'hard cow' face on, wave them off and usually manange to just about get back to the car before the tears come. Although I can't control them when it's the kids.

I was at OR Tambo airport last week to collect Hubby from his return to Egypt. Fancy that an 8 hour flight away, same time zone and yet we are both still in Africa, that's one of the reasons I know the world is such a large place. We'd last spoken with one another on Skype 13 hrs earlier and as I stood waiting for him to arrive back from his 4 day away trip. I listened to the people around me.

A few English voices, I smiled, we chatted, we passed the time with 'bloody hell it's hard living here isn't it?' and then I saw this young woman with a small child. She stood in the arrival hall, she had tears rolling down her face, she yelled 'Mum', and mum rushed forward, hugging her daughter and then stood back and starred at her grandchild in his pram. She sobbed, she bent down and picked the child up and through the sobs she said 'my gorgeous little boy, I can't believe this is the first time I have cuddled you'

Most of the women around me were in tears and hubby walked into arrivals, hugged me and said 'I've been gone less than a week' I pointed at the two women and the small child, sobbing, trying to explain why I was so emotional...I failed, but bless, all the way home he thought I'd missed him....I had, just not that much.

How do you handle teenagers and technology.

My last child, my baby, turns into a teenager next month and for 3 weeks I will be the proud owner of 3 teenagers. Thank fully they won't all be in the house at the same time as my 19yo lives in the UK and arrives for a 2 week visit on May 2nd having turned 20 during his flight here.

This will be the 5th time for that 'Kevin and Perry' moment in our household (I have 2 step children, both in their 20's now)

I don't actually recall it being 'that' bad as dealing with 5 kids with varying needs, interferance from ex partners and several sets of grandparents, I'm not sure any more if my children became teens over night, if it just creeped up on us all.

My step daughter is profoundly disabled so her milestones hasn't follwed the normal routine. Her milestones were walking aged 8 and her ability to sit in a cafe without grabbing food off our plates.

So what makes teenagers so difficult to manage/control? Is it just their hormones? Is it because there are 5 of them and they're constantly fighting for attention? Or is it peer pressure?

No, No, No, No, No. I won't have any of that used as an excuse. I blame one thing and one thing only, TECHBLOODYNOLOGY.

Television

We have 3 televisions in our house. The main one in the lounge with DSTV/SKY which you can record on and pause live TV. There's a TV in the kids lounge with the same channels, but no recording facilities and no HD and a portable one in the conservatory which I usually watch DVDs on (we used to have it in our bedroom, but it drove me mad with hubby finding things to watch, falling asleep and leaving me wide awake looking for the remote to switch it off)

Our 4 boys have never had TVs in their bedrooms, I've never agreed with it, watching TV to fall asleep with actually in my opinion makes them stay up later, they can access adult channels, even on the old terristeral system and it just causes too many arguments (there's one going on right now about watching the main TV as both HAVE to watch their programmes in HD)

Access to the internet.

We bought a 2nd hand desktop in 2000 with dial up internet, it wasn't that appealing to the kids, they were too young, there was no facebook, bebo etc so it was rarely used, more of a word processer for my studies and the occassional education game that failed to load.

In 2002 we got broadband and the trouble started...'I want a go, it's my turn' so along with the desktop I purchased a laptop so I could work in peace and the kids could play on the computer, which by now was really a gaming machine. Xbox, playstations arrived after the hand held consoles had been purchased by ex partners and grand parents which hubby and I objected to due to the arguments caused among the boys and missing games and chargers that were borrowed and not replaced.

The eldest child now 22 didn't own a laptop until he left home aged 18, which he bought himself, the next child nearly 20, bought himself a laptop whilst he was still living at home with his christmas money, the one now aged 17 had a desktop for his 16th after saving his birthday and christmas money and the now 12 yo owns 4 laptops, yes 4...his older brothers have donated theirs to him as they've replaced and upgraded them and the child is a bloody genius, he's taken them apart and rebuilt 1 thats works 100% and has far greater capabilities than anything we own.

Mobile phones

The biggest bone of contention in our house, ever.
Eldest was bought one by his mother so she could keep in touch with him i.e. tell tales on the family of ear wigged conversations to throw back at us in court. It was removed from his possession and anyway he kept losing it, rarely took it with him and it was rarely charged. He was 11 and no way does an 11yo NEED a mobile phone. He then got himself another one aged 15, lost it, another, another, another and now aged 22 he doesn't own one he CBA.
Next had one aged 15 on contract (his dad pays it) I objected but then what rights do I have?
Next one had an old phone aged 15 as he was always out at sports matches, needing picking up at different times, using public transport on his own to travel to training session by train in Birmingham and having to catch several buses and walking a mile so it was decided a mobile phone WAS a necessity. When we moved to South Africa we couldn't get SIM cards so for a year there weren't mobile phones, I managed to get a PAYG and hubby had a work phone and then finally after a few months we got 2 more SIM cards, fixed 2 old nokia phones and the 2 youngest were able to use them. They moaned about the phones being old and it was embarrassing they couldn't access facebook.
On their return to the UK in december one returned with a Blackberry the other with a Samsung.

Each child has complained that they didn't have x x x until they were much older. I remember complaining I had to wait till I was 14 to get my ears pierced yet my sister had hers done aged 11 and the same with going to youth club and coming home at 8pm. So I guess there's no real difference with how teenagers behave, I guess it's just about different things.

I think I've finally understood my mother who spent years listening to me complain 'it's not fair' and her reply of 'wait till you have children of your own' which has now become 'wait til you get grandchildren and you'll buy them the stuff you know their parents don't want them to have as a grandparent you only have the fun times'

So I'm just waiting now to 'lie in the bed' I've made for myself by backing down/giving in and letting them have more stuff (please note it's not us buying the stuff, we just provide the internet, which is regulary switched off as a punishment)

Their next quest is to get anything 'I' related and they now think they have a right to it all, because of the path technology has taken, but I'm standing firm. They both have a phone, xbox and Wii, access to the internet and constantly complain that I have an ipod, a Galaxy tab, a mobile and a laptop and 'it's not fair' but I'm the adult, I earned the money (well hubby does) and life isn't fair and as for their reaction? Is it because their teenagers? Is it because of peer pressure? or is it because I deny them their basic human rights to technology?