This week’s topic for our writers’ opinion question comes from a study that determined people are stressed out just as much by the possibility of losing a smartphone as they are the threat of a terrorist attack. Think about that comparison and really let it sink in. It seems silly at first, yet we’ve all been there and know what it feels like to lose or think you lost your smartphone. That made us wonder what else stresses us out in the tech world. We asked some of our writers, “What’s the most stressful thing you have experienced in the tech world?”
Our Opinion
Simon was really quick with his answer: hard-to-pin computer crashes and random shutdowns. He explains, “Sometimes you’ll get lucky and get a BSOD that explains what exactly crashed the PC so you can fix it easily.” However, some crashes he’s had to diagnose haven’t always been easy, “ranging from unhelpful BSOD errors to full lockups.” “As a video producer who signs up for weekend movie challenges with friends from time to time,” Corbin gets stressed by “the miscalculation of render and export times for a project.” It can lead up to a massive problem. Additionally, he notes, “There’s nothing quite like pulling a couple all-nighters, nearly perfecting a project, and not being able to submit it when it’s late by a few minutes due to the lack of accuracy in export/render time.”
Trevor couldn’t even think of many things that would be super stressful for him. He finally settled on “losing some data and images,” as “most other things can be fixed. For Phil it’s “creeping computer slowness.” With every computer, table, and phone he’s had, they work “flawlessly for months” and then become slower and slower until they become unusable. “It usually boils down to hard drive disease and lazy digital housekeeping” on his part, but he resents having to maintain the kits. He’s waiting for self-maintaining devices to take care of that. I echo Phil’s comments about the creeping computer slowness. And I have a few individual events as well. The one that sticks out in my mind the most was when I was a computer typesetter for business forms and working on two forms that were 17″ x 11″ with tiny rows with about twenty tabs each going all the way down the forms, and each row having a different set of tabs. When I was finished with the first one, after it taking my whole eight-hour day, I went to use the format for the second one and forgot to do a “Save As…” before deleting the entire content to put the new info in. I had lost my entire day’s worth of work. That was stressful, but you can bet I always do a “Save As…” right away now!
Your Opinion
How about your tech stresses? Are you bothered by creeping computer slowness, the miscalculation of project time, or computer crashes and random shutdowns? Or do you have a specific memory of an event that just stressed you out far too much? What’s the most stressful thing you have experienced in the tech world? Join our conversation in the comment section below!
