Techenemy?

Is it because I am a writer that technology seems to be an unwelcome house guest? Something I wish would just go away. No hard feelings. The kind of nuisance I know not to piss off. I realize that I should never burn this bridge in particular because I find myself needing it again before the initial anger has subsided. I both frustrate and need the very thing I most frustrate and need.

I hear others rail against its purpose while also quaking fearfully in its wake. Rather than technology causing the societal isolation so many predicted, I find that office printers in particular are the great human United Nations.
"Can you fix this thing?"
"What's it doing now?"
"Did you read the instructions in that small window panel?"
"I don't have time!"
None of us has time but someone (usually the same person each time)breaks down and begins to read the step by step instructions, it is comical to predict when each person in the small group will give up. Would it be Step 3 when you turn knob C clockwise three turns, or Step 6 when you lower the panel on the back of the machine and fish frantically back and forth for the one piece of paper that has secured itself firmly against and lodged itself into the lower inside of the feeder. My mind begins to wander immediately after Step 2 begins. Each time I insist that I will not lose focus, that I will instead stay engaged but the machines must send off this electrical/fiber optic whistle, reminiscent of a dog's whistle, to send me off looking for a second cup of coffee, or a stack of post-its.

I remember Hollywood's depiction of men using the telephone and how ridiculous they looked talking into the wrong end of the device, I had little empathy for their mindless struggle, but as karma has dictated time and time again, we all travel the same road, and I find myself on this road, trying to hitchhike home again.