Stage of Life Issue

The oxygen is sucked out of the air by all the computer fans running at the 24 Hour Help Desk, the place people like me go to have Millennials fix their e-issues.

Before I can enter the rarefied air behind the desk, I need to sign in. The sign-in screen is bigger than my TV and imposing in all its complexity. First I have to enter my user name. Then click next. Then read and sign a waiver that is two pages of single-spaced legalese that baffles my professorial brain. After another click, I get to a password, then an empty box asking the nature of my complaint.

On the other side of the counter, I see seven young people wearing the vest of the 24 Hour UA Help Desk sitting and gazing at their I-Phones.

When I finish my sign-in, a loud ring tone sets them into motion.

They look up at me, as one organism, as if I apparated out of a scene in Harry Potter. Then they look at each other, negotiating. Their looks telegraph the question of the moment: Who will take the old guy?

Finally a young woman from somewhere near the Indian Ocean, the low ranking newbie on the staff comes forward.

"What is the nature of your problem?"

I want to tell her that I am living with the wrong tribe, that somehow I was left here when my people retired and went to live near the sea or the mountains or wherever it is that Boomers have escaped to. But I tell her my email doesn't work.

"Yes," she says suddenly interested. "There was a switch-over in the security system. It's a kind of test to see who can stay caught up with the changes. You, I see, are behind."

"Is there any way I can stay caught up?"

"Your attitude is the correct one."

She signals me to come sit at at a counter full of cables, mouses (mice?), keyboards, tablets of all sizes, phones, a few dismembered circuit boards. The air is hot and electrical. It smells like ozone. I wonder how people can stand it.

"Can you boot up your machine?" Others look on disinterestedly.

One other person, the only other "customer," hears the news that her hard drive is dead, that there is no hope, and she will have withdraw from school. She takes it with a straight face.

"That sucks." And then she is gone, laptop in the crook of her arm.

My machine brings up the problem program on the screen for all to see and snicker at.

"I see you have not gone with the supported mail client. This is not good."

She is kind, gentle, professional. She speaks slowly, like she is talking to a child.

"You are faculty?"

"Yes."

"You should use the supported applications. You need to accept and learn the new ways that we want you to speak."

"But my addresses are in this one. All my correspondence, my bookmarks, my whole life. I know how to navigate using this tool."

"I am sorry. But you will no longer be able to talk to anyone using the language that you are familiar with. It is time to move on or to get out. It's up to you."

Now it was my turn to pick up my laptop, put it in the crook of my arm, a take it without complaint back out into the oxygen rich air, the dead-end solitude of my own thoughts.