Back in the day, important paperwork was Xeroxed and then filed accordingly. Photos were printed and stuffed into boxes to be album-ized later (once the time was found to find the one good shot out of the 23 headless misfires).
Now it’s all digital. With the possibility of vanishing forever with a single speck of errant dust.
With all the blogging and photo-taking and movie-making, I suddenly realized I didn’t have an airtight backup system in place. This was cause for great consternation. With the blog-blowing up and MySQL arguments I’ve had these past few years – not to mention the hordes of adorable muppet photos I’m in process of accumulating…
Failure is not an option.
I loaded up the muppets (who seriously needed to get out of the house) and we headed to THE MALL. I figured we’d make a quick jaunt over to the shiny Apple store, grab a new external hard drive to match my new LaCiE drive, have some dinner at the Cheesecake Factory before beginning the arduous process of duplicating E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.
“Funny,” said my friend, in a dry tone dripping with sarcasm. “Since you’re not typically a paranoid person.”
First step: Maneuver to the back of the Apple Store where the server storage offerings are displayed. I took a deep breath, and armed with a million “excuse me’s,” our little trio pushed forward. The store was packed three people deep through and through – all playing with shiny gizmos.
Success! (And quite possibly the real reason I brought the muppets. If you think I’d be embarrassed to take you out with my double stroller, you would be wrong.)
And then a blue shirt appeared in front of me, mumbling something.
I immediately jumped to the assumption he was annoyed at the amount of space my brethren was occupying. “Well hellloo,” he intoned a bit louder. “Is there any type of storage server offering I can help educate you about?”
I admit. I snickered at the smarminess of it all. And then dismissively mentioned my desktop hard drive desire.
“We have all kinds of small portable ones here. Cute. For you and you precious little ones.”
- Um. Exact opposite of what I asked for.
- Seriously? Cute? That’s a hard drive selling point? It’s a grey metal box.
I asked him to point me toward the Western Digital My Book.
“Well well well…you know what you’re talking about,” he oozed as he edged closer. (Get out of my bubble!) “Always a pleasure to find the rarity of a lady who speaks our language.”
Seriously?
Perhaps it was the dumbstruck look stuck on my face as I stood there gripping the stroller in my sweats. Was he high? Was *I* high? I just wanted the 1TB drive? What’s with the patronizing?
“Can I interest you in two? One for each little boy? Your husband should be able to set them up and teach you how to use it no problem.”
Are you kidding me?
- This is the Silicon Valley. Heartland of technology. Why must we immediately jump to the conclusion that I’m an idiot. (Nevermind. Just answered my own question there.)
- This is the Bay Area. Why are we automatically assuming I have a husband? (Hi Jon! You’re awesome and you could totally have set them up and taught me how to use them. My point is more that I can do the same thing. Especially since they’re plug-n-play.)
Also, being naught but a little lady, perhaps I’m too simple to understand basic math – but if I needed more than 1TB, I’d buy the 3TB for $50 more, not two 1TB for double the cost.
“So, what do you think?” he asked inquisitively.
“I think this is going on the blog,” I definitively replied.
“I don’t understand.”
Clearly.
Oh, see, now, that would have pissed me off. Bad. I’ve been less than impressed by some employees at the Apple store, but never been patronized like that.
I walked in a few years ago to buy an iTouch. I’d done my homework, so I knew what I was going to buy. I told the sales rep, “Sell me this iTouch.” he sucked at it. He said stuff like, “Well, it’s really cool.” And, “it will fit your music on it.” No shit, Sherlock.
Return it and tell him in total tech-speak why. 🙂
That’s so patronizing! I hate it when salespeople automatically assume since I’m female, I have no clue what I’m talking about.
LOL!! Awesome. Unfortunately it’s women like *me* who perpetuate the stereotype. (Sorry!) But I’m learning…
That drives me nuts… I’m 30 and live alone and my neighbor said to me yesterday “Well maybe you could ask your dad if he could look into getting some quotes to rebuild this fence”. Uh buddy, I may be a single woman, but I have 2 wireless drills, 3 tool kits, and I know how to wield a hammer… so I’m pretty sure I could handle making a few phone calls. Good lord, I could rebuild the fence myself but if you think little ol’ me can’t do it… grr.
That is what’s known as tech-flirting.
Also, interested in a job being my family’s director of IT? I’m about to resign and they’ll need someone.
I have been programming for 30 years…and I was told that I could never be good since I was a woman! I still find both guys and ladies who believe that women are not tech-savvy….and assume my husband will do things….and he’s the one who asks me!
OMG – certainly the WRONG comment to make to you! Now me, on the other hand, would have been his perfect audience. Actually, the tech guy at our District Office just agreed today to give me private lessons over the summer!!!
Nothing like a smarmy Apple sales rep to make me never want to step foot in that store again. I would have hated this entire exchange. While it may very well be true that I know little when it comes to computers, the last thing I need is for someone to point it out to me.
You should have stuck the 3TB up his self-righteous hiney 😉
Stopping by from the Weekend Spotlight over at S3P!
Oh, how I hate smarmy…but I double-triple-quadruple hate smarmy AND sexist. Great post 🙂
Well, we all know ladies are bad at math and computers and the internet and…wait, what are ladies good at? Oh, that’s right, getting schmoozed by dudes. Yuck.