World grinds to a halt with computer problems

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

Ten years ago, as a college freshman sitting in an orientation meeting, a professor told me that, after paying the outrageous tuition bill and officially becoming a student, that I had an e-mail address.

E-mail? "What the heck is that," I wondered? He explained that we could get and send messages on the computer to people across the world. The world? "Yeah, right," I thought.

Now, 10 years later, the thought of even doing business without a computer is ludicrous. Last week, we had a few computer problems in the office, and it was like the electricity had been cut off to the building. If I couldn't get on the computer, I couldn't type anything, scan any photographs, lay out any pages or check messages, and I should have just stayed at home. I literally could not do a single thing associated with my job, other than make phone calls and set up interviews.

Every facet of the newspaper is digital now -- from digital photography, to laying out pages on the computer, to typed stories. And this industry is surely not the only one in that situation.

I try to fight it as much as possible, but you really can't. I'll hold out with my pen and paper while people use Palm Pilots instead, but the convenience computers provide can't be argued against.

Computers put the world at our fingertips, and without them, many of us wouldn't know how to act, let alone work. But relying entirely on computers puts us at a bit of a risk. Having technical people with the ability to fix computers at will is a great asset to have for a company, but another asset is the person who has been at a job for 10, 15 years and knows how to do things "the old-fashioned way."

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor.