My Technological Job Moment

This has just not been my week, technologically speaking. I would never compare my life to Job in the ‘real world;’ this past week, a five-year-old girl was killed in Raleigh, after being prostituted by her mother for an undetermined time – unbeknownst to her father. The economy is allegedly recovering while an analogous recovery in employment is apparently not necesarry. Chronic hunger – euphemistically deemed ‘food insecurity’ by those fluent in policyspeak, is on the rise. And that’s just in America – to say nothing of Palestine, or Darfur.

So no, if I were attempting to compare myself to Job in The World Outside, I’d be tragically unaware. But in cyberspace, at the intersection of Big Corporate Business and Big Tech, I feel like I’ve had a steady stream of little nanobot robot servants coming to me, rattling off some techno-calamity, breathlessly finishing “…and I alone have lived to tell you!” Allow me my lament:

  • First, my Facebook account gets deactivated. I’ve already spilled ink on that. No word from them yet. (Though thanks all of you who have joined the Facebook group registering your complaint) Does anyone know a higher-up at FB that you can get me in touch with? Follow me on Twitter @zoecarnate for updates on this.
  • Second, my Gmail starts randomly rejecting emails I send, displaying this warning message, essentially accusing me of “sending suspicious-looking or spammy text…to large numbers of recipients.” The odd thing is, in every instance my email has bounced, I’ve emailed 1-2 people in response to a query they’ve made to me. The bounces haven’t happened alot yet, but it feels ominous, like a portent of what to come. (Think ‘No Country for Old Men.’)
  • Next, my soon-to-be-former bank Wachovia has been making life for the Morrell Clan miserable, via their predatory automated protection racket, aka ‘Overdraft Protection.’ But I’ve spilled pixels on this before, too. I’ve always thought that there’s a special place in hell for bankers, but when it comes to the person(s) who invented Overdraft Protection, it seems that Lucifer and his misshapen demonic minions will be playing jump rope with their intestines. Just sayin’.
  • Finally, I was informed by an astute web-surfer yesterday that zoecarnate.com, my alt.xian web directory, was down. Turns out my domain name tried to auto-renew, but I’d switched debit cards a few months back so it didn’t go through. And now, due to the Wachovia snafu detailed above, a want of $25 has zoecarnate.com in limbo. (Wanna donate toward this & other needed zoecarnate upgrades? PayPal me at paperprelude [at] gmail [dot] com. We’re actually in the midst of some lovely plans for a zoecarnate.com redesign with a very talented web architect. We’re looking for possible grant and/or investment partners, or else a collective of smaller-change donors…hit me up for more info. And click here for an amusing, out-of-date, zoecarnate PSA)

So what lessons has this massive #TECHNOFAIL taught me? I have no clue to be honest. What lessons did Job learn? That’s the debate, isn’t it? I tend to think that Job, like Ecclesiastes, accentuates the meaninglessness of suffering. But many exegetes and meaning-makers tend to sound more like Job’s friends in the story, pinning ‘the reason’ for Job’s suffering on This, That, or the Other.

Rather than looking back and trying to discern a techno-cosmic pattern, I’d rather look forward: How, now, shall I live? Like Job, I think take care of, and nurture, my limping technological superstructure. But I’m also going to go outside more.

20 Responses to My Technological Job Moment

  1. Jeff Goins November 20, 2009 at 4:47 pm #

    Wow, bummer, dude. Trying to help on the FB front.

  2. Steve K. November 20, 2009 at 4:50 pm #

    OK I’ll play the unattractive role of one of Job’s well-meaning friends: Maybe God is trying to show you that it’s time to “unplug” a little? Time for a fast from technology? Just a thought …

  3. zoecarnate November 20, 2009 at 4:51 pm #

    I knew somebody would say that…I really did mean the last sentence in my post. 🙂

  4. Paige November 20, 2009 at 5:21 pm #

    My little “lesson” (which I’m learning vicariously here) is the reminder of how dependent I’m getting on technology. I had a life before the computer/cell phone (and all that other stuff), but it seems to be such a blur when I try to remember it…Maybe Jacques Ellul was on to something all along?

    Paige

  5. zoecarnate November 20, 2009 at 5:23 pm #

    I’ve been thinking of Ellul these past few days…

  6. Adam Gonnerman November 20, 2009 at 5:24 pm #

    $25 for a domain? That’s highway robbery. You should be paying no more than half that amount.

  7. zoecarnate November 20, 2009 at 5:28 pm #

    LOL! It’s for a multi-year domain renewal, Adam.

  8. Ed Cyzewski November 20, 2009 at 5:41 pm #

    I’d like to know what you have in mind for the small change donors for zoe carnate. Such a great site! You can reply here if you’re unable to e-mail me… 🙂

  9. Tim King November 20, 2009 at 5:56 pm #

    Dude, I’ll give you encouragement. Count on it. Okay, here’s my answer to your “why me” question: in the immortal words of the father on “That 70’s Show,” BECAUSE YOU’RE A DUMBASS!

    Blessings 🙂

    • brojo November 20, 2009 at 10:20 pm #

      Dang!

  10. Ira November 20, 2009 at 6:27 pm #

    It’s all that flirting with anarcho-primitivism.

  11. Joey Cagle November 20, 2009 at 6:41 pm #

    Actually the girl wasn’t killed in Raleigh. She was killed either in Fayetteville or Sanford. (She was living in Fayetteville)

    Yeah, sounds like the digital life has been tough for you lately. I pray that it all gets worked out.

  12. jon November 20, 2009 at 6:46 pm #

    I would PayPal you the $25 bones but alas I’m having my own technofail going on with PayPal right now:

    http://jonirvine.posterous.com/im-so-glad-paypal-will-be-able-to-feed-their

  13. zoecarnate November 20, 2009 at 6:49 pm #

    Wow, that’s TERRIBLE. Out-of-control, un-accountable corporate techno-behemoths. That sucks.

  14. jon November 20, 2009 at 7:47 pm #

    Please help me, which then in turn, helps mike, by digging this article:

    http://digg.com/d31AcnH?t

  15. becky November 20, 2009 at 8:12 pm #

    Mike – ONE lesson that can be learned in all of this is to prune your email accounts because that’s where the trouble with Facebook and gmail started was when you send out group mailings.

    Yes the term “friend” is pretty bogus in a world where people friend and follow thousands of folks. But it sounds like you have some people on your lists who really don’t like getting email from you. But instead of complaining to you or simply hitting the delete button, they are complaining to Facebook and Gmail. Let’s say you send out a blitz to your list of 15,000 people and a hundred get ticked and whine. That’s a small percentage overall but if I was working for Facebook or Gmail and got that many complaints coming from one email address, I’d take action here.

    And I agree with Steve – whenever my online life has one too many glitches, it’s a sign that I need to give myself an offline tune-up.

  16. zoecarnate November 20, 2009 at 8:17 pm #

    I probably haven’t been clear enough – I’ve *never* sent a mass message out to my 15k contacts. Gmail understandably doesn’t let you do it, and I’ve never had the software or occasion to do it. I have sent messages in smaller (but still large) batches, though it’s been nearly a year since I even did that.

    Still, it’s worth looking into, and I’ve been pruning my email addys lately – at the top of the year I hope to create an opt-in list for updates about the soon-to-be-redesigned zoecarnate.com. It’s all a learning experience. Today I’ve been enjoying Joe Myers’ article on Technomads.

  17. brojo November 20, 2009 at 10:21 pm #

    You may have already addressed this, but could your email address now be on some kind of shared ‘spammer’ list?

  18. Cathryn November 21, 2009 at 7:17 pm #

    Oy sorry friend, that sucks…….. i hear ya… gotta agree with Steve K though, perhaps a Danial fast on the puter, just the light veggies of internet world and leave out the heavy meat…. Been a hard year though – for many, so i think the enemy is just “taking the piss” on a lot of things.
    blessings!
    cathryn

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Nurtureyourbusiness.com Blogs — Blog — My Technological Job Moment « Zoecarnate - November 22, 2009

    […] I’ve always thought that there’s a special place in hell for bankers, but when it comes to the person(s) who invented Overdraft Protection, it seems that Lucifer and his misshapen demonic minions will be playing jump rope with their intestines. Just sayin’. Finally, I was informed by an … I had a life before the computer/ cell phone (and all that other stuff), but it seems to be such a blur when I try to remember it…Maybe Jacques Ellul was on to something all along? …More […]

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