A problem

[romney.livejournal.com]

I sit and scratch my head
I should be picking at deep thoughts
But all I gather is dandruff from my dirty hair.

On the screen, The Problem resides.

Scrolly little windows relate the precise and boring tales of messages sent and received.
The busy computer has marked them out in milliseconds
Like a librarian stamping through an endless pile of outgoing books.
(I have in mind a gusty, enthusiastic young blond,
Her nametag pinned to an ample bosom.
But expect this computer hides a dry spinster with pursed lips and a "Silence" sign)

I'm getting fed up with The Problem.

It's probably a simple one that Enid Blyton would get a couple of kids in to solve
Then have them celebrate with ice-cream and ginger beer.
(A greater fear is that a colleague will glance over my snowy shoulder
And point out the obvious but probably dull solution.
Brushing aside The Problem as a minor diversion, unworthy of my time)

It is now officially a two-cup-of-tea Problem.

Countless little messages, rushing about. It's a jungle in there.
One's got lost, strayed from the forest path and is now reported missing.
So I blunder about with a digital machete, looking for its spoor.
I think one of the other messages has eaten it,
Or at least shot its mother.

The Problem didn't solve itself while I was in the toilet.

And now I've tried all my diagnostic techniques developed over years of experience:
The window has been stared out of, a pencil-end chewed.
My desk is now the tidiest it's ever been and restocked with stationary
(Even the rare stuff that can be traded later on with colleagues in need).
And I can't face another sip of tea.

I go to lunch and The Problem remains.

Comments

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Liked the "digital machete" and "I think one of the other messages has eaten it", as well as the librarian description. I'm a committed technophobe, and as a man who can't work e-mail most of the time I am a fuly-paid-up believer that computer technology is all supersition. I think your piece captures that feeling, which is known to the techno-learned and unlearned alike.