The Thing About Tools
This is a rant-y little post. So if you’re like me, and you spend time during your day pondering random things like tools and how they work, read on.
The other day, I was sitting there, frustrated with our rural internet connection (which works unreliably despite repeated complaints), and I got to thinking about tools. Why do some tools work really well, and others don’t?
WHY DO I HAVE NO INTERNET AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
(Ahem. Back to the thought experiment.)
What is the difference between a hammer, say, and my horrible, unreliable internet connection?
What makes a good tool?
Simple to Use
As someone who is not gifted in operating machinery - tangible or digital - a good tool for me would be simple to use. This means its design would intuitively suggest how to hold the tool, how to wield the tool, and even give one clues as to what the tool was made to do. A hammer has a simple, shortish handle that is thin enough to comfortably grasp with one’s hand - it’s even curved slightly to fit better in one’s palm. It’s head is a small ‘T’ of metal which adds weight to that end of the tool meaning if one swung it, this end would be heavier than the other handle end. The ‘T’ is rounded yet blunt on one end with prongs arching back and down from the other end. From its design, the head of a hammer has two uses: to strike something and to pry something. Pretty simple, huh!
(SIDENOTE: Because a tool is a device that allows one to accomplish a task, I’m going to call my internet connective device a tool for the sake of this thought experiment. All tools are technology, some being more obvious as tools than others, so both a hammer and my internet hub are tools for the sake of this rant, ok?)
Now, back to my internet connection…
My internet connection is an unknowable, unfathomable beast. It is invisible. It is untouchable. It has no handle or collar, no visible form or structure that would suggest its function. It comes out at night, striking at lightning speed - er, sometimes. But in the morning, it’s often lost in its hub lair, sulking or painting its toenails - or so I imagine, because I have no idea what it’s up to! It won’t come when it’s called, despite the expensive fee I pay monthly to its owners for it to do its work. Its work, I’m told by its owners, is to connect my computer to the ethereal digital universe - somehow. I can’t see my internet connection, so I can’t glean how it works. I imagine my internet connection as a temperamental creature with its own whims and attitude independent of my desires. It is not simple to use because I can’t get my hands on it to wring its scaly neck when it doesn’t work.
This leads me to the second attribute of a good tool.
Reliable
Our trusty hammer is not only easy and fun (WHACK!) to use, but it also works every time! (WHACK! WHACK!)
I need to pound a nail - Hey! I’ll just swing my trusty hammer! (WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!)
Done. Let’s get a beer and celebrate.
My internet connection is as reliable as Google Maps 1.0. To continue my unfathomable beast metaphor, it’s a grouchy dragon, a slithery titan. It’s that middle manager from Accounts who hit his career peak in the ‘80s and now hangs around the water cooler stealing Keurig cup refills who really should be quietly retired because what does he do again? but no one can find the heart.
It is so unreliable, the Oxford English Dictionary had to update its definition: unreliable / un-ree-lie-a-BULL (adj.) See: Samantha’s Internet Connection.
Durable
Maybe the problem with my internet connection is that is wasn’t built to last. This seems a common problem with A LOT of modern digital tools. The term is built in obsolescence, I believe. My handy hammer will strike a nail head again and again and again without splintering into a thousand pieces, but modern appliances - tools like your stove or washer - seem built to crap out the day after your warranty expires. Even if inferior materials don’t give out, the overly complicated motherboard that is found in all electronics these days surely will. And then it’s Toss ‘Er Out And Buy a New One! Cha-ching!
When they put a motherboard in my hammer, I’ll know I’m in trouble.
Repairable
This attribute of a good tool has been slain by the digitization of technology. Not to be too nostalgic or anything, but in the good ‘ole days, the dude who made your hammer likely lived in your village and smote it in the fires of his kiln, or whatever. (I’m fuzzy on how hammers are made. I know there’s pounding and hot metal involved.) Even in my day you could probably take a broken hammer to a hardware store and find a replacement part (there are only two or three components, after all) or even rig something up yourself. Ancient hammers must have been constantly breaking! That’s why they’re often depicted as lashed to the handle. (That and the fact that they were made pre-bronze age, I guess. No hot ore and pounding metal for them.)
Not so my internet connection! It’s literally a black box that sits on my desk, blinking sullenly, daring me to just try and play that YouTube video on sock knitting!
To repair modern digital tools now requires specialized knowledge. It means hours on the phone with a kind person who speaks limited English, trying to reach someone who can be held accountable for this device you purchased which does not work. It means being sent a new device that doesn’t work either. It means being stuck with no alternatives because, although you live within spitting distance of three cities, you have Rural Internet and only one provider deigns offer some kind of paltry service and apparently reliable internet is not an essential service in the government’s eyes unlike, say, roads and War Rooms.
The Thing About Tools…
The thing about tools is - they should work!
I believe we’ve gotten so used to our modern tools not working, or not working well, that we begin to expect malfunction. We expect to bicker with a distant corporation that does not live in our village or does not have staff who can actually solve the problem you are having with the tool they sold you. We expect to waste time and money and STILL be disappointed.
The trouble with modern tools is not the tool. (Ok, ok, it is the tool, the damn thing doesn’t work, but stay with me here…) The trouble with modern tools is us. It’s our acceptance that we’re buying something that probably won’t work reliably, a subpar tool that we can’t understand, can’t use and can’t repair. It’s also our acceptance of abandonment by the companies that sell us these crappy devices and the government that appears unwilling to do what governments do which is regulate on safety and quality. As consumers and voters, it’s our fault that we sheepishly line up for the next new device loaded to the eyebrows with nifty features that will inevitably break down and be replaced. We accept the poor function and we accept being ignored.
So here are a few of suggestions.
1) DON’T BUY IT - That’s right, you heard me. Do NOT buy the latest and greatest. Keep your old device as long as you can, insisting on repair, insisting on service for the life of the device. Let’s shift the corporations’ attention to making better devices, not newer ones. If you can find a comparable device without an electronic part (good luck), buy that instead.
2) BUDGET TIME TO COMPLAIN - Until we get better manufacturing and customer standards, plan time to whine. Get on the phone (be nice to those call centre representatives - they are not the enemy!). Psyche yourself up to spend the hours needed waiting in the phone queue (learn origami or play solitaire). Call back when their solution still doesn’t work. Complain to your government representative. Complain to your newspaper. If you’re really in the spirit, join a consumer advocacy group and take your complaining to the next level.
3) DON’T ACCEPT THE STATUS QUO - Imagine a world where tools worked reliably as they should! Where they endured for a reasonable life time! Where they could be repaired at your local village smithy! Just imagine this wonderful future that awaits us if we demand good tools…
Well, that’s my thoughts on tools. If my internet connection works, I may even be able to post this today! If not, well, I see my hammer is sitting right here on my desk…
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
