If
(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling!)
If you can keep your head when your computer crashes
right after a new programme, removed essential caches!
If you can smile when you lose a whole day's work
and the blue screen of death, says you're quite a jerk;
though you've slaved for hours and every ploy you've used
along with advice given, leaves you further confused?
Then you're either a man who never knows when to quit?
Or you should give computers a miss, unless you've the grit
to keep going in the face of continued angst and stress.
For truth to tell your computer will always be a mess!
If you enjoy the repeated challenge of reload and reformat,
then despite hours of work still wonder where you're at?
It proves you're someone with neither knowledge nor skill,
and the white coats should take you, cos friend, you sure are ill!
If you unpack your machine, and the machine now waits for you
to read the manual from cover to cover, as some folks might do
before following instructions? Then I suggest you quit, start anew,
for a manual never explains why important things you should do!
If after numerous hours, you've absorbed every technical word,
still you find the writer's language used strikes you as absurd?
Remember, experts like to confuse with computer instruction.
If you think computers have programmed obsolescence and destruction?
Chances are you're right! Forget what they write, stay sanguine!
If you decide perhaps you'd better call another technician in?
Save your money, chances are he's just another high priced hack.
Better forget using a computer and demand your money back!
For you're either born to handle machines of intricate complexity
or you'll remain forever lost in the fog of terminal perplexity!
If later, deciding you'll help a friend with their infernal machine,
you start by ensuring the hard drive is empty and clean,
but after countless hours of loading and tweaking with circumspection,
your attempts to install programmes and make an Internet connection,
have failed yet once again, and your every effort is in vain?
There's no 'ifs' about it my friend! You must be completely insane!
If like many, you've survived "bytes" from the computer bug?
Your "memory" is so good you're emboldened to feel smug?
If you'd spout for hours about the marvels of your machine?
Ere someone asks you to put theirs to rights, come clean
to admit that anything you've ever learned has cost you dear,
and computers, though said harmless, bring you out in sweaty fear.
Should you get the chance to turn back the clock and sleep at night,
and forget you ever wanted a computer? You’re damned right!
Rhymer March 26th, 2017.
Copyright © Denis Barter | Year Posted 2017
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