Tag: dailyprompt

What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

I am a boomer baby, I was born in the tail end of the boom, so I wasn’t born with technology. Due to my untimely birth, I didn’t get the training on computers and all the other technology. I’m still learning how to use my remote control for my TV.

At the time change I was proud of myself for resetting the clock in my truck. That emboldened me to also read the instructions and preset my radio stations. Yes I still listen to FM radio.

I recently received some training on Excel. I can sort of build a spreadsheet now. I also read an article on Facebook about what those mysterious buttons at the top of the keyboard do- F1 through F12, I grab onto any keyboard shortcut I encounter. Sadly there’s Not much chance I will remember it the next time I need it. My brain isn’t a vault it’s a sieve. And in my life, It feels like I have to sprint to keep up with others in my work group strolling through their own work.

What my younger coworkers take for granted, their inherent understanding of all things technical, it can be a frustration to them to have to help me catch up. To all you patient young people born since 1965 (65?) I could hug you when you are patient with me when I get lost when something changes on my screen, and still patient with me when I have to ask yet again how to find something, buried in a folder inside a folder inside a folder that you showed me just yesterday.

Everyday I am learning something new to me but old hat and so much part of my youthful coworkers experience that it surprises them that I don’t know the same things they know.

I’m not far from the finish line where I will get to bow out of the near daily training, the constant “learning opportunity” and I can just do things that I actually know how to. Right now I can’t come up with an example. But I do know stuff. I can drive a stick shift.

The most important thing I have learned is that it is okay to not know something and it’s also okay to ask for help.

To all of you out there that were born after the baby boom, please be patient with us, we won’t be around much longer, retirement is quickly clearing out all of us old ones. Be kind to us as we age out, if you take the time to teach us we may be more helpful to you.

What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?

Toilet paper. A luxury I cannot live without.

“Toilet paper isn’t a luxury” you might say. Well I remember about 3 years ago when all of the stores ran out of toilet paper. It was scary. What is the alternative? I am a pretty modern sophisticated guy but I still need to poop. What do you do when those white rolls run out?

Electricity is another luxury that I cannot live without. Literally. I cannot live without it. It heats my home and cooks my food and cools my perishable food and lights my way and connects me to the world. I’m writing this on an electrical device, yes it runs on batteries but those batteries were charged by an electrical outlet that is powered by an electrical grid that I do not understand or maintain. The water in my taps and in my toilet are brought to me by electricity. A recent power outage I saw our cities utility workers scrambling to power a sewage pump that pushes my poop to the city poop processing station. Electricity is something I don’t want to ever be without.

80 some years ago it was still a new thing and people and homes were without it. Now we are completely dependent on it.

It may be that we think of as common place and a base part of life, things we take for granted are really luxuries that we should be grateful for.

Clean water is a struggle for many who live on this planet. It is a luxury for me to drink water from a tap in my house. Brought to me by electricity (again). I don’t have to fear any bugs or poisons in my water. That is not the case everywhere. I am grateful for the luxury of clean water.

Toilet paper, electricity and clean water, 3 luxuries that I cannot live without. I never want to take them for granted.