Dad and Computers

Dad made it through another night. His voice was strong this morning, but again, he wasn't very talkative. He says he didn't sleep well last night.

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I've been thinking about Dad quite a bit, obviously. He fought in Korea, and then came back and finished college on the GI bill. He got bachelor's degrees in business administration and electrical engineering. They were married for his final 2 years of college, with Mom working as a public health nurse to support them.

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When he graduated, the best job offer came from GM, so they moved across country to Detroit. He was a pioneer in the field of computers, beginning to work with them in the late 1950's. He was involved with computerizing manufacturing processes. He was an expert at what he did. For years he lived in the sub-basement. Computers were huge and heavy, so they were housed on the lowest level of the building. He'd call Mom at lunch time and ask her what the weather was like.

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Dad has always been intrigued with technology. He spent $100 for one of the first electronic calculators. That was a lot of money at that time, and all it did was add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was a big monstrosity. He was an expert with computers until he met Windows. He was used to talking directly to the computer, and this intuitive interface was beyond him. To further complicate matters, his vision was beginning to fail, so he couldn't always read the instructions on the screen.

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Brother and I became his computer consultants. We both spent hours helping him resolve issues on his PC. It took us forever to convince him that many problems could be solved simply by restarting the computer. It became our first question when he'd call us wanting us to fix his computer. "Have you tried restarting it?" At one point Brother and I were keeping track of whose turn it was to spend hours trying to talk Dad through a computer problem.

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Of course as it became possible to do more on the Internet, he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to shop and bank online. With his poor eyesight and rotten keyboarding skills, there were times when it was a disaster. As Mom sank further into dementia and Dad's hearing failed, he tried to use the computer to avoid the phone. He's never liked using the phone, so of course he wouldn't call technical support, he'd wait for one of us to come over and sort things out for him. For a while, he was ordering their prescriptions through an online pharmacy. The system was not very user friendly, and he was not a friendly user. Every time I'd go visit, he'd tell me he'd gotten locked out of his account again and I needed to fix it for him. I'd then spend long periods of time on hold with the pharmacy, and of course, both Mom and Dad would have to talk to the tech and give identifying information before they could let me into their account. It reached the point where Mom couldn't answer the questions, so I'd stand by and prompt her with the answers so I could get into her account. I'd order the forms so they could give me permission to manage their account, but Dad was always reluctant to sign them. He wasn't ready to give up control.

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We'd leave post-it notes all over the desk outlining how we'd solved various issues and what the current id's and passwords were so that the next one of us who visited and was asked to fix a problem would know what the status was. Since I stayed with them when I visited, I was often the one who got the job. Brother and Sister never had time on their shorter visits. They just smiled when I told them how unfair this was. Of course, I think I was also a little more patient with it than they were, so if it was possible to wait for my next visit, Dad did.

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My favorite, though, was the day Dad asked me to check one of his credit cards to see if he owed any money on it. They had offered him the option of signing up for on-line statements, and of course he'd jumped at the chance. He couldn't remember his user id or password, of course. I finally got into the screen where it asks you to answer your security question and then will give you access to the account. The question he'd chosen was his mother's maiden name. As I typed it in with confidence, he said, "Uh, I may have spelled it wrong when I put it in." It is a complicated name, so that wasn't surprising. "How did you spell it?" "I don't remember."

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I ended up calling the company, getting the balance and due date (and setting up an online payment with his bank), and asking them to put him back on paper statements. I said, "Dad, switching to online delivery of your statements is a wonderful convenience, but I think you are better off with paper statements." He just grinned sheepishly and nodded.

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Fortunately, Far Away Sister has now taken over all of his financial matters. I was paying his bills during one of his hospitalizations and discovered he'd paid $12,000 on a $120 bill. He'd put the wrong account number on the payment, which made it even more of a challenge to track down. That was the point at which we began to make plans for the transfer. By that time, Dad was glad to turn it over. Far Away Sister is also an electrical engineer, so it was easy for him to trust her with that responsibility. They think alike. She's more competent with Windows and keyboarding, fortunately.