Technology

Sometimes it seems like technology is out to get me.  Today is one of those days.  We ordered a congregational subscription to a prayer class for this year.  We did something similar last year.  We print and bind the books with our comb binder in the office.  Each book is probably 200 pages long (about 100 pieces of paper printed front and back).  I downloaded the material when it became available Thursday evening and this morning I decided to make one book for myself so I could start preparing to lead it and make the copies for another 9 books, leaving them for office volunteers to bind later this week. 

The copy machine and I have a love/hate relationship.  I struggled a bit with figuring out how to get it to do the cover in color on cover stock, but I finally figured it out.  I printed the first page of each chapter in a different color to make it easier to find where each month's material began.  Again, there was a bit of a learning curve, but I figured it out.  Then I got to the easy part.  Printing 10 copies of the chapter pages front and back on plain white paper.  The machine did wonderfully until I reached March.  Then it started with the paper jams.  Of course, it is supposedly idiot proof, and gave me pictures showing me what to do to clear the jams.  About that time, a member came in and asked me to print out some stuff for this evening's meeting.  The two of us were taking turns clearing the jams.  I finally cancelled the book printing and printed what he wanted.  I decided the machine must be tired and overheated, so I decided to let it rest.  After a couple of hours I went back to print the last couple of chapters.  Once again, I had to deal with paper jams.  I am stubborn, though, so it is done.  I have bound one for me, and the rest are ready for binding when we have volunteer help (or I decide I need a break and bind one). 

So then it was on to working on Sunday's worship.  I have a new computer, and a couple of weeks ago I subscribed to Office 365.  The computer came with a 30 day trial installed, so it wasn't that big a deal.  Except that every time I'd open one of them I'd get an error message telling me I needed to connect with their server.  I'd click the link, and would be told the server was temporarily down.  This has been going on for 2 weeks.  It is showing as an unlicensed account some places, but the only option it gives me in the account settings is to uninstall it, because according to the account settings it is installed and licensed.  It's threatening to shut down because my trial is going to be over, but I've already paid.  So today I decided I would bit the bullet and call technical support, since the website has no information about this particular problem. 

So far I've talked to two people who have said that my problem is really weird, and that they are going to have to transfer me to someone else who knows how to deal with it.  I'm back on hold.  I called over 30 minutes ago.  I'm told the wait time is over 20 minutes.  They helpfully offer to call me back, but what are the chances that will be at a convenient time? 

So I'm listening to possibly the worst hold music in the history of the universe with my phone beside me on speaker.