Smart Women Sometimes Ask for Tech Support

My husband says Betty Friedan would rollover in her grave if she knew. That my behavior would cause Gloria Steinem to wag her finger at me and cancel my membership in NOW. Asking your husband for tech support is akin, he says, to expecting Dudley Do-Right to come galloping in to untie Nell from the railroad tracks and rescue her. But I suspect he doesn’t want to make my life easier because dealing with my crises interrupts his Angry Birds game on his cellphone, although his score ranking is off the charts.

Of course, you’ve gotta define crisis. My definition of crisis is what causes my work to come to a crashing halt. My husband’s definition of crisis probably has more to do with life-or-death situations.

See, I’m one of those people who don’t like to read manuals unless I absolutely must and there’s no other alternative available. When I buy a new digital gizmo, I prefer that I figure out how to use it myself. It should be intuitive. When I’m out at a client’s home in the field, I don’t have the luxury of time to study a manual. This is one of those rare times that having a kid around the house would be useful.

My second approach to solving a problem when I can’t figure it out myself is to ask a person who either knows the answer or knows how to look up the answer. That person, in many instances, is my husband. Manuals, as a general rule, are rarely very helpful to me, especially manuals that are missing a step or translated from another language.The first thing I read is the troubleshooting chapters. The first thing my husband reads is the directions. We make a good team. I wish he would jump into real estate instead of pursuing his career in freelance journalism, but that’s gonna happen when cows fly.

I am always looking at which technology tools can improve my marketing. If I need to ask my Lyon IT department oreven my husband for tech support, that doesn’t make me a damsel in distress, right? Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. Again? Presto.

While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are visiting her favorite blogs from previous years.