Aaaagh! We would all be lost without the internet! What will we do? What will we do?

What is sad is that this parody really is a comment on how we have gotten so dependent on computers to just doing our day to day work in business. As I work for a major IT company, it is very awkward feeling the few times we have forceably been shut down by the rare power outage, or a system failure. You feel lost... you can't do anything... it is kind of like losing your scriptures / flip chart bag when on a mission...

Now, everyone join with me in singing the praise of this technology {sung to the tune of We Are All Enlisted}:

We are all addicted til the internet is over
Complacent are we
Complacent are we
End users who've forgotten what paper and pen is
We'll be up a creek when the power goes out

A couple of years ago, we stopped by a Sonic to get slushies on our way home from something.  We pushed the button and the girl came out to the car.  Before I could say anything, she said, "Umm, the computer just went down."

"Okay...so what does that mean?"

"It means we can't take any orders."

"But all the power is still on.  You can't cook or anything?"

"Well yeah, we can still make stuff, but we can't take any orders because the computer is down."

"How come?"

"Because we can't ring it up."

"Well, we just want two slushies.  That's $2.98."

"Yeah, but we can't figure tax."

"Well, tax is 8%, so that's, umm, 24 cents.  So $3.22 altogether.  Here's $4, and you can just keep the change."

She gave me a bewildered look for about 5 seconds.  "Umm, we still can't take orders because the computer is down."

At that point, I wanted to explain that it was just 2 slushies and that I would even write out the order if she couldn't remember it, but then I realized she was probably still in high school and didn't have independent thinking or problem solving skills.  So we left.

Or maybe they had a complex computerized inventory system tied in with the  register and everything.  Or maybe the owner had instructed them to go ahead and lose profits and customers anytime the computer went down.

A few times in the past we have had the computers here at work go down. Like clockwork someone will panic and ask how we are going to be able to do any business. I always reply, the same way we did before computers were invented. You have list of all the inventory and the locations along with price. Just do it by hand. When the computer is fixed you can enter the transactions in. I always get this bewildered look and then the light bulb comes on and they say, "Oh, I guess we can do that." I then tell them that in 100 years of doing business the computer only came along for us during the mid 1980s. If they could make it from 1906 to 1985 without one I suppose we can get by for a few hours. That's usually when the "Doh!" moment happens. The 20 somethings seem to suffer the most from this inside the box thinking.