I find it interesting that when something goes wrong, we tend to blame something familiar to us. We often do this instead of trying to figure out the truth of what is going on. Our actions often cause us to miss the real culprit and waste time blaming the wrong machine or person for the problem.
We must remember that just because something gives us grief in one area, it may not be responsible for all negative activities. After all, even a broken watch is correct twice a day (if it is analog). Sometimes we need to apply critical thinking and figure out what is going on.
I had this type of problem confront me yesterday when the phone, who’s batteries have been dying, started giving us fits and not working correctly. The phone was dropping out about a third of the words when people called. We had little signal strength, and we could not even call our voicemail. It was the phone, on its last legs.
My sister-in-law called to wish me a happy birthday and talked about the phone and the hard time hearing us. My wife said it was the phone’s fault and I need to get a new one. Her sister agreed with her, and even when I was talking on my cell phone, the problem persisted. I was sure that that was not normal, two separate systems having the same issues. My brother called to wish me a happy birthday, and he had the same problems. And even when my son called, the signal was still mediocre at best.
As I got ready for bed, I was talking with my Alexa, and she was having problems playing music and just thinking. During the night she showed a red ring several times. At this point, all of my electronics are having a problem. Now I know something is off-kilter.
One of the first things I did this morning was to call my phone carrier. Calling the phone carrier is fun, especially when the electronics are having problems to start. I finally connected with them and talked with a knowledgeable technician who, after looking everything over and talking to me, let me know that there had been an outage in my area that had been going on for over 23 hours. The blackout would go until this evening, and they would let me know when they fixed the problem. They believe that the difficulties I experienced happened because of the outage. After talking to the technician, I think that also.
We should always verify first before we start blaming and pointing fingers. It’s true with people, and it’s also true, with machinery. There’s nothing we could have done differently because of the outage. It is just nice to know we don’t have to pick on the poor phone.
Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.
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