Having worked on a PC for more than 25 years, a required conversion to Mac computers has me reeling. And I can tell you any tech mojo I had is definitely experiencing something akin to an existential Mercury in retrograde. (It’s probably important to clarify that what I need of a laptop is access to meat-and-potatoe documents and lots of memory to hold image files—none of the fancy things that Macs can do). A new system (CMS) to build our stories for the website I could handle, but this is change on a much deeper level.
As I learn my way around, the ghost of my PC’s touch screen haunts me. I’m continually trying to enlarge images with my fingers. No dice (sigh). The most dramatic change is physical and relates to the choreography of the hands: where once my fingers danced over the the keys, now they stumble. The distance between the edge of Mac computers and the keyboard may be mere centimeters longer than an HP but it feels like an ocean—and don’t get me started on the absence of the alt button; I now have to use two hands to copy and paste because the command C, V, and Z keys are so close together. Screenshots remain beyond my skill set at the moment, but I will admit an appreciation of the ease with which you can zip and convert files. It seems to me there was more white space in the design of the PC, which made it easier to work with images. I feel boxed in by the striped image file lists and the staircased folder system storage, but am confident that I’ll get the hang of it. When? Well that remains to be seen.
A WFH day with an attention seeker who loved the warmth of my old HP.
Change is both exciting and scary. My reluctance about this computer conversion goes beyond having to learn new shortcuts. It seems to me now that what is intuitive to Mac users isn’t to me.
Functionality is one thing; computer choice has been linked to personality types since a series of brilliant Apple “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials ran in the ’00s. They starred cool dude Jason Long as a Mac and the more formal John Hodgman as a PC. I have always been resistant to this dichotomy (although as one commenter observed, the opposite types were also friends). It’s true that casual isn’t my vibe, but that’s beside the point; I just think people have different ways of working. It’s the final product that counts.
It would be difficult to count the number of times people have been slightly scandalized that I wasn’t on a Mac and kindly offered to put me out of my perceived misery. Actually, having mastery of the operating system was a confidence booster. My major complaint with my old computer was its weight, as it accompanied me almost everywhere I went. When I finally and reluctantly had to hand over my dented and battered PC I put my hands on it and said, “Thank you computer, we’ve done good work together.” I’ll even admit to shedding a tear. I’m pretty sure the IT department thinks I’m off my rocker.
