It’s no secret that we are a society that is dependant on technology. From ATM’s to www’s to PC’s – a day does not pass that we are not using something electronic. During my lunch hour yesterday, I went to the bank and then to Kinko’s to run a few personal errands – and all I got for my troubles was a stress headache – and an education on how dependant on electronics we really are.

My first stop was my bank where I went to withdraw money from the ATM machine. The transaction reached the point where the money was to be dispensed, the machine even made the “cash dispensing noise” that anyone who has ever used an ATM machine knows all to well – and then no money came out. The receipt said, “unable to dispense cash” and my transaction ended – but the problems only began.

When I re-entered my card to check my balance – it was nine dollars. Apparently, the machine did not give me money – but took it out of my account anyway. Furious, I went to the customer service window and was told to wait on a rather long line for help – some customer service. When it was finally my turn, I explained my situation and was told to fill out a form and wait to see if they could return my money today. Now even more furious – I told the woman that I was not leaving the bank without my money.

While I was waiting to see if this woman would comply with my angry demand, I noticed that a man ahead of me and a woman behind me on line were holding a similar receipt with the same message. After speaking with them, I realized that I was not the only one that this happened to. So apparently, the machine we all used was broken. The funny thing is – the employees at the bank did not shut off the machine and instead – let other people use it only to have the same problem. Call me crazy – but doesn’t logic dictate that if the machine is broken – it should be taken out of service?

Needless to say – I got my money back – but not after having to wait close to an hour to get what I originally wanted – my own money.

My next stop on this already ruined lunch hour was Kinko’s, where I needed to print out color copies of the book cover of my next collection of pennies. So I purchased a Kinko’s card with ten dollars on it and proceeded to enter it into one of their computer workstations to print out what I needed. When I sent the book cover to the color printer – it came out of the black and white printer instead – and took the value of the printed copies off my card. Now, I did not have enough money on the card to make my color copies – and the anger I had from the bank had now doubled.

Once again in the same hour, I had to seek help from an employee and have my money returned to me because of an error made by the piece of electronic equipment I was using. What are the odds of electronic equipment malfunctioning where it costs you an hour of your time? Even worse – what are the odds of that event happening consecutively at two separate locations in the same day? Only in my world.

Once the money was refunded to me – I tried to print again – and the same thing happened. Admitting defeat – I just printed out the color copies I could afford, signed off – and left not even asking for the refund. At that point – my time was worth more then the five dollars I would have had to wait another half hour for.

So my lunch hour that was supposed to consist of two simple easy errands and a nice meal turned into a two-and-a-half hour experience without a bite of food because one I had no time to eat due to the amount of waiting time – and my stomach was full from all of the stress I just ingested from these two separate but consecutive malfunctioning computers.

If this lovely experience taught me anything, it is that we as a society are far too dependant on computers. While we try our hardest to find new electronic ways of saving time and being more efficient – we realize that when they break down – it takes up more of our time to rectify the electronic screw up then it would have if we just instead, relied on humans and old fashioned methods of conducting business then the “time saving” electronic ones.

More importantly – I would have been able to have something for lunch other then stress.