The mental exhaustion of tech

[blandana]

School requests payment for something (hurrah!)
Log into payment site
Site always takes you to the admin page and not the parent log in so faff about trying to get into the correct log in area. Find correct school, find correct log in details
Select child (I have multiple so have to find the right one)
Find what I have to pay for
Give consent
Fill in details (medical, emergency)
Pay for item
Fill in payment details, payment rejected
Try again - payment method accepted but needs to be verified on banking app first
Banking app doesn’t log in because face recognition doesn’t work
Log in manually to banking app
Approve payment
Go back to site
Payment goes through
Finally, exhausted, my child can go on the school trip.

At this point I’d much rather put £15 in an envelope and be done with it.

Yes, I know we are in the era of everything tech and that’s just the way it is. And the idea of filling out paper forms isn’t thrilling either. But I hate the screens, the tech, the facelessness and thanklessness of it,
it’s exhausting and I don’t like it.

I’ve had a hard day and that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Feel marginally better now I’m going to get off this screen and climb a hill.

I hear you, I add in forgetting the password and then have to tit about resetting that, and my bank card has expired, so I have to update that too. And if I'm trying to do it on the train home competition with all the other commuters for wifi, forget it!!!

God yes.
I feel quite tearful at the endless steps I have to go through to do anything these days. Especially when it's been designed badly. Ticket-bloody-master I'm looking at you.

Yes, I know we are in the era of everything tech and that’s just the way it is.

It does not have to be.

As you say, it makes certain kind of jobs much much harder. But it means that our august leaders don’t have to pay for a human to organise things and that is all that matters to them.

Past humans overthrew governments and societies that worked like this, but we are too unaware now of real alternatives and brainwashed /gaslit into think that nothing could be different.

It all adds to the mental load for sure.

Chrome reloading and breaking the payment every time I have to swap screens to approve a transaction in the banking app.
I have thrown my phone before due to this. It's ridiculous.

But I hate the screens, the tech, the facelessness and thanklessness of it, it’s exhausting and I don’t like it.

Amen.

I agree I'm absolutely sick of it. My eyes hate me 😵

it's so frustrating isn't it. I'd happily ditch the tech

Personally I find the alternative more mentally exhausting!

bank closed in the evenings.
go to the cashpoint.
have to spend something in a shop to get the right change - waste of money.
find an envelope at home - run out. Back to shop to buy some
Need a pen to label it - pen run out. Find a new one
send envelope to school. Gets lost. Have to repeat process.
£15 has cost £20 in getting right change and buying envelops. Grr

You know what gets me is choosing a country. Are we England, are we Great Britain, are we United Kingdom. In a drop down list with hundreds of countries and you can bet you miss whichever one it is first time you look for it.

Can we bin off the WhatsApp groups of dozens of messages also debating what needs to be done, by when, how much etc?

I miss permission slips and pound coins.

Instead I’ve got multiple apps, unique logins per child and banking app verifications.

Who else would be paying £20 into a primary’s school dinner account at 10pm at night????? Banking fraud??? Not likely 😂

Or are we GB - United Kingdom?

Found on the list under G and not U

I find work tech overwhelming. I am in a public facing role. I have a "landline" for the public to ring that comes through on Teams. I have colleagues messaging me on teams asking stuff, plus internal and external emails from colleagues, other professionals and the public themselves emailing me directly. Plus a work mobile where everyone previously mentioned can call or text or WhatsApp me.

Plus when I am in the office I am expected to leave my report/court application/safeguarding referrals to see clients face to face if they need me.

A tad overwhelming.

hmmm, I venture to suggest that a lot of that wouldn’t be as much of an issue if we were still in the habit of using cash for lots of things. We would all have our own wee systems for it set up in our homes/purses.

And people going

Johnny won’t be coming as he is sick/has football whatever

JUST DONT GO WE WILL SOON REALISE HE HASNT SHOWN UP

Oh lord I forgot about this shenanigans. When it’s U it’s a right faff. I feel sorry for Zimbabweans.

I mute all my WhatsApp groups. Miss most of it, it rarely fecking matters anyway

Just reminded me of two end of year 6 hoodie ordering scenarios.

First one: one mum took it on, set up a WhatsApp group. 500 million messages discussing sizes, colours, name spelling, payments, delivery options. Utter chaos.

The following year another mum took it on. Handed out a paper forms for the teacher to pass on to parents via the child. Filled it in, sent it back, paid, never heard a dickie bird from anyone, hoodie showed up as I ordered. Pure bliss.

I have got a job offer for MOJ great news !!!
sadly not I have to upload documents for enhanced clearance I can’t do it on my phone I don’t have a computer I have to go to the library. I did this but the system is so clunky it doesn’t tell you the right procedure which resulted in my application being withdrawn. It has taken a month to be reinstated and no one at Sophra can help me because it’s the way it is and no I have to do it all electronically
fuck my life it’s a shit show MOJ you are in your knees with no staff I am not surprised your recruitment outsource is SHIT

I had one I had to click back x amount of years,month by month before being able to put in dob and I've been on this planet for way more than half a century.

@Parsley1234 that is truly awful but maybe (not at this precise moment), it’s a blessing in disguise?

Omg I hate it.
Had to fill an online questionnaire in the other day. Press the link, input my details, type a 12 digit code, then it logged me out because it timed out. Gave up.
The number of notifications I get is baffling.

I hear you.

I've been putting off an admin task for a couple of weeks now as I need to upload about 5 separate bits of ID. I just can't be arsed and want to send in photocopies, or even better go in with the documents and they photocopy them there for me.

I can't face trying to scan them on my phone, which never quite works how it should and only scans weird bits of text. Then take a photo, but of course either the file is too big or the wrong size, so I have to work out how to resize it then work out which version is which on my laptop which is never where it should be.

Honestly, I am not a technophobe by any stretch, but it is never straightforward and simple anymore.

School used to use an app to pay for trips and dinners which didn’t save card details OR link to Apple Pay so I had to faff about looking for my prize and dragging a dusty card out to manually type the fucker in every time. You could do it through the website where I had card details saved in the browser BUT it didn’t ever save my password so I had to reset it every fucking time. They’ve changed apps now thank god!

Also - WHY can’t I just log into my Tax free childcare account and pay a bill? Why must I click through about a hundred pages first every single month 😭