Insert Tab A into Slot B…

Ok…old guy rant coming…duck while you can…

When I was…um…younger, everything came with instructions. Some of the instructions were well nigh indecipherable, but still… Some things (like assemble yourself office furniture) came with the actual tools you needed as well. Software came with manuals. OK…hardly anybody ever read the things cover to cover, but at least you could go to the shelf, look in the index, and (theoretically at least) figure it out.

What happened to the instructions?

A year or so ago I bought an ipod. Opened the box, and…ipod, cable, (useless) earbuds… At least I asked a friend before going back to the store and asking for a new one with the instruction manual.

Not too long ago I upgraded my Adobe CS software. Opened the (suspiciously thin) box and…disks. Hello?

OK…I get it that libraries are going out of “style” because of the confluence of google and wiki, and that is going to free up a lot of commercial real estate at some point. I get it that instructions are now “online” too. But now I have to wait to connect to an overloaded server, and then wade through a whole bunch of trying to figure out how they “filed” the info I need, and…worst case…ads…and more ads…and…can you really trust a wiki to have useful information?

I once heard Scott Degraffenreid say that the millenial generation is used to just hitting the reset button if something doesn’t work…ergo, no instruction manual needed. I get that too.

But…(you knew that was coming…) it is a customer service issue at some point. I get that Apple or Adobe is helping their bottom line by not having to hire technical writers, and print and ship manuals, and I applaud the ecological benefits of less packaging. But why should I have to go to Borders (the new library?) to buy a “Dummies” book in order to figure out how to use something I just paid hundreds of dollars for? (I know bad to end a sentence with a preposition…get over it, folks, this is a blog rant, not an english paper…) Where’s the ecological benefit in that if you (like I) live in a rural area where the nearest Barnes & Noble is 20 miles away…CO2 and all that…

And while I’m at it…

In this week’s Monday Morning Email, Doug Lawrence follows up on his Traditional/Contemporary worship labelling thing…(here’s the original) and it got me to thinking. We’re in a transitional time in “church worship” too…and where are the instruction manuals for that? (and, yes…I know…the Bible…but go with me here…)

Isn’t that some of the problem? My generation got used to reading the instructions and then fixing the problem, or assembling the product, or…

But if there are no instructions, it is something like pulling a tablecloth out from under a completely set table. You know “about” what to do, but the results are liable to be disasterous if you are not commited to a plan of action…and sometimes even that isn’t good enough. And, in real life, there is no reset button for re-assembling broken glass, or broken relationships, or broken congregations. There is no “do-over.”

So is it any wonder that many in my generation do nothing, because of the fear of the lack of the reset button? Is it any wonder that many in my generation react with fear when a plan of action is outlined without any instruction manual?

One of the things I’ve learned is that whoever/whatever you are becomes more pronounced as you get older. The term “generation gap” was invented to describe my generation, and now…it seems…that we are destined to have lived with a gap at both sides of the baby boom…

Now excuse me while I try to figure out how to add a plugin to this blog…sigh…