Updating my office

There is a big difference between being employed in an office and working at home.  Financial reality dictates that your office equipment is often not all it could and should be.  Despite a bit of help from the tax man – it is often a big ask to update perfectly adequate office equipment.  Because let’s face it – techy office equipment is out of date as soon as you have bought it.

You disagree?  How about the fax machine?.  I have one.  I still use it – but I shouldn’t.  My printer is a fax machine too… but it’s all too easy not to find the slips of paper hours after they have come through.  And you never really know if your fax has got through.  More often than not – it hasn’t.  And what a pain if you have a big document to send!

Computers can send faxes too.  And their versatility is another issue.  In my line of work, Apple Macs have been considered the designer tool of choice.  And when you work in a company you tend to get one.  But what if you are working for yourself – and everybody you deal with has PCs?  Granted there are not the compatibility issues there used to be.  But there still are some.  

And when you have got all your files buried away on your computer and hopefully backed up on your server (which might even be an old computer) – then even changing computers can be a big issue.  So I guess you are bit like me.  You keep using what you are familiar with until the damn thing breaks down?

Computers and office equipment are rarely like the other things we buy.  These are all working tools.  So while you might get a bit of reflected glory from the advertising on your choice of car, bike, beer or any other consumable item…. Your computer and telephone is just a tool .  Even well-known brands are just a product. (Except when they are Apples of course)

 

Except when it comes to cordless phones!  We are surely a nation more in love with cordless phones than any other nation on earth.  For years the only sensible cordless phones on the market were mobiles.  But then, strides started to be made in the domestic and office cordless phones market – and hey presto we have stylish phones for home and office as well as the car and pocket.

 

Yet there is still a big issue with cordless phones as far as I am concerned.  Forget about plugging in your mobile and it keeps going for day after day.  Forget to re-house your cordless phone and there is hell to pay.  First of all it starts bleeping at you from a place you can never, ever locate.  Then the batter goes.  So no matter how long you charge your snazzy cordless phone for, it starts cutting you out in mid-call.  Which is a right old pain!