Stupid Fix
Below is an actual e-mail from my brother, James, the computer
engineer. He has provided me with countless hours of major help
and technical support.
Tonight, he was having problems getting his organizer to
synchronize with his desktop computer. We both have one of
those high tech organizers with a phone, pager, organizer, web
browser, e-mail and other stuff all built in. He couldn't get
it to transfer data to his desktop computer, something that he
had been doing for months.
"It just stopped working," he said.
I asked him various questions and he said of course he'd checked
that. I asked him if he checked the USB cord.
"Of course," he said.
You must be fairly computer literate to understand and
appreciate this, but if you are, you will get the meaning.
Below is his e-mail to me:
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Subject: Stupid Fix
It's been awhile since I've had one of these, but this was one
of those fixes where you are just ashamed to mention.
After rebooting 40 times and installing new patches and software
and uninstalling and reinstalling them. I had checked to make
sure that USB cord was in good and had moved it to different
slots on the hub.
I finally realized that the whole USB hub was unplugged!
My printer and mouse were plugged straight into the USB ports on
the computer, so even though I had four other devices plugged in
to the USB hub I wasn't using them and the green lights
were all on.
You told me it sounded like a USB problem, next time just tell
me it sounds like a USB hub problem!
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Life is often like that. The solution to our seemingly
unsolvable and super complicated problem is really very simple.
We just can't see the answer - a basic connection is unplugged.
We aren't stupid, we are looking for far more complicated
solutions.
1. "I'm sorry."
2. "I love you."
3. "Forgive me."
4. "You were right."
5. "Maybe mama was right."
6. "I'll just let it go."
7. "It's not really that important."
8. "It's just ego, I'm acting like a baby."
9. "Let me just calm down."
10."Let me look at it from their point of view."
These are ten things that may help us see a simple solution to
what has been looking like an overly complicated problem.
We are often not connecting and the fix is simple, but we have
to do the plugging up.
It's not a stupid fix, anything that fixes something isn't
stupid.
Overlooking an unplugged connection, that's an oversight.
Refusing to make a needed connection, now that's stupid.
Check your connections.
