I work in a technology related job most days. Most of my friends do as well. All of my coworkers do. A while back when we got together for a company meeting the group was belaboring how certain pieces of technology they had come to rely on didn’t always function the way they were expected and how disruptive it was. This led to a running discussion over the course of a few days about First World Problems. It turns out we have a lot of those in my little group.
One of my major frustrations is that it takes a long time to synchronize my iPod when I need new music. It turns out that when you try to sync sixty gigabytes of data to an iPod five minutes before heading to the airport that there is an inherent and high risk of being frustrated. The result of the poorly planned activity is that I routinely end up at the airport with an iPod containing less than ten songs. On rotation and shuffle this still isn’t enough music to get me through an eight-hour travel day.
My phone battery routinely approaches 10% charge by 9:30 AM because I spend a good deal of time on the phone. Because of this I had to buy an external battery for the phone. It can charge my phone 3 times during the day if needed. And I have a backup battery. I paid extra for the batteries because they are for an iPhone 5c and imported from overseas.
My computer’s Internet connection is sometimes slower than I would like.
These are my first world problems.
The other night I was working on the network at home and unplugged the entire house from the Internet. We have two internet connections. One for recreation and one for work. I unplugged them both. Then I got distracted and left the room with everything unplugged. At some houses this isn’t an issue. At mine it can be. I counted once. There are at least twenty-five network-connected devices in the house and that doesn’t include printers and drives that are shared across the network. But most importantly I had disconnected the two routers feeding Internet into the house as well as the domain controller, providing authentication to the network. What this means simply is that no one could log into their computers and no one could get on the internet even if they could get on the computer.
My wife came and found me later that evening and asked if I had the Internet down. My first reaction was “No. It’s been a while since I was able to take the entire Internet down. They locked me out of that part of the World Wide Web after the first incident.” I managed to keep that thought to myself. Instead I thought for a minute and remembered that I did indeed have everything disconnected. I responded that I did and she asked if it could be reconnected because she had an online meeting to attend as did others in the house. I looked down at her from atop my ladder and told her, “It sounds like you have a first world problem.” Then I proceeded to screw a new light bulb into the recessed fixture I had just installed.
I do not remember her response precisely. My brain sometimes erases those unflattering things people say about me that do not seem to fit with my concept of myself. Its sort of like having a verbal concussion. You get beat about the head verbally and forget the following thirty seconds.
However, I do remember the next words out of my mouth. I remember that there was a part of my brain that was saying, “Stop while you still can!” and watching in horror unable to stop the flow of words that became voiced out loud. Once it’s out there it cannot be taken back. So I laid it out with the best fake indignity and judgmental attitude I could muster. It turns out that there is a large reservoir of fake injustice in the well I pull from. I responded, “You mean to tell me that in this day and age, when people may be dying of Ebola and other horrid diseases less than a 100 miles from here, diseases that they make horror movies about, that you are worried about being able to Skype with some of your friends? You should get your priorities straight.”
While her mouth said two words, “Fix it,” her posture and the look on her face said much more as she turned away and left me standing on the ladder. It turns out that telling your wife about her own first world problems is a bad idea. It is a worse idea to stand between her and a relaxing evening after she has dealt with the kids fighting and not listening to her for two hours as she tried to feed them and get them to bed without your help. I guess I’m lucky she has more control over what she says than I do.
But I’m really lucky she didn’t push the ladder over while I was perched at the top of it. She didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did when I said it.