Friday, June 13, 2008

A New Kind Of Pain In The Ass

Has anyone noticed this?

You're sitting in a library, in the quiet part. It's quiet. People are working: reading, thinking, writing, typing away . . .

Typing away. After a few minutes you realize there are one or two people who use a simple computer keyboard as if they're wrestling their inner demons out, as if they're typing on a manual, as if it's only the intense, sudden, and striking pressure of their fingertips on the keys that causes the massive changes required to get the information all the way from the keyboard to the processor or whatever.

You can hear them typing a mile away. And it's not a pleasant sound. It has the sound of urgency, of emergency. It sounds like "Yikes! Hey! Pay attention! There's something happening! Over here! Look over here! HEY! What are you. . . HEY!"

It's incredible annoying. It's mostly older guys who do it, though I've seen women do it too; clearly there's a wide range of culprits. Today I happened to look over at someone doing this (OK, I happened to glare at him in frustration, I admit it) and I realized he was typing with only his index fingers. And then I realized the other main offender of the day is also typing with only his index fingers. So you see how it happens: you're using only two fingers, you gotta move them FAST to get any typing speed going at all. So it's POUND POUND POUND.

Listen people, there's no mystery here: just start using all your fingers. You'll get used to it, learn where the keys are, start typing like a normal person. And we'll all be grateful. I promise.

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