In my previous life, I was an IT support person, specializing in W!ndows desktop support. Am I comfortable and knowlegeable around computers? Certainly. And I do count myself as being an intelligent person. Yet I found myself completely mystified by my shiny new legal copy of Off!ce 2007, ready and waiting to be installed on my computer.
Installation of software difficult? Bah, it’s childs play. Of course, if you’re IT support in a large enough (or at least ORGANIZED enough) organization, installation of software is usually easy peasy. In good organizations (the word being an oxymoron in and of itself too many times when coupled with “IT”), install files are set off on a network share somewhere, product keys tucked into an auto-install script and all your friendly, local neighborhood IT ninja needs to do is double click link to aforementioned install script. On the oft chance that you do deal with actual media, if IT management is aware, that media is on a sign in/sign out/need to have basis and DEAR GOD bring that bad else our inventory is audited.
Which isn’t to say that I don’t know how to install applications from *gasp* actual media. In my experience, most W!ndows applications can be installed with one’s eyes closed and their hands tied behind their back. Of course this would involve opening the DVD tray with your tongue and dropping the DVD in with your teeth (never recommended) but once the DVD’s in, an installation will almost always begin itself.
So why oh why was I having problems installing Off!ce 2007? Because I couldn’t get the damned CASE open. That’s right. A freaking DVD case stood in the way of me installing my Off!ce software.
I’m a late adopter when it comes to Off!ce 2007. I just didn’t have the need for it. But seeing that I’m writing for profit now, I need to have actual legal copies of M!cr0s0f+ programs rather than working off of free alternatives. Bad for my bottom line at the moment but a good investment for future business… or at least, so I keep telling myself.
I consider myself a relatively intelligent human being. And yet, as I stared at the shiny box, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to open it. A quick Google search revealed that I wasn’t alone! It seems that the marketing geniuses (/sarcasm) at M!cr0s0f+ thought that snazzy new packaging would help the software appeal to more people. And while I can certainly follow that line of thought, it would have been nice if there had been instructions somewhere ON the bloody thing to help otherwise intelligent souls rendered insanely stupid by their packaging.
It finally took a Flickr set to illustrate how to open it. Which, of course, is so simple yet completely unobvious that I am still sitting here, wondering if my decision to freelance or my decision to buy a M!cr0s0ft application that has rendered me completely stupid. I can only hope the effects are temporary.
