MACs Never Crash: Living in Creative Denial
If I lived in denial - I would have to admit my MAC never crashes. Further, my MAC makes me more productive and creative. And above all else, I’m a cooler person for merely owning a MAC.
Here are three short stories about denial and design. To me, they indicate a kind of brainwashing caused by hypnotic conversation-marketing hysteria.
I could be wrong, though. Tell me what YOU think these stories mean:
Story #1: MACs foster greater creativity and productivity. I’m working at a client’s office. I bring my notebook PC, but we’re working on a”creative” project, so he wants to use his beloved MAC. The “creative” stuff amounts to little more than moving around some images, but no matter. He’s the client…and his monitor is bigger, so it makes sense. But his MAC continually crashes while we’re merely looking at some photos. After the first two crashes and re-boots, I start working on my PC while my client keeps repeating,
“MACs never crash. They never, ever do. I will always use a MAC. The MAC is an excellent computer.”
To me, he sounded like RainMan as I finish up the project on my laptop. He keeps trying to make his MAC work, while I’m working on the actual project. When I show him the finished project while his MAC’s rebooting for the umpteenth time, he’s delighted with the results. But he mourns,
“If only we could have done this on the MAC. It would have been more creative.”
Story #2: The MAC is a superior tool for collaboration and writing. Three of us are writing a lengthy report. And we’re collaborating from three locations. But we can’t use Google Docs to collaborate, because two of the writers are using MACs, and they’re telling me that Google Docs crashes the Safari browser. Really? OK, whatever, so we agree to use MS Word to write and email drafts back and forth. Old-fashioned, clunky, and non-productive…but what can I do? I’m outnumbered. I work on the MAC at home, but I bring my laptop PC to the party when we all get together to finalize the 70+ page report. Since I have an artistically-challenged notebook PC, the the PowerBook user insists that he put the design touches on the final report. The PowerBook guy gives up after 2 MAC crashes, and actually hands a disk with the raw content to the guy with the MAC desktop! But the MAC desktop crashes, too — so it wasn’t a network thing, like they both supposed. As a last resort, they hand the raw content to me — just TEXT, mind you – to format on the PC. Oddly enough, my PC could handle the job of importing a small .rdf file without crashing.
“But the final report would have looked so much better if we could have used a MAC,” laments PowerBook dude.
Story #3: My MAC is in the basement. I don’t use it anymore. It’s collecting dust. Yes, I’m aware of the hypnotically parroted lines:
- The MAC is more creative.
- The MAC is so cool.
- The MAC never, ever crashes.
But honestly. I need to get stuff done. And I need to create and collaborate and communicate with others…so I feel I have to use my PC.
Note: the root word of creative is “create”. If you can’t effectively create something on a MAC, how “creative” can it make YOU?
As for productivity — don’t make me roll my eyes!
But should I carry my MAC about as some hip fashion statement? Kind of like having a chihuahua in my purse or something?
What do you think?
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Comments
Obviously the computers were not Macs. They were simply plants by Microsoft to make you THINK that Macs are not reliable. Remember, Macs never crash. Steve Jobs is never wrong. Intel is the enemy. Motorola is our friend. No wait, now Intel is our friend. Apple is doubleplus good!
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Stacey Derbinshire