So many little irritations seem to keep adding up

It seems the more we rely on technology, the more it wants to muck us around and play with our minds and spirits.

Like many people who have jobs, I spend much of my day staring blankly at a computer screen and occasionally tapping on the keys in front of it.

But every time I seem to get on a roll with tapping on those infernal keys, pulling together something half-legible from the rag-tag collection of thoughts running through my head, when suddenly everything freezes.

The computer demands a restart for some reason I cannot quite comprehend, but because I'm in the middle of things I postpone, and postpone, and postpone, until the computer - this bit of machinery designed to serve me - demands an immediate restart.

Then I have no option. Technology is the boss and I'm being told what to do.

I restart dutifully, re-establish all the tabs I had open, try to get back to work, then a couple of days later the computer again starts calling for a shutdown and restart.

Hang on, didn't we just go through with this?

It's annoying, and sure, it's only a small thing, but it adds to the myriad of other small annoyances creeping into everyday life.

Like try calling a government department to get a quick answer to any simple question.

It doesn't happen.

You call the advertised number, listen to a recording saying if you want to talk about this press one, if you want to talk about that press two, and so on - all the while realising none of the things they specify apply to you.

Then you finally get - for any other inquiries or to speak to reception, simply hold the line.

But when you hold the line you go back to the start, again given a range of options that don't apply as if every effort is being made to dissuade you from speaking to someone who might be able to give you an answer.

Then when the system realises you're actually trying to speak to the reception, it decides you need 20 to 30 minutes of thinking time with tinny music playing in your ears, just so you can reconsider the value of making the call, and work out whether the answer is really all this hassle.

Because when you do finally get to speak to someone the answer is invariably to put the question in writing - ostensibly so they can ignore you and go back to filing nails or talking about the weekend's sporting results.

Fair dinkum, it's enough to make a person long for the good old days, when landline telephones were considered modern technology, and people actually dealt with each other face to face.