Online Business Freedom

An interesting thing happened today at my local UPS store.

While I was standing in line to get a package overnighted, the power went out at this particular store, and in a few stores on either side of it.

I figured that the employees would simply turn on an external generator, give customers directions to the nearest sister store.

You know, what you’d expect from well trained employees.

I wasn’t prepared for the utter chaos that ensued.

Seriously, you’d have thought that there was a bomb threat on the store.

Employees were running around, screaming into their cell phones, and just dropping what they were doing to walk outside to see what was going on in the adjacent stores.

Of course this behavior got the customers upset as well.

Imagine asking an employee quietly, “So can we still make the overnight deadline?”

And the employee’s response being (wild eyed while waving her hands) “I DON’T KNOW! The ELECTRICITY’S OUT! Oh my gosh…”

Soon, these bad vibes infected the entire store, and people either left because they had better things to do, or because they were turned off by the craziness of the store.

It was both breathtaking and terrible to watch the place fall apart after 10-15 minutes, tops.

Because then, the lights turned back on.

Suddenly, employees were in their right minds again, and order was restored.

Of course there was the “you’ll have to wait a few minutes because the computer’s rebooting” speech, but other than that, it was equally mind boggling to see how quickly things returned to status quo.

Weird story, right?

But what’s the lesson here?

First, I believe that there is a rather depressing dependence on technology that exists in our culture today.

Hey, I’m definitely not one to cast stones here.

I have 2 laptops and a desktop, an Ipod, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a MySpace account, I blog, and have a Treo (and many more gadgets than can be listed here).

But I also have times when I COMPLETELY unplug, JUST so I don’t have to feel the buzzing of my phone in my pocket, hear the ping of my email, or check to see if a friend messaged me back on Facebook.

It’s just necessary sometimes to shut down.

Second, what do you do when your computer crashes or when you lose your cell phone?

I was reading a Twitter ping the other day from a woman who claimed to be out of commission for 7 days while she got a new laptop.

I mean a couple of days MAYBE, but seven freakin’ days?

(The point is, not that you can’t unplug for seven days, but that she made the choice to be helpless for seven days…)

Human nature is so interesting.

When something like a laptop breaks down, some people equate that to their whole LIVES breaking down.

There are a couple of ways to combat this.

Number one, do the backup thing.

So when the crash happens (and it WILL happen), you’ll be back up and running in no time flat.

But second, why not some time out once in a while to see what it feels like WITHOUT your cell phone or laptop or desktop?

It won’t kill you.

Just unplug for a bit and get used to the feeling of not being entirely dependent on technology.

Then when you’re REALLY in that situation, it won’t feel as alien and uncomfortable to you.

Crazy right?

Or maybe not.

-James D. Lee

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