From a grandmother who waited three hours in Soviet bread lines to a teacher who typed her entire thesis on a typewriter, one Boomer reveals why she can't help but laugh when millennials melt down over "slow" 50 Mbps internet and five-day shipping delays.
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Last week at the coffee shop, I overheard a twenty-something tell her friend, "I literally cannot deal with this self-checkout machine. It's 2024 and they still can't make these things work properly." I nearly choked on my latte.
At 72, after teaching high school for 32 years and raising two children through divorce and remarriage, I've developed a certain perspective on what constitutes a real problem. And let me tell you, the "struggles" I hear younger folks complaining about with modern technology would have been considered miracles in my day.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to play the "back in my day" card just for sport. But there's something almost comical about watching people complain about conveniences that would have revolutionized our lives just a few decades ago. Sometimes I wonder if we've become so accustomed to ease that we've forgotten what actual inconvenience looks like.
1) Self-checkout machines that don't work right
Remember when grocery shopping was a social event? You knew your cashier's name, asked about her kids, and waited patiently while she manually punched in every single price. Now I watch young people have near meltdowns when the self-checkout announces "unexpected item in bagging area."
During my teaching exchange in Moscow in 1978, I stood in line for three hours just to buy bread. Three hours. In the snow. For bread that might not even be there when you reached the counter. So forgive me if I can't muster sympathy for someone who has to wait thirty seconds for an attendant to clear their screen. You're in control of your own checkout speed, scanning your own items, and you can even bag things exactly how you want them. What's not to love?
2) Slow internet that's only 50 Mbps
My granddaughter recently declared her internet "literally unusable" because it was running at 50 Mbps. I had to leave the room to compose myself.
I typed my entire master's thesis on a typewriter. One mistake meant retyping the whole page. Research meant waiting three weeks for interlibrary loan books to arrive. When I decided to learn Italian at 66, I used library CDs and workbooks, rewinding and repeating until my player wore out.
You have the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips, and you're upset it takes two seconds to load instead of one? I remember when dial-up internet took five minutes to load a single photograph, and we thought it was magic.
3) Having to call instead of text for important matters
Have you noticed how young people treat phone calls like you're asking them to perform surgery? "Can't you just text me?" they plead, as if using their voice is an insurmountable challenge.
For 15 years as a single mother, I coordinated two kids' schedules, doctor appointments, and school events without a single text message. When my daughter struggled with postpartum depression, I couldn't send her emoji hearts. I had to show up, dial her number, and use my actual voice to tell her she wasn't alone. Some things require the warmth of human speech. The tremor in someone's voice tells you things their carefully crafted texts never will.
4) Only having a 5-day delivery window
The horror on young faces when Amazon takes five whole days to deliver is something to behold. Five days! Can you imagine such deprivation?
I grew up ordering from the Sears catalog and waiting six to eight weeks for delivery. My mother sewed most of our clothes because store-bought was a luxury we planned for months in advance. During my lean years after divorce, every purchase was budgeted and planned weeks ahead. There was no "add to cart" impulse buying at midnight.
The ability to order something on Monday and receive it by Friday would have seemed like sorcery to us. Yet somehow it's become a source of suffering.
5) GPS that loses signal sometimes
What did we ever do before satellites told us where to turn? Oh, that's right. We figured it out ourselves.
I drove to my first teaching interview with a road atlas spread across the passenger seat, pulling over every few miles to check my route. Getting lost wasn't a catastrophe; it was how you learned your way around a new place. My second husband actually proposed during a weekend trip where we'd deliberately thrown away the map to see where we'd end up.
Now people panic if they lose GPS signal for five minutes. Heaven forbid they might have to read a street sign or ask another human for directions.
6) Inconvenient banking hours
Young people complain about banks closing at 5 PM. This, while they're holding a device that lets them transfer money, pay bills, and check balances 24/7 from their couch.
I remember the Friday afternoon sprint to the bank before 3 PM. Miss it, and you had no cash for the entire weekend. As a single mother, I balanced my checkbook by hand, tracked every penny in a notebook, and taught my children to do the same. We waited in actual lines to deposit actual checks, and if you forgot to record a transaction, you risked bouncing a check and paying hefty fees.
7) Streaming services not having everything
The tragedy of Netflix not having one specific movie sends young people into spirals of despair. "There's nothing to watch," they moan, while scrolling through thousands of options.
I grew up with three television channels, assuming the antenna cooperated. We planned our entire week around the TV Guide schedule because missing a show meant missing it forever. No pause, no rewind, no "watch later." My family gathered for Sunday night Disney movies like it was church, because it was our one chance to see them.
8) Having to update passwords every 90 days
The groaning that accompanies quarterly password updates would be amusing if it weren't so absurd. "I can't remember all these passwords!" they wail.
In 1987, someone stole my mail and opened credit cards in my name. It took two years and countless hours to resolve. I kept financial records in a locked filing cabinet and memorized every important number because there was no password reset button for real life.
You're being asked to change a few characters four times a year to protect yourself from threats we couldn't have imagined. I've been using the same Social Security number for 64 years. I think you can handle updating your Netflix password occasionally.
Final thoughts
I'm not suggesting we should go back to the old ways. I love my smartphone, online banking, and yes, even those temperamental self-checkout machines. But perhaps we could all benefit from a little perspective. These modern conveniences that cause such anguish? They're solutions to problems we once accepted as facts of life. Maybe instead of complaining when technology isn't perfect, we could marvel that it exists at all.
