Change Is Hell

By Claire Booth

I updated the operating system for my phone this week. And regretted it immediately. I had to spend an hour figuring out all the new “features.” I don’t have a spare hour to be fiddling around with my phone. And I resent that a certain company thinks I do.

Why do companies think they need to go and change things? I was nice and comfortable before. I would have continued to be nice and comfortable had this particular company not harassed me with constant reminders that popped up and delayed me when I wanted to use my phone. Which is why I bought it in the first place. To use it.

The same goes for other businesses who change things (I’m looking at you, warehouse clubs) just to change them. For the record, customers want to be able to find their enormous boxes of cereal in the same aisle every time they come. It is not fun to search through row after row in a cavernous space just to find the Cheerios. So, yes, you’ve forced me to go down several other aisles in the hopes I’ll pick up more merchandise than I would have otherwise. But you’ve also annoyed me. A lot.

Same with a certain phone maker. Don’t force new options on me. If you want to provide them, fine. But let your customers put them where they want them or delete them if they don’t want them at all. Because some of your customers (like me) are curmudgeonly old coots who don’t like change. You need to cater to them, too.