I think I've gone 'round the bend again...

[fuzzyred]

If you go around enough bends, do you end up facing normal again?

Sitting at work (on afternoons this week) and not for the first time I am bargaining with the machines. Now, I talk to everything so this isn't strange in and of itself, but imagining the machines as having an inky, swirly mass as a spirit? Ones who feed off oil and dirt, and have different likes and interests and like treats?

Logic says it's just my imagination and they are figments I created to pass the time, but it doesn't feel like I made them up, they feel more like entities that have their own preferences. I'm not a writer, so I wouldn't know, but maybe this is how some authors feel about their characters? Or are their actually spirit beings in the machines that appreciate fluffy blankets, kind words, and various spices?

Comments

awwww!!!!!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Honest, Machines know people in the office. The mass fax/print/scan/copy/store/whoever else knows what else it do? at my old job had favorite people.

It knew if you were talking bad about it and it would find a way to spray you with toner or belch ink on your shoes or create the Worst Paper Jam Ever in the middle of a huge job.

It knew if you were being nice, I swear it knew how to PURR.

It PLAYED PRANKS ON ITS OWN!!! I kind you not.

It was either SENTIENT or possessed by rogue office gremlins. The ones that steal the good pens and take your best white out as tribute.

But I think it was sentient.

At my current job, there is one computer that refuses to work correctly for me. It eats data I input. It goes on the fritz and shuts down right when I need it. It hates me. And it knows I am annoyed with it. It won't tell me what it wants either, so I call it Oscar and I don't think it likes that.

[technoshaman]

all of what a nonny mouser said above, and this:

The best ones are _all_ 'round the bend. *hugs*

[manglefox]

We as a system once got a computer second-hand from some dear friends who sold him to us because our beloved laptop Despereaux was dying.
When we got this computer, which was running Windows Vista (Despereaux was running XP) we had no end of trouble out of him till Axel came into front, looked at the computer and verbally told him who he was, that he was a friend of the good folken who'd owned this laptop, and promised to be a good laptop owner.
After that, the trouble we were having instantly stopped. Pretty sure Umlaut von Vaiobraten (Our friends named him, engraved the name on the corner of the top frame of the screen and everything) was sentient. He was definitely one of the best laptops we could ask for. However, he was still persnickety around other people. But he gave us seven years of solid, daily-use service, for hours a day, before he started overheating. He's in Tennessee and we're in California, or we could probably still boot him up.
But seven years, for a computer that had already been used a lot for like two or three before we got him is pretty great.
All this to say you're not round the bend.

[we_are_spc]

There are.

I miss my maschines. They chose their names and everything-and then when I left for colorado, they were sad. (So was I.)

While they didn't necessarily like physical *things* they loved my singing spirit when I worked with them. The would often sing back, so to speak, and I would whirl around the room humming; I was happy back there.

I miss that.

-T~

[stealthsystem]

Psst. Normal's just a setting on the clothes dryer. A lot can be said for subjective experiences, and just because others can't see something doesn't make it untrue.
Michie