The 5 stages of grief

Grieving is a process that everyone experiences differently.

Technology Mortality is something that you accept as a part of life. At some point you will receive the news you so dread to hear.
It happened to me as well…

My Laptop just died on me

You could hear the screaming from the other side of town. Noooooooooooooo !!!!
The beating on the chest. The pulling of hair. The wailing. The futile attempts to resuscitate. How could this happen to me!?

I’ve had my loyal laptop for 6 years (6144 in computer years..) and never thought of getting a new one.
I’m the only person in the company that still used Windows XP as a operating system.
Only 1.5GB RAM – which meant I needed to keep it on a constant diet of healthy non fattening applications (I didn’t even have an antivirus running…)
So we sent the laptop to the lab. The coroner is checking allegations of technical suicide or did it die of old age.

How people respond to a laptop death can either help or hinder the healing process.
An effective response to a death requires advanced planning and frequent backups.
Luckily all my work related documents and information were backed-up correctly, but a lot of my blog-related work was lost: articles that I was in the middle of writing, reseach notes, links, rss feeds…

An effective response increases the likelihood that the trauma will be minimized and ensures that the psychological equilibrium will be restored as soon as possible.
When a laptop dies on you, especially one that you’ve been with for so long, you go through the 5 stages of grief
1. Denial – “The laptop is fine”; “I’ll let it rest for 5 minutes and reboot”
Denial is usually only a temporary defence. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of problematic situation.
2. Anger – “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How could this happen?”; “Who is to blame?”
Once in the second stage, you recognize that the denial cannot continue.
3. Bargaining – “I’ll transfer the harddisk from one laptop to another…”
The third stage involves the hope that you can somehow postpone the inevitable.
4. Depression – “My life is over… Why bother any more?”;
During the fourth stage, you begin to understand the certainty of the laptop’s death.
You become silent, refuse to participate in social events and spend much of the time being grumpy. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.
5. Acceptance – “”Well, I can’t fight it. I may as well order a new one.”
In this last stage, you begin to come to terms with the inevitable

I’m watching out for signs and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, but it looks like I’m starting to get over it.
The company bought me a new Dell XPS laptop. It’s got Windows 7 and a wider screen. “Cutting-edge technology” everyone tells me… It will take getting use to .

Ashes to ashes, microchips to microchips, rest in peace my dear laptop…
You will not be forgotten.