By James Durand
If you’re not familiar with this K.I.S.S. system, it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid, and I think I was just reminded of why I like bikes so much.
Recently, our point of sale system at Swicked bonked and will no longer work without a good set of crutches. After limping it through each day for the last two weeks to keep our store open, I finally got all the details set up and started the implementation of the new point of sale system. Apparently It’s bigger, better, and faster, and will simplify our lives here at Swicked.
I just need it to work.
I chose a Sunday when we are closed, to allow as much time as possible just in case.
I had studied the webinars, asked questions through the online support team, and arranged all the necessary hardware. I was ready and I was prepared. Failing to plan is planning to fail right? Well, I had planned, I had organized, and I was very confident.
This last Sunday I got to work early and jumped right in. I followed every instruction to the letter and all in all it went pretty well. Especially since I am completely useless when it comes to computers. Think Zoolander and you are pretty close to my understanding of this technology.
Now, when I build a bike, or repair a bike, and I say “It all went pretty well.” It means I had a great time, things happened quickly, and I didn’t yell out curse words even once, and everything works beautifully in the end. Simple!
I started at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday and once I followed all the instructions mentioned above, I had to re-format into a CSV file, then a UTF file, then reformat the content in the file on a line by line basis, then upload, then fix some more issues, then upload, and fix more issues, then upload again.
Now, if you know what any of that means, you’re way ahead of where I was Sunday morning, and I think you need to ride more and play with your computer less, but that’s me and I am biased.
Around 10 p.m. as I was finishing up, I thought to myself, “Why don’t they keep this simple, like my bikes?”
I’m 100 per cent sure that if I explained how to oil your chain, or repair a flat on your bike, you wouldn’t need to upgrade your bike, reformat the oil, or need 12 hours of mind numbing time to achieve these simple tasks. When the chat line person at a technology company says “It’s simple.” I think they might have a different dictionary than the rest of us.
So, we have a new point of sale system, I now know a whole bunch of computer words that I will most likely forget in a week or two, and I am more appreciative of my bikes than I have been in a while. I like simple.
I’m James Durand and I’m Goin’ Ridin’ … and tryin’ not to think for a few days.