Over the weekend, we had wi-fi issues at Chez Hanson. If you have teens and/or tweens and you’ve had wi-fi issues, then you know when that happens your home is basically on DEF-CON 15.

And I am not being dramatic.

After a little research and a phone call to CenturyLink, world order was restored and the wi-fi was back up-and-running. Until Sunday morning, when my son came complaining that wi-fi wasn’t working with his Xbox. A bit more research and we figured that out, too.

But, all in all, a minor glitch set me back a few hours of time.

And, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Truth be told, it’s happening a lot more than it used to. And, it’s no surprise since our world is increasingly tied to technology.

Let me just make a short list of the tech I use every day:

• MacBook
• Phone
• Wi-fi (router, modem)
• Outlook
• Gmail
• Dropbox
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Hulu
• Netflix
• iTunes
• Spotify

That’s just a start. And, I would hardly consider our home a “wired” home. We don’t use things like Nest or Alexa. We don’t have a “connected” home. And, I would hardly call ourselves “luddites.” And yet, we still struggle with technology.

Because it is everywhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much time I devoted to either fixing or figuring out technology (or, managing passwords!). Now, I know I may be in the minority since I’m a solo consultant and a lot of this “figuring out” falls to me. If I were on the corporate or agency side, those kinds of organizations have “IT People” to turn to in these types of situations. I do not.

But, I still run into these tech issues in my personal life. They’re everywhere. And, I’m starting to become a little overwhelmed with it all.

Back to the original wi-fi story for a good example. Two big problems with our wi-fi right now:

1 – It’s slow (not always, but many times it is)

2 – It’s used by many different devices, each with their own set of issues and challenges (namely, four iPhones, 2 Apple TVs, 1 Chromebook, 2 iPads and 1 Xbox).

Slow wi-fi seems like an easy problem to fix, but in reality, it’s not. It takes an act of Congress to get someone from CenturyLink on the phone–or worse yet, out to your home. And, because we’re talking about different devices, a lot of times the problem may lie more with the device than the wi-fi.

Which leads me to #2. You may call CenturyLink and talk about the slow wi-fi, but then you say it’s working fine on our iPhones, just not with the Xbox. Of course, to this, the CenturyLink people will say “you have an Xbox problem, not a wi-fi problem. Contact Microsoft.” Great, another phone call, you say. Which will take another half hour-hour of your time. Then you call the Microsoft folks and the first thing they ask you about is your wi-fi set up. You say “I just talked to the CenturyLink folks and they told me to call you!” To which the Microsoft folks will politely say “sorry, we can’t really help you here.”

You see how this can quickly become frustrating.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this today. Mostly just to vent, I guess. I’ve always said this blog is my personal space to write and vent!

But, I guess I’m also looking for a little sympathy and community here, too. I can’t be the only one feeling this way. I can’t be the only one overwhelmed (at times) by all this technology.

Also: Isn’t there a business opportunity here for some kind of technology concierge? I know Geek Squad comes to mind, but are there any one-man bands that provide this service?

I’m curious. And overwhelmed.