The Saint of Search Engines

My files disappear into my computer with great regularity – even the ones I name myself using such explicit language that I’m certain they’ll pop up when I need them.  Wrong.  Whatever language I used is not the language that comes to mind when I search for them.

I have had this trouble going as far back as the Yellow Pages.  I have never been able to quickly decide what the Official Namer Of The Yellow Pages will call, for instance, car repair.  Oh – I say car – they say auto.  And so on and so on.  My only successful Yellow Pages search was pizza, after they created pages in the “P” section for it. Everything else in that book remains a mystery to this day.

Those were the early days – the days of innocent assumption, believing that my own logic was clear and superior and that I categorize the same way everyone else does.  Today I am stripped of that illusion.  Nothing points out differences in thinking more quickly than a searchable  database.  

Recently I was one of several people looking to find a specific CD holder for children’s music.  This favorite CD holder was shaped like a ladybug.  It went missing.  The young owner of the ladybug was inconsolable – more over the container than its contents.  We tried every store we could think of.  No children’s CD holders in friendly shapes.  We went online.  Meanwhile the child decided she might be even happier with a butterfly-shaped CD holder-replacement. 

I typed in every conceivable description of such an item that I could think of.  I changed the order of the words. I found out during this search that they are often called “CD wallets.”  I added that phrase to my searches and kept looking for one shaped like a butterfly. 

An ebay-friendly acquaintance was puzzled I was having such a problem.  He said everything relies on the way you seek.  Duh.  I already know that.  But evidently I don’t speak Search language.  He said it just comes naturally to him and he let loose a stream of descriptive words in a sequence I would never have thought would work.  Meantime my daughter had also asked a Search Engine Specialist who gave her the words that led to the one and only butterfly CD holder that any of us found. She bought it immediately and happiness is restored.

This experience points out again that my thought process in no way matches the way searches are conducted. It doesn’t even match my own thinking from the previous day. This is not a good outcome for a writer who opens the same files again and again.  I name them when I first create them.  Evidently a gremlin enters my brain’s Center Of Logical Response while I sleep and by the next day I am hunting endlessly.  When I accidently locate a correct folder, it’s now called something I find hard to believe.  Who named this file?  I am forced to reprise the old-school write-it-down method.  I open the file, make changes, then write the name of the file on a piece of paper and attach it to the hard copy of the manuscript in progress.

If I can’t even find my own files, with my own quite specific descriptions, is it a wonder I can’t figure out what to call something I’m trying to buy?  Google tries to help by suggesting that perhaps I might try another word. My friend Catherine tries to help.  She says  ask the saint of lost objects.  She’s not Catholic but she speaks to Saint Anthony frequently and she says he helps every time. 

I need a Saint of Search Engines – one who’ll whisper in my ear “Look here.” and point me to which words to type, which items on the pull-down menu to select.  And while he’s/she’s at it, explain who decided  which letters will comprise an entire text message? 

I don’t even try to think like a search engine anymore.  These days I ask everybody, “What would you call that, online, I mean?”  The correct answer is generally the opposite of what I thought.

So my wish has been granted in a way.   Friends who communicate clearly with search engines are my new Search Engine Saints.

Ó Anita Garner 2009

Science & Sales

I recently changed doctors.  In fact, I switched to two new specialists because the first two kept trying to sell me things.  It bothers me when I’m in a vulnerable state, which we always are in a doctor’s examining room, when after checking what I went there for, he/she suggests I partake of products offered for sale on the premises. 

My Dermatologist began to push expensive services which are cosmetic in nature.  I have nothing against cosmetic Dermatology, but that wasn’t the reason for my visit.  However, after he excised the suspicious sunspots on my skin, I asked about a reddish place on my face, wondering if it was anything to worry about, and by way of answering my concern, he said “Just a minute, let me bring in my laser people.” 

Before I could decline, the door to the examining room opened, the doctor exited, and a woman carrying laser brochures entered.  She looked me over and surmised that for about $5,000-$6,000 for several treatments, she could make the reddish spots disappear.  I asked, “But will they come back?” The answer was yes, “But you can always repeat the laser procedure again in the future.”

The other doctor I said goodbye to was my eye doctor.  He’d had a shop adjacent to his office for some time, but they’d never tried to sell me things, so I walked past his boutique  filled with designer eyeglass frames and headed to a less expensive dispensary to get my prescriptions filled. 

The last visit, though, consisted of one part exam and three parts sales.  First the receptionist pointed me to the shop and suggested I browse while waiting.  Then the doctor finished the exam and left the room, returning with several eyeglass frames from his selection.  I declined.  And then I declined to make another appointment there.

This isn’t new, but it’s recently begun to bother me more. It’s not that I resent doctors finding new ways to make money, especially with insurance companies paying less of the cost of care, but I want to feel that my health is more important to them than their sales.  I don’t even care if it’s true,  just so I can continue to pretend it’s so.  

Maybe you can separate science from sales, healing from hype, but I can’t.  For me, getting a sales pitch along with an exam is full-service intimidation and I’m not willing to participate in practices (pardon the lame wordplay) that make me feel unsettled when I’m trying to look after my health.  

I learned that you can Google doctors and read patient reviews.  Not that someone else’s opinion is the final word, but I did find some reviews that mention whether the doctor pushes products as often as medical care.

It’s not just doctors.  Decades ago, at a meeting with the minister who would perform our wedding ceremony, the preacher chatted with us for a few minutes, then handed us a packet containing brochures about life insurance.  He was pastoring full time, but selling insurance on the side.  We wondered, is he in touch with Someone who has knowledge of our future?  Does he know something we don’t?  There we were, young and in love, headed to our meeting with questions about the ceremony, but we left worrying about our beneficiaries.

I’m all for “additional revenue streams.”  I embrace our capitalistic society, but assuming I can find them, I’ll continue to seek out doctors (and ministers) who stick to the main product I’m there for. 

Ó By Anita Garner 2008