That office PC with 2GB of RAM still haunts me

Stopped by a dentist office in Cleveland last Tuesday to pick up a donation box and saw their front desk PC running Windows 10 on 2GB of RAM. It took 4 minutes just to open the scheduling software. I offered to swap in a stick I had in my car but the office manager said it was fine because "that's how it's always been." Has anyone else run into a small business just refusing to upgrade their hardware?

2 comments

2 Comments

keith26419d ago

That sluggish PC is everywhere once you start looking. I waited at a diner last month where the register took 25 seconds just to print a check, and the waitress said they've had that system since 2008. There's a hardware store near my shop that still runs Windows 7 on their inventory computer because the owner is convinced an upgrade will "break everything." People get so used to the slow crawl they forget computers are supposed to be fast. It's like they've accepted the lag as part of the job, like a squeaky door you just ignore. Eventually that 2GB machine will die mid-transaction and they'll be scrambling for a backup.

uma_webb2819d ago

It's like some people treat slow technology as a character test. That dentist office is probably the same place where the coffee pot drips for ten minutes to fill one cup and the front door hinge squeaks every single time someone walks in. They just accept the annoyance as part of the scenery instead of fixing it. You see it everywhere not just with computers but with bad workflows and broken furniture and outdated signs. It's this weird mindset where people think discomfort or inefficiency is just the price you pay for doing things the old way. Eventually that office PC will crash hard and they'll blame the computer instead of admitting they ignored it for years.