But The Messenger Said...

I had to tell this story on myself. It was just too ironic not to share.

While working on the M09 installment to my Messenger series, I experienced a problem with my writing environment that had me really fuming. I have been using Microsoft OneNote to write my stories with, because it allows the documents to be shared cross device. (I know that there are other options such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. but I’m old and maybe too lazy to change my ways.)

You may have already guessed it from the ‘cross device’ clue, but I will tell those of you who did not. My problem arose in synchronizing which version of the file on which device was the most current. This is a very basic function of any document management system which works over multiple devices and is one that OneNote generally handles quite well. Of course, that was until I ran out of the space that I had for files in my OneDrive storage. For you Apple fans, OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to iCloud.

Microsoft, like Apple, gives each user a free starter amount of space, so that you can get used to the convenience of having it, but then makes a huge profit from talking you into expanding how much storage that you need when you fill it up.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I have many soapbox issues, and one of them is my opinion that you should manage this space to keep the old stuff cleaned out, rather than waste money continuing to store stuff that you are never going to look at. Don't get me started on the topic of paying to keep stuff that you don't really want anymore, but also cannot bring yourself to throw away, in one of those Storage lots for months. How many times could you have bought new instead of storing the old for months on end? Of course, neither of the tech giants makes the process of managing this cloud storage simple, until you have learned it. (Remember my admission earlier about being old.)

So I find myself with a full storage drive, and unable to sync my files from device to device. This is where we get back to the part of the tale where I have been working on my M09 story for several hours. Full disclosure, I have four devices that I write on depending on what I'm doing and where I'm at: iPhone, iPad, Laptop, and Desktop. I know, poor me. Too many devices, but it is what it is.

First my iPhone refuses to sync. No problem. I search the Internet diligently and find that it is a known issue. Just sign off and sign back on in the OneNote app and everything will be fine. I do this, seeing and ignoring the warning about losing any unsaved data because there is none on the iPhone. It had nothing new on it. I just want to get the updates from my other devices. When I sign back in everything is great! I'm a veteran of fixing sync problems now!

Next, I'm off to an appointment where I have several hours to kill. I take my iPad because it is easier to write on and start M09. I have several pages of fantastic prose in place before the appointment begins and am feeling pretty good about how it is going.

You guessed it again! When I got back home, none of the other devices would sync this new story. I get a notification on the iPad from Microsoft that my OneDrive is full, so I am off to search the Internet again to fix this problem. This is where my lack of flexibility/skill/patience comes into play. After finding out how to clean out my OneDrive as I always said that I should (read procrastination here), I get it below the acceptable level. So, problem solved, NOT! The iPad still complains that the OneDrive does not have enough space. Obviously, the programmers had not built in a way for it to look again and it was stuck with the information that it had before. (Side note: I have been a computer programmer most of my life, so I get to complain when other programmers do not get things done right!) This was my charitable thought, but the Infidel on my shoulder was telling me that Microsoft's corporate greed was deliberately not implementing this obvious programming solution to trick/force people to upgrade to a monthly fee. Anger up, brains down. Where was my Messenger now?!?

I decided to just sign off and sign back in on the iPad. This had fixed the iPhone after all. It only took a couple of clicks to get this done, but unfortunately, one of those clicks was on the warning message about losing unsaved data, which of course happened. All the work on M09 was erased. Afterwards I came up with the brilliant plan of copying the data out of the OneNote file into a text document elsewhere on the iPad before continuing with this step, but that was afterwards and way too late. Anger = frustration = go too fast!

Now for the ironic part. The title of M09 is Get Mad But Do Not BE Mad, because it features the Messenger explaining the problems that getting mad and staying mad cause and suggesting ways to control your anger. I tried what the Messenger said in M09 and, your final guess about this story is right again, none of it worked so well! Hence the name of this piece.

I fumed over my loss and Microsoft's corporate greed for hours. On the plus side, I did prevent myself from taking it out on others, but I sure was increasing my own bile and blood pressure! I DID recognize the irony in this at the time, which brought on a smile, but that still was not enough to calm me down. Is that not just a hoot that I have a problem while writing a story about controlling anger and then have trouble controlling my own anger? I had to tell on myself! Of course, with my newfound and hard-won insight into the subject matter, I may have been able to add a little more to what the Messenger in M09 had to say. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for you to go read that story in the fiction area.)

The rest of the story is that, when I had to rewrite the beginning of M09, I think I did a much better job. I realize that I am a terrible (AKA lazy) editor of my stories. I find it hard to completely rewrite something. I go through a story over and over before I publish and tweak things, adding more descriptions, or checking spelling and consistency, but major rewrites, ugh!

Side note here: The other feature that OneNote has that I really love and find very handy is the ability for it to read the text out loud. I absolutely have found more grammatical errors in my stories listening to them than I have just reading them. I probably read too fast and make the mistake of reading what I think is there instead of the actual words, just like I am right now while reviewing this article, but when I listened to it after the review I found two more errors where I had used a word that spellcheck said was correctly spelled but was not the word that I had intended to use. Additional Side Note: I have been thinking about using Grammerly, but I deliberately use a form of speech that I think it would complain endlessly about. If you have opinions about these things, please make comments below.

So, silver linings, I now have a better understanding of how to manage my OneDrive space, and M09 is better than it was going to be originally. Thanks Microsoft! I'm not holding a grudge.

I hope you found this story amusing. I did, even if not so much at the time. ;)

And yes, that old school emoji was on purpose!