I guess I must be really getting old.  I’ve been working with technology in one form or another my entire career.  But, lately, I’m finding that I often lose my excitement for a new technology gadget.

First, there was the experience with the TV and the “home theater system”.  I whimsied about that a while back.  Now, I’ve got a new wireless headset, and discovered I wasn’t excited about that, either.

I knew I wasn’t going to be happy when the new headset arrived, and it came with a 55-page book of instructions and eight other components.

I thought back to the “good old days” when you bought a headset - albeit a corded one - it arrived .  .  .   you put it on your head and you were done!

I hadn’t thought about the fact that a cordless headset would need a charger.  So, I had to make room on the desk and find a plug in the already crowded sets of power and battery backup strips.  This, of course, entailed crawling around under the desk to locate same.

Then, I had to install the battery and battery cover on the headset, charge the headset, then register the headset on the telephone.  Luckily, since everything is from the same vendor, that was an easy thing to do.

But, I also had to deal with stupid written instructions.  The book said that to charge the headset, you were to push it down into the charger until the light came on.  I did that, but no light.  I pushed a bit harder, still no light.  But, then the light started blinking every so often.  So, I decided to leave that topic and read on.  Turns out that until the headset is registered, the light will blink every so often.  Why wouldn’t they tell you that before you about broke the thing pushing it into the charger to make the light come on?

I have three options for attaching the headset to my head: an over the ear hook, an over the head band, and a behind the neck band.  I tried the over the ear thing for most of the day.

I don’t know how all the people I see who seem to wear telephones on their ear at all times do it.  Maybe it’s just my ears, or maybe it’s the hook that came with the phone.  But, I decided that wasn’t my best option.  Besides that, if I had it in the charger and the phone rang, I could never get it hooked over my ear fast enough.

So, I tried the over the head band – too tight and no adjustments, so I’m going with the behind the head band.  The book said it was set up for using in your right ear when it was shipped.  But, of course it wasn’t, so I had to decipher the manual’s attempts at 3-D illustrations to get it where I wanted it.

But, the good news is that the customer rep was right.  Everyone I talked to today said I sounded very good – crisp – almost like I was sitting right next to them.

So, another technology in place.  Maybe my lack of enthusiasm was partly due to the fact that it was late in the day, and I just wanted to get the headset working.  But, I still think things were just so much easier back in the day!!