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| This has nothing to do with Garmin, but everything to do with sat nav industry. |
Navigating has been made easier because of sat nav's - right?
Maybe it depends on the brand. Or where you live. Or if the sun and moon and starts are aligned. Or entering in the address the way the sat nav needs it to be done.
When you've just landed in a new city, and you literally have no idea where you are going, and you don't have a great sense of direction to start with, and short term memory skills are fading fast, sat nav's are on of your Top 10 Best Friends in the Whole Entire World.
I've lost count of the hours spent sitting in the car, ready to go and the sat nav won't accept the address being entered.
Without them you become dependent on other people.
There's no lunch dates (unless some one picks you up)
There's no food in the house (unless you go online and have it home delivered)
There's no kids going over to a friends house after school cos you can't collect them (unless other mum is prepared to bring them home)
You can't go exploring when there's nothing else to do.
What if you need to take the kids to the doctor or worse, A&E (which I had to do yesterday, but that's another chat)
Or get to the airport to pick hubby up (forget it, he can take a taxi)
Of course I'm exaggerating, but only a little.
There have been several times these past few weeks our sat nav is lucky it wan't chucked out the window and stamped on it til it burst into a zillion tiny pieces of plastic and computer chips. Of course then I'd have been totally lost, so to relieve my stress at the constant oh-so-annoying voice saying:
RECALCULATING RECALCULATING
or
TURN AROUND WHEN POSSIBLE
or
GO LEFT, THEN TAKE THE FIRST LEFT, THEN IN 150 YARDS TURN LEFT
I swore and yelled at 'it'.
Years ago a friend suggested John Cleese's voice, as Basil Fawlty would be the perfect voice for a sat nav. Imagine 'which LEFT didn't you understand?" (or am I showing my age by suggesting this?)
On FB today, MrsW commented 'The most common word heard all day was RECALCULATING'
I burst out laughing and could so relate to her frustration. Another one of those YEAH it's not just me moments.
Today I wanted to attend the American Women's Club of Surrey's September meeting. Like the IWCD, today was the first meeting of the year and important for all the newbies who arrived over summer.
The meeting started at 9.30am about 35 minute drive away.
I left school around 8.55am after programming the sat nav with the postcode of where I was heading (love UK postcode system, it's so specific!) and by 9.20am I had gone around in circles, driven up no less than 4 dead-ends, was guided to 3 private roads and ended up back at school.
Can you imagine my frustration?
I texted the lady I was meeting and said I am on my way if the ***** sat nav behaves. She kindly tried to tell me to get onto the A????? then the M????? and I admitted sheeplishly that I wasn't listening and would try one more time. That the ***** sat nav was NOT going to win.
So, I turned the sat nav OFF then ON and re programmed the postcode.
Funnily enough, rather than telling me to turn right from school I was told to turn LEFT ... AHA! Maybe now we'll get to where we want to go.
I made the meeting by 10.27am and fortunately there was still heaps happening (first meetings of the year are always long and full of information)
The sat nav behaved beautifully on the return trip.
Maybe it knows I don't like it and prefer my Google Maps on my Samsung phone and that's why it misbehaves.
As soon as I can pop my UK SIM into G's 'old' Samsung (it's only a year old, and silly me forfeited a new one so he could have the new one) I'll be back to being uber confident with the directions being given to me.
In the meantime, it's going to be lots of deep breaths and swearing.
The great thing tho is of course I made it to the meeting. Of course MrsW made it to where ever she was going.
We are strong, intelligent, independent women on a mission to settle our families regardless of what obstacles may get in the way.
We will not be beaten.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN WORN DOWN BY A SAT NAV?
WHERE?
WHAT HAPPENED?
I've never really trusted them, I prefer paper maps, but Husband uses it all the time. Most spectacular fail was plugging in a garden centre which took us to Sevenoaks. But the garden centre was 45 min in the other direction. there is only one by that name, it's not a chain or anything. I said I didn't think it was the right direction, but Husband insisted that the satnav was right.
ReplyDelete*I* was right.