Type @ to Insert
Picture it. 90 minutes ago you took an edible and now you’re high as fuck. You’re in a bad mood because another project fell apart. You’re frustrated, you’re sad, you’re angry… but then something happens, and you’re inspired. You’re inspired to do something new, to write something new. Suddenly you’re excited and bursting with ideas. So you open up Google Docs and create a new blank document. And you start writing.
Except… you don’t start writing. Because you’re distracted. Because your document is not blank.
No, it’s not. Because there’s a little, gray, italicized command already there. New documents are no longer blank. In every new document, the document now says:
Type @ to insert
That’s right. It says:
Type @ to insert
When you’re high and you come up with a fun little idea and you’re inspired to write and you open up a new document, can you think of anything more inspiring than a command like:
Type @ to insert
What does it even mean? Type @? I’m not here to type @. Now I don’t even remember what I was here to type because you’re telling me to type @.
Maybe if I do it once, it’ll leave me alone?
Nope. I did it. I learned it. I have it in my brain. But still, when I start a new document, there it is again.
Type @ to insert
Is that even fucking english? Type @? To Insert? What? Why? Why are you telling me what to type? Jesus Christ do you know how high I am? Do you know how fucking hard it is to hold onto thoughts, even when I’m NOT high? Do you know how hard it was to even open up Google Docs, and not get distracted by my old documents, in particular one called “Fuck EVERYTHING,” and find the “Create document” button, which, by the way, is sometimes in the upper left and sometimes in the lower right, depending on if templates are on or off, which is in itself very confusing, but never mind that, I manage to create the new doc and I still have the thought in my mind, it’s like a slippery baton I’m running around a track with, and I finally get there, to the finish line, to that blank document, to pass that slippery baton thought to a piece of digital paper, and then I’m confronted, nay, ASSAULTED by this command to TYPE @ TO INSERT.
For the love of God, leave me alone with your gd new features! It feels like every project team at every tech company is just like, use me, use our service, use our feature, check out our new thing which works with this other thing and how cool it is and do you want to take a tour and sign up now or sign up later and remind me later, remind me tomorrow, remind me tonight, how about LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.
I set up a new phone the other day. When I opened Messages for the first time I got a pop up that said:
Allow “Messages” to share you have notifications silenced when using Focus?
I’m sorry. WHAT?
Allow “Messages”
to share
you have notifications
silenced
when using
Focus
Is that even English? I swear to you it’s not even English. It’s not even a real sentence. Who is the subject of this sentence? Me? Messages? Focus? What the fuck is Focus??
I’m just trying to send a text message on my brand new $1500 phone and I don’t even know what I’m being asked or ignoring or agreeing to. And this shit is everywhere. Even when I’m just trying to read an article. Can I just read your article? Please, just let me read it and leave! I don’t want to turn on notifications, I don’t want to allow location tracking and sign up for your newsletter after I just accepted cookies for the 19th time today, CAN YOU PLEASE JUST LET ME DO THE THING I CAME TO DO AND LEAVE ME ALONE WITH THE REST OF THIS SHIT?
Please. For the love of God. Stop with the tooltips and the top bars and the bottom bars and the pop overs and the pop unders. Stop making everything so complicated just so you can meet your quarterly onboarding user goals that everyone knows are unrealistic and don’t make sense anyway. Who is doing this? Is it the engineers? No I bet it’s the product managers. No I bet it’s the engineers AND the product managers. Or is it marketing? And maybe Legal? Is it Legal? Or is it the biz dev guys? I bet it’s the goddamn biz dev guys. It’s not user experience, I know that for sure.
Whoever it is, please, I’m begging you. I swear I was about to write something really really really great. But instead, I’m writing this. Ugh. Dammit.
I guess I’ll just
@googledocsteam
There. I typed @ to insert. Are you happy now? I’m not. I’m not even high anymore.
Sarah Cooper lives in New York and is pissed.
