Roundup: “Planned Obsolescence”

Tuesday July 30, 2024
From the less messy desk of Amanda Eichstaedt…

Planned Obsolescence

I don’t think I need to explain to anyone why planned obsolescence is annoying and likely not good for the environment or our moods. I got an email from ATT the other day (my cell phone company) asking me to take a quiz to see if my phone’s battery is up to snuff. Actually, my phone of over 4 years is holding up pretty well in the battery department. 

The very first question that the little quiz asked me was if my phone was cracked. I answered yes, and they told me that they could not “test my battery” until the cracks were repaired and that I should head immediately to an ATT store to get that taken care of. 

I went back and said that my phone was not cracked (yes, a blatant lie) and then they asked me a bunch of questions about my battery, which indicated that my battery was AOK. I’ll continue to use my cracked phone for the time being.

Mixin’ up some dough!  photo: AE

On the flip side I happen to be in possession of a KitchenAid mixer that was originally in use in the Jerry’s Farmhouse (now Due West) kitchen ages ago. I have had the mixer for over eighteen years and rarely used it. I even loaned it out a few times.

Well, I recently jumped on the sourdough bandwagon (late to the party, as usual) and asked for my mixer back. My friend continues to whip out loaves of bread in their own new mixer, which is reported to not be quite as robust as the old mixer, but still works well.

After he learned how to make pasta recently on a trip, Ken and I discussed a pasta maker. I had purchased one a while back that clamps to, well nothing actually, since our counters are not clamp-to-friendly (coming to a thrift store near you soon). I was researching KitchenAid accessories recently and learned that KitchenAid attachments will fit ANY mixer from even as far back as mine! So, I ordered some on sale and they work great!

I so appreciate that KitchenAid has this philosophy. I find that with kitchen implements this generally holds true. 

A few weeks ago in the Round Up I was whining about an issue that was vexing me. The issue continues to vex. It is a form of planned obsolescence. It involves one company that bought another company and many years later is consolidating their holdings, KWMR being a customer of the company that is being phased out. That is how the game is played.

The saga involves software that needs to talk to one another, and currently are not on speaking terms. But the horizon is not gloomy, it is bright with possibility! The new tools offered in the product that we can migrate to are pretty fantastic, and even at a higher price, should save us time, and we all know that time = money. 

This is not exactly how I planned on my workflow going this summer, but it needs to be done. And hopefully it makes everyone’s life easier in the long run.

So if you see me scowling, it’s not you! I might just be tired of combing through spreadsheets of database entries looking for errors. 

When this all went down I was pretty annoyed with folks who were giving me the “bad news.” They are all perfectly cordial, professional people. I was told to not hate the player, hate the game. I looked up this quote and it is attributed to Joseph Stalin. Not the best player himself, but definitely a game changer.

I also read my horoscope regularly in the Marin IJ. Usually with a grain of salt, but sometimes they can be sort of helpful. 

The game can be ugly, difficult, and downright worthy of despair. And there are some bad players out there, but more often than not they are just navigating the game, and most of the players are ok. I gotta keep reminding myself of this. Gonna try to keep that positivity up (said with a forced smile that actually is making me feel a bit better).

Amanda Eichstaedt
Station Manager and Executive Director