I have been mar­ve­ling at the num­ber of pe­op­le with com­pu­ter skil­ls du­ring this pan­de­mic. We have on­li­ne ser­vi­ces and live-stre­a­med pre­sen­ta­ti­ons as a rou­ti­ne. In our home zion, for ins­tan­ce, we had a cong­re­ga­ti­on eve­ning on­li­ne. Eve­ryt­hing was done re­al­ly pro­fes­si­o­nal­ly. I could not have ima­gi­ned this a coup­le of ye­ars ago.

I have been won­de­ring if I was born at a wrong time in view of this IT boom. The ge­ne­ra­ti­ons ol­der than me did not need to wor­ry about com­pu­ter skil­ls. The ge­ne­ra­ti­ons yo­un­ger than me seem to find in­for­ma­ti­on tech­no­lo­gy a pie­ce of cake. Ma­y­be I am all alo­ne with my pre­di­ca­ment. My wife is much more skil­l­ful. Well, yes, she is two ye­ars yo­un­ger. When our yo­un­gest child was five, he got frust­ra­ted with my ef­forts to help – and sol­ved the prob­lem him­self.

My work ca­reer star­ted on a po­si­ti­ve note. Eve­ryt­hing was writ­ten on pa­per by hand. My sec­re­ta­ry, who was ab­le to read my handw­ri­ting bet­ter than I was, ty­ped all the let­ters and me­mos that were nee­ded. But then things be­gan to hap­pen. At first there was a spe­ci­al group of pro­fes­si­o­nals who pro­du­ced punch cards to be pro­ces­sed by a big mac­hi­ne that was hid­den so­mew­he­re sec­ret. Then desk­top com­pu­ters be­gan to ap­pe­ar.

Ma­y­be I just have a wrong kind of at­ti­tu­de. When we got a brand new CAD sys­tem for ma­king maps, the whole staff gat­he­red to ad­mi­re it. Ex­cept me. The mac­hi­nes came in lar­ge ply­wood bo­xes. That’s what I was in­te­res­ted in. I won­de­red if they would let me take them, and they did. I used one of the bo­xes to make a com­pos­ter and the ot­her to make roof trest­les for a play hou­se. The lef­to­ver pie­ces were made in­to bla­des of hoc­key go­a­lie’s sticks.

At some stage I got a com­pu­ter on my own desk and even le­arnt to use it for simp­le pro­ce­du­res. Whe­ne­ver I had a prob­lem, I could call Sup­port. They used screens­ha­re. I just watc­hed the cur­sor flit ac­ross the screen, and, like ma­gic, the prob­lem was sol­ved.

For the last few ye­ars of my wor­king ca­reer, there was a le­a­sing ar­ran­ge­ment. We got new com­pu­ters eve­ry two or three ye­ars, and we had to set them up on our own. I cros­sed out five days in my ca­len­dar for “set up new com­pu­ter”. Luc­ki­ly, I on­ly nee­ded two and a half. Se­ven col­le­a­gu­es took turns to help. When I was due to get my next com­pu­ter, I was al­re­a­dy ap­p­ro­ac­hing re­ti­re­ment. My boss first al­lo­wed me to post­po­ne the chan­ge for three months at a time. Fi­nal­ly, I nee­ded per­mis­si­on from the IT ma­na­ger. He did give me some ext­ra time, but sent a mes­sa­ge to say: ”You know, Pau­li, yo­ur old com­pu­ter may crash any day now.” But I hap­pi­ly re­ti­red wit­hout ha­ving to go through the pro­cess of set­ting up anot­her new com­pu­ter.

Du­ring the co­vid pan­de­mic, we have had all our mee­tings on­li­ne. I do not wor­ry about what to say in the mee­tings, but I do wor­ry about how to get in­to them! I was re­jec­ted many ti­mes when I was trying to join one mee­ting as a “vi­si­tor”. I was la­ter gi­ven inst­ruc­ti­ons for which but­tons to press first and which ones then, and I was ab­le to join wit­hout prob­lems.

But not all of my ex­pe­rien­ces of com­pu­ters have been bad. There is at le­ast one high­light in my IT ca­reer. When the So­viet Uni­on col­lap­sed, we were ab­le to launch a co-ope­ra­ti­ve pro­ject with Rus­sia. A na­ti­o­nal park was set up at Paa­na­jär­vi right ac­ross the bor­der from Fin­land. We vi­si­ted there, and the Rus­si­an staff vi­si­ted in Fin­land. When these vi­si­tors saw our com­pu­ters, they wan­ted to know if we could bring one for them, too. We were do­na­ted se­cond-hand com­pu­ters by a col­la­bo­ra­tor, and my col­le­a­gue and I brought them ac­ross the bor­der to Pää­jär­vi. When the bo­xes were ope­ned, we felt our­sel­ves San­tas in je­ans and jac­kets. We even got the mac­hi­nes con­nec­ted to mains po­wer.

But then we had a prob­lem. The mac­hi­nes da­ted back to the time be­fo­re com­pu­ters were ope­ra­ted with a mou­se. They re­qui­red com­mands like dir*.*, etc., to be usab­le for anyt­hing. We could not re­mem­ber any such com­mands. There was not­hing we could do ex­cept pack up the mac­hi­nes in the bo­xes again. We pro­mi­sed to be back one month la­ter. We re­tur­ned with a long list of com­mands writ­ten in a no­te­book. All the lo­cal staff were pre­sent.

We wit­nes­sed the fes­ti­ve mo­ment when the prin­ter whir­red in­to life. We had pro­du­ced the first print. The com­pu­ter era had be­gun in Paa­na­jär­vi Na­ti­o­nal Park – or pos­sib­ly in the whole re­pub­lic of Rus­si­an Ka­re­lia.

Text: Pau­li Määt­tä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen