Automation is always supposed to make our lives easier...and despite my personal dislike of social media and emails, I guess it does...do I find it useful that the washing machine sends me a notification when its finished? I'm sure I could live without this, but it is quite fun (when it works)!
And that is the key with automation - it is great...when it works!
Last week, when I wrote my blog on Friday morning, we had absolutely no idea what was happening with Daniel and University choices...
All Daniel's friends knew what they were doing by 8am on Thursday morning, even before they went to school to pick up their results, because UCAS delivered their immediate future to them in a four line message. Some had received confirmation of their University place despite not quite meeting the required grades...
But there was a glitch in the system, so UCAS wasn't updating Dan's record...so we didn't know what choices he could make. All these wonderful automated systems that are supposed to make life easier and more efficient, didn't seem to be fulfilling that role at all!
As you may imagine, mum (ie me) experienced a whole spectrum of emotions, whilst maintaining a calm and productive exterior to support the situation as best I could.
In order to find out what was happening (patience is not my strongest virtue), we replaced the automated system with good old fashioned phone calls...lots!
Kash & I had some delightful conversations with all sorts of lovely people, who were all being constrained by the same automated systems, because they were not allowed to access or update them...'everyone' was waiting for 'someone' to push a button 'somewhere' that would magically release 'something'...and then we would know!
The magical someone eventually pushed the right button and by Saturday, the system whirred into action and Daniel had the all important UCAS confirmation of his place at his first choice University...what utter relief all round!
I felt helpless and hopeless with 'not knowing' for over 48 hours. I really wanted to take some action, make things right...just do something!
I may, for the most part, have been maintaining a calm exterior and managing my state for Dan's sake, but I really was having an internal meltdown for a while there...so I guess, one way or another, all my NLP training, Priestess rituals, meditations and trusting the Divine did help, even if it didn't much feel like it at the time!