I had lunch recently with two friends who are old poops like me, and our conversation turned to how complicated life has become.  We talked especially about experiences that we have had with attempting to solve problems that, one would think, could be resolved rather simply but instead immersed us in a bureaucratic maze of red tape.

Since we're all at the age at which we have medical issues, many of our experiences concerned healthcare – running the gamut of getting referrals approved, trying to get straight answers from insurance companies, wrestling with coverage issues, and the like.  Okay, so we're retired and we have more time than younger, working folks do, but we still have better things to do than spend hours navigating the obstacles that are erected by the incompetent cretins who seem to run these companies.  A simple claim for a routine medical procedure should not generate enough paper to fill a filing cabinet.

Although we focused on medical issues, what we observed there can, I think, be applied to any area of life that pits the individual against the organization or company.  Try to resolve an error on the phone bill, and one is in for hours, days, even weeks of hassles with the phone company, from dealing with a phone menu that makes an equation in advanced algebra look simple by comparison to trying to explain the problem to a representative (when we get through to one) who seems to be still learning the English language.  (And I'm not referring just to genuine non-native speakers but to all of the people who act as if they cannot think beyond whatever script they have.)

I reached several conclusions as the result of this chat, many of them thoughts that I've had for a long time.  One is that large organizations will go to any lengths to erect barriers between a person with a complaint or problem and the person with the ability to deal with that complaint or problem (if indeed they have anyone on the staff who can).  A phone call is met with a complex, automated menu that leads, after many detours, to a low-level clerk who is trained only to read from a prepared script and might as well be a robot.  (Indeed, robots may be the next step.)  The utter stupidity of such a system should be apparent to anyone, but it persists and gets worse.  The system may enable the company to avoid dealing with a complaint or giving the customer credit, but it costs money to install and maintain these systems, and even dumb representatives get salaries.  And the amount of ill-will that is created can be very costly.  The only reason some companies haven't been bankrupted as a result of customers' hostility is that their competitors are just as bad or that they have a monopoly and the customer has no choice but to deal with them.

Complexity is the ally of any bureaucracy and the nemesis of the individual.  Consider the income tax.  Here we have a form (or an array of forms) that virtually every citizen is required to file annually.  A tax return should be simple enough that all but a few individuals with complex finances should be able to fill it out easily.  Yet the forms are such that people with graduate degrees have trouble with them.  Solving Rubik's Cube is easier.  Millions of Americans pay accountants and tax consultants every year to navigate through "if line B is greater than line C but more than line E and does not amount to more than line J but less than line M, take the sum of line K and line Y, and substract 10% of line A and enter it on line N unless . . . ."  The truth is that most of us don't mind paying taxes as much as we mind filling out the damned tax returns.

Technology is supposed to make our lives better, and it has done that in many ways, but it has also made life more complicated.  For example, consider the remote control.  Before this gadget existed, one controlled the TV set by turning one or two knobs; the trade-off for the privilege of sitting on one's fanny and adjusting the TV from the sofa is a device that has enough buttons to control a nuclear submarine – and no two devices are exactly the same.  Even though I took the trouble to program one of the remotes for my home entertainment center so that it can control more than one component (a process that can take a couple of hours), I still have no fewer than five remotes for the system and need to use three of them just to set up to watch a movie on DVD.

Learning how to use today's technological marvels can be a Sisyphean task, involving hours of poring over a manual that is written in a language that its authors may think is English but that, to the untutored user, looks more like Sanskrit.  Does having technical skill preclude the ability to communicate in plain English?  It cerrtainly seems that way.

Nowadays, considerable  homework must precede the acquisition of just about any device or appliance.  Recently, I bought a digital camera, and, though I am quite pleased with what it can do, I spent literally weeks doing research before making my purchase decision.  I found out, among other things, that there are at least a dozen different kinds of cards for storing the pictures in the camera, that these storage devices are not compatible, and that my present computer would accept only certain ones.  Not only is the camera industry awash with a multitude of incompatible formats; the same manufacturer may have changed last year's format so that it is incompatible with this year's.  Once I got the camera, I discovered that I would need to master a 98-page manual to use all of its features.  Furthermore, to take advantage of the main feature that causes people to switch to digital photography – the ability to store and print out one's own photos at home – one must master the computer software that comes with the camera.

We have a friend who bought a digital camera last Christmas and still hasn't figured out how to print her photos.  Admittedly, this friend is a ditz, but that's beside the point.  I can't help wondering how many people, encouraged by advertising hype, buy high-tech devices, get them home, and then never or hardly ever use them because they're too complicated for them to understand.  Part of the problem is that well-meaning engineers often pack the product with features that the typical user doesn't need or want, requiring so many dials or buttons that even basic operation is difficult.  Just try to find a simple point-and-shoot camera, for instance – something that doesn't also include a host of redundant (to the casual photographer) features.  It doesn't exist – or very soon it won't.

The telephone is another example.  Though someday I may surrender and join the ranks of the public jabberers who are addicted to cell-phone-itis, I don't own one.  When I do, I shall want one that is limited to making and receiving phone calls, nothing more.  I shall probably be told – when the salesperson stops laughing – that I should try an antique store.  From what I've been reading about phones today, it's no good for a phone to be just a phone; it must be a music-playing, video-displaying, text-messaging tool with Internet access – and maybe a camera as well.

Make no mistake about it – I love my technological toys.  I am awed by what they can do.  However, I want them to be, as the current jargon puts it, "user-friendly."  The people who design and produce technology seem to pay too much attention to cramming in extra, and often redundant, features than upon keeping them simple and easy to use.

I would be remiss if I did not cite the computer as a prime illustration of complexity.  Granted, to have the capability to perform a multitude of functions, computers (and their accompanying software) need to be complex.  If we are to take advantage of these capabilities, however, they must be easy to use.  The simplest computer today, a basic model sold right off the shelf, can perform marvels that were only dreamed of a few years ago.  Yet, ironically, most computer owners don't know how to tell the computer to perform half of these tasks.  Try, for example, to get the answer to a simple "How do I . . .?" question.  The built-in "Help" either doesn't answer the question or is written in mind-boggling gobbledygook.  And, if one is foolish enough to seek an answer from something such as the Microsoft website, one can expect to spend hours dealing with "explanations" that only a sophisticated programmer can understand.  Such exploratory journeys do not lead to the light but into the depths of user hell.  Even those of us who have, slowly and painfully, tried to comprehend every innovation as it is introduced become hopelessly frustrated.

So we put down a huge wad of money for something that is supposed to make our lives easier and better, and we wind up cursing.  We want to perform a simple task, and we find ourselves having to multitask.  We want to do something by pushing a button, and we end up having to push five or six of them – in a certain sequence.

I realize that I belong to a generation for whom a set of wooden blocks could provide hours of entertainment and perhaps even education.  Kids and adults today have more sophisticated toys.  Yet sometimes I wonder if we're better off.  Are we any smarter or happier?  Or are we just more stressed and frustrated?

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to try a new toy that I just bought.  First, though, I must figure out how to open the box.