Technology - Who'd Have It ...?

So what is going on with Gmail?  Thought I'd ask this question since it keeps telling me on my smartphone that "Gmail has stopped working".  No explanation.  No reason.  Just "stopped working". Why?  Is it off sick?  Has it gone on strike?  Is it in a supervision with its manager or on holiday somewhere?  At least when someone is out of the office when one emails them, one normally gets an out-of-office message saying when the recipient is likely to be available again.  When Gmail stops, there is no such reassurance...

I am having severe doubts about the whole technologia issue lately.  Does the fact so many people are using a search engine or online/email service at the same time send the computer brain behind it into a downward spiral like a clockwork toy winding down?  Or is it all down to human error?  It is surprising how often I hear that "the computer has crashed" or "the tills have gone down".  Surely the whole point of technology is to make things (and people) more efficient?  Surely the idea is that it speeds communication up, not slows it down!

I quite often hanker for the old days when human beings were in control.  They may think they are in control in 2017, but they're definitely not.  Before I left the Day Job in the office, I can remember an afternoon when we were all sent home because the system failed.  That was fine at the time.  But then we all had to work twice as hard the next day to catch up with everything so it didn't really help at all. If a business has to come to a complete halt because the system has gone down, how is that more efficient?  At least in the not too distant past, if one person failed to show up for work because they were off sick and there were deadlines to meet, the rest of the team just got on with it.  If an office had to close for any reason out of the usual, the team would all rally round and help one another to get back on top, often generating a sense of comraderie.  All that seems to have gone now.  It is every man, woman or machine for themself and to hell with the rest.

I don't know.  Maybe I really was born in the wrong age?  If your quill stopped writing in Dickens' time, you just dipped it back in the ink.  Bliss!