On lawnmowers and legacy systems

It’s got a little bit warmer over the last few days and our lawn has responded by springing into life. To celebrate, I decided to buy a new lawnmower, as the current incumbent of the garden shed is well past its sell-by date. It’s electric (I’ve got no time for petrol-power in the garden – too stressful) and you constantly have to flick the flex out of the way – and then stride the length of the garden to move it manually. There’s a loose connection somewhere, so you have to keep wiggling the cable where it joins the handle. The dog hates it and tries to bite it the moment I start mowing. It’s heavy. It’s impossible to manoeuvre (I think the hover feature packed up years ago). The blade is blunt, but that’s probably because I neglect to lift it over paving slabs when mowing.

So, I went shopping online and ended up with a cordless, electric, 34-inch lawnmower on wheels courtesy of some people called Worx. I’ve never heard of them, but BBC Gardeners World said it was a “Best Buy”, and who’s going to argue with Auntie?

Oh. My. God.

Why on earth did I put up with that stupid lump of orange plastic for so long? Why did I tolerate its shortcomings? Why did I not dump it on the pavement outside our house long ago with a sign sellotaped to its handle saying FREE – HELP YOURSELF?

I know why.

Because it did the job. It cut the grass – and that was what it was supposed to do. The fact that it made the job a monumental pain in the arse is by the by. Over the years, I’d got used to it and I carried on regardless of the fact that there were better and lighter alternatives out there. I expect we also had better things to spend our money on than a machine that would only get used for an hour 15 times a year.

You’ll have correctly surmised that I’m not the kind of person who is first in the queue for the new iPhone or someone who took all his vinyl down the tip the moment CDs appeared. I adopt new technology slowly. On a personal basis, that’s not a problem, apart from the family asking from time to time why we still have a VHS player. But if you’re a business, being slow to adopt new technology can be disastrous. It’s true that not every innovation is perfect straight away and the early adopters sometimes get their fingers burnt, but there comes a point when you have to stop tolerating the kit you’ve got (much though you may love it) and replace it with something that won’t hold you back, won’t leave you swearing and doesn’t turn mild-mannered Westies into savage mower-biters.