So much of the problem is simply a failure to even try to fix the problem. Please just go “Oh, I don’t know computers” and if one message pops up that they didn’t get last time, they freeze. Just read the fracking message! A lot of times the message that pops up is not only important, but written in plain language that you should be able to understand. At least, when you call, and the tech asks you “What did the message say?”, you should be able to give the gist of it. You don’t go to the damn mechanic and say “Uh, my car has a problem, but I can’t actually describe to you what it is or how I know there’s a problem because I’m just not at all good with cars.”
At my last job, I worked with a tech who was like this. If something came up that she hadn’t seen, she just wouldn’t even try to think about it and work through it. Plus, she constantly forgot how to do technical tasks; I had to retrain her several times on things that she trained me to do to begin with! After going through it with her several times, I finally had to do a written guide (with screenshots) as to how to use the Print Screen key and paste an image in Paint. I had to teach her several times how to use basic browser settings, and she insisted that having to ask a user to enable cookies in their browser was unreasonably technical for her job. Not for the user – for HER. She had a dozen years of help desk experience! WTF?!
Okay, I just learned something from this thread–I knew there had to be a way to turn a PrintScreen saved to my clipboard into a jpeg, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it. Thanks!
That’s because they’re afraid of screwing something up, and why four-year-olds are often more savvy than a lot of 50-year-olds. Put a four-year-old in front of a computer and it’s click-click-click-click-click. They don’t know enough to be afraid.
Back when I taught “Beginning Computers” around 1994, there were still a lot of people who had never turned a computer on. The first thing I would tell them was that there was nothing they could do that we couldn’t fix, short of taking a hammer to the computer. Also, they needed to remember that if something didn’t make sense, a lot of times it wasn’t them; some things *are *badly designed.
One good reason for people to remain as ignorant as possible about computers and software is that, in the workplace, you end up being asked to help out with silly problems a lot. It’s common if you came up with a particular spreadsheet or database for you to have to maintain it on top of your regular duties, even after you’ve changed jobs. That’s an excellent reason to make your tools as simple as possible. It’s an even better one to avoid making tools.
It’s bitten me on the ass a few times, especially regarding this one manager. She no longer works for the same company as me, so I should be able to tell a story. I put together a spreadsheet that basically compared demand hours to resource and showed the balance, and you could move the days along and your comments would move to a new sheet or whatever. Quite a few people ended up using it because nobody else was dumb enough to do something so stupid.
This manager kept asking for modifications and for the same problem to be fixed. When I tried to explain what caused the problem she didn’t pay attention. Eventually, I said, well, I’m busy right now, here’s the password-- hasn’t changed since the last time I tried to teach you how to fix the problem, why don’t you unprotect the sheet and change the same cell I changed the last three times.
My next review, my manager says that I had a mark against me for not being a team player. That sort of thing kind of kills my intellectual curiosity, not to mention any motivation for being a team player.
If somebody comes to you for help with their computer and you say no, you’re a jerk. If you say yes, they come back and ask you why their number pad doesn’t work or why suddenly their computer ONLY TYPES CAPITAL LETTERS. There’s the chance that if you fix something for them they’ll blame you if something else goes wrong. I used to have to install this map software for coworkers and sometimes they’d get this suspicious look, like maybe I was tampering with their secret goof off files and planting the dreaded Mexican jumping virus in their documents.
Now that I think about it, maybe that explains why some of my coworkers loudly complain about how much they hate computers and spreadsheets-- even though the job obviously requires sitting at a computer all day, dicking with spreadsheets. They’re secretly highly skilled experts and didn’t want anybody bothering them and giving the boss an excuse for stiffing them on their bonus. It’s probably also why IT people tend to be jerks.
I hate helping people with computers. When I was between 9-15 (early to mid-90’s, I’m 27 now) family and family friends from all over the country would call and ask me for help or want me to come fix their computers. By “fix” it was usually install a program and teach them how to use it. I would ask where the owner’s manual was and they would hand it to me as if they couldn’t read. I would try to teach them and they would pretty much tell me they didn’t need to follow the simple instructions because they had me. Screw that. I now play dumb with everyone when it comes to computers. Ignore that fact that I have every electronic thing in my house networked and can switch my tv/movies/games/computers between a monitor, tv, or projector that are all in the same room (think movie nerd dungeon stereotype). But I don’t know anything about computers.
I do think it’s funny that people think cars are impossible to work on now though. Engines, transmissions, and rearends work the same as they always have. An engine code reader can be bought for less than $100. Most things are easily repaired with a basic tool kit.
KneadtoKnow has a great class - I forgot how he does it - where the first thing he teaches the class is that the computer is your bitch. That generally, what you tell it to do, it will do. That reduces a lot of the fear.
But yes, a shit ton of it is people just not reading what’s on the fucking screen. I hate people who just click past error messages. It makes me want to smack them. I feel my palms itch just thinking about it.
I did meet someone who could not master “File…Save As” after about 11 teaching sessions, writing down notes on it repeatedly. And I could tell, each time as I was teaching her, that her mind was just shutting down and telling her “this isn’t important for you to learn, so don’t listen.” The thing I was teaching her? EXPENSE REPORTS! Which she has to file if she wants her money back.
It is important to learn computers.
As for Dave, in your case I would have gone to my own manager first and asked for help prioritizing my caseload. If helping her was taking away from my work and I could demonstrate that, I would leave it up to her to deal with the other manager. That’s provided you have a decent manager.
There’s no excuse for not reading, but a lot of error messages are things like “failed sector at 0009a19214x1092748.” That doesn’t mean shit to most people, even computer literate ones.
Sure. The only people I occasionally help with their computing setup is my parents. I sort of keep their IT stuff running for their company but by now they know enough to figure out most things and aren’t afraid of messing up. I make sure the updates get installed, fix the occasional problem and help pick out new hardware. Takes maybe 3 afternoons a year, which is fine because I can do that when I’m visiting anyway.
Everybody else gets told “Sorry, but I don’t use Windows” (which is true). That shuts up 99% of them.
As other people have mentioned, NEVER become known as the “computer person.” Once you work on someone’s computer, no matter whether it’s installing the printer driver, changing the home page, creating a spreadsheet, anything, you will then become the support person for that computer until the day you die. “Hey, my modem was working great until you messed with the Explorer toolbar!”
I wouldn’t count on it. There was a social stigma that attached to doing anything “clerical” back them. A lot of people just submitted their coding sheets to the key punch department and magically got their card decks back.
One thing that still boggles my mind, is how little even some professional computer programmers know about how computers work or for that matter even know about programming. I guess somebody has to be at the left end of a normal distribution curve.
I mean error messages like “this was saved in the old version of excel. some options may not be available.” Or “file not saved; disk is full” (when saving onto a thumb drive). Stuff that’s perfectly understandable.
Incidentally, if any computer-challenged (see what I did there?) people happen to be reading this thread, might I just make a suggestion to you? If you do have a helpful friend or family member that is willing to do some basic tech support for you from time to time, I would highly recommend not accusing them of “screwing things up” every time anything goes wrong with your computer. This is why I do not help my mother-in-law with her computer anymore. I used to, but I heard, “This all worked fine until you did something to it” a few too many times, and now she can just take her chances with the Geek Squad or whoever.
OMG so true. I hate that. I tried to help! YOU screwed it up! I know you did, because you click “yes” to anything that comes on your screen…ya bastard.
Um. Not MsWhatsit, she’s not a bastard. As far as I know.
I thought I was joking and venting about a common catch 22 situation. I didn’t know I was soliciting career advice. I’m sure whatever it was you told me to do is quite correct and would’ve been very helpful several years ago when the incident occurred, provided the situation was exactly as you assumed it to be from my deliberately vague description. Do you also provide unpaid technical support for Windows products? If you give me your phone number I can start handing it at work. Thanks in advance, Anaamika!
It’s even more fun when you’re dealing with a translated version. Normal messages which make sense in English become completely unreadable when, for example, “the Windows station” becomes “the train stop for the window”. There’s lots of error messages that you need to backtranslate to English before you can make heads or tails of them, because the translations blow goats through an extremely narrow straw.
I seem to have acquired this reputation in my office, not so much for general PC problems but for figuring out how to do stuff in InDesign (we switched over to CS4 from a rather arcane layout program a year or two ago).
Nine times out of ten, I figure this stuff out in a minute or less by either (a) having a quick look through the menus that look like they might have the right option, or (b) Googling “indesign” plus a couple of suitable keywords. Apparently this makes me an InDesign whizz, even though I had never used it before and some of my colleagues had used it in previous jobs. Quite why they feel the need to ask me rather than Google it for themselves I have no idea, but it got me extra credit in my perfromance appraisal for having “excellent technical skills” so I won’t complain…
Hey! No need to be snarky! I was just pointing out what I would have done. Didn’t realize that wasn’t allowed around here. Sheesh, I was really just making conversation and responses like this make me not want to talk at all.
