And some of the people you’re talking about may not even have seen a PC until they were in their 20s, 30s or even 40s.
How the fuck is he supposed to know what these things are if nobody ever explains it to him? Sounds like his real problem is that the person assigned to help him learn how to use the computer has an attitude problem.
I would like to add my 2 cents here.
I believe that what the OP is complaining about is that the guy in his office has had the machine for over a year, and through all of his helping has never bothered to actually absorb the advice given or FUCKING BUY A PEN AND WRITE IT DOWN! (major pet peeve of mine)
::ahem:: sorry 'bout that…
Anyway, age aside (I have seen this phenomenon in all ages) I have an anecdote about how I dealt with a similar situation.
When I was in retail pharmacy work, I had a co-worker who was CLUELESS about computers. That’s OK in my book- I was clueless about 10 years ago, and I remember what it was like. So I’m the pharmacy “computer geek”, and each and every time this woman had a question, she would call me over (away from my work) to ask. She needed help doing absolutely everything- entering patients, insurance, etc.
That was OK the first time. And the second. After about the 100th time of nicely explaining the SAME EXACT ANSWER to her (she needed to be walked through/hand held through absolutely everything) I got an idea. She was dangerously close to losing her job because she wasn’t picking up on the computer stuff- I didn’t want that to happen because I really liked her.
The problem was NOT that she was stupid (I don’t think), she was deep down afraid to do anything without me standing there telling her what to do. I got a bound pack of index cards and wrote down STEP BY STEP exactly how to do the procedures she was required to do. It took forever, but was well worth it.
I gave it to her and said “I’m not always available to help you when you need it- from now on, I want you to refer to this book when you get stuck. This is your own personal “Suzette” (that’s me) and whenever you think to yourself “I wish I could ask Suzette how to do this”, just realize that all you have to do is open up the book, flip to the page you need and there I am- telling you exactly how to do it. Trust me, I thought of everything for you”
She was nervous at first, but soon discovered that I had indeed written down everything I had told her over and over again. After about 3 months of constant use of the book, she no longer needed it and passed it on to another person who needed it. Years later she told me that she never forgot how much I helped her, and thanked me for not losing my patience. It made a big difference in how she viewed computers- she felt smart enough and confident enough to tackle it on her own.
Sometimes you need to work out a solution after you’ve banged your head against a wall long enough 
Love is like popsicles…you get too much you get too high.
Not enough and you’re gonna die…
Click here for some GOOD news for a change Zettecity
OK, one more post. Since I was a computer instructor, and am now a real-life Technical Support person, I have some advice for those who really are struggling with this issue:
First, for the helpers:
1- If you don’t want to help, don’t. Tell them you don’t know, tell them anything. If they know you’re upset, they get all nervous and won’t remember what you tell them anyway.
2- E-mail your instructions. That way, when they ask again you can refer them to that document or re-send it yourself.
3- Remember what it was like when you didn't know anything. Not everyone knows what a scroll bar, zip file, jpg or any number of other terms mean.
4- Ask what they want to know. When a problem arises, ask what they want to know. Do they just want to get the damned file unzipped? Or do they want to understand zipping and unzipping. Do they want to know how a database works? Or do they want to know how to get out a report? By asking, you eliminate complaints about "She didn't explain enough" or "She told me too much info"
Helpees
1- LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN
2- Write it down, Write it down, write it down.
3- Ask questions if you don’t understand what you’re being told.
4- Buy a book- get one or two of the “Dummies” books and put forth some effort to learn. No one is responsible for spoon feeding you.
5- Make some effort to get the answer first. Let the tech person know that. “I looked in help and in my book, but I still dont’ understand ______. Can you help me?”
Love is like popsicles…you get too much you get too high.
Not enough and you’re gonna die…
Click here for some GOOD news for a change Zettecity
I worship the tech goddess and bring offerings of Ram, hard drive, and a UPS system to back me up when i exhaust my energy. Do these appease you enough to make you say “yes” if I ask you out?
Oh and since this is the pit, “I think your puppets and trolls are lame!”
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. "
Jonathan Swift
Bravo Zette!
You brought up some really good points.
When I first got my PC, I got lots and lots of books. Did I mention that I got some BOOKS?!? Well, yeah, I got LOTS of them. I love books.
Those books helped a lot. I know they helped me learn many of the basics without tearing my hair out. Of course, I remember being clueless, of having the silliest fears and questions. The books (the “Dummies” books are a good start) really helped. And…when I did have a question that the book didn’t answer, at least I was able to say “Well, I couldn’t find it in my books.” Then at least the person (usually long-distance) I was whining to knew I had put a little effort into getting the answer myself first.
Another thing I should mention…I don’t learn stuff on the computer simply for the love of learning it. I’ve learned stuff because I wanted to DO something with my knowledge. I figured out how to save text to a file on my hard drive, for instance, because I wanted to be able to refer to it when I was offline.
Solitaire and Minesweeper are excellent ways of getting accustomed to using a mouse.
Lynn the Packrat
Like Zette, I make my living doing tech support. I’m a damn good tech. I say this because I have a much lower incidence of hostile calls than my coworkers, and I get more happy customer letters than anyone else in my department.
I can usually gauge a person’s technical level within one or two sentences. I can tell if the “network administrator” who’s called in to me is actually an MCSE or some jerk who’s trying to pass himself off as tech without having any knowledge.
My suggestions?
don’t take your anger out on the tech. Computers are infuriating and frustrating. Techs are human beings, and if you get nasty with them, you sink your chances of getting help from them.
don’t say “it’s broken”, say “when I click here to do this, it does this, this, and this” or “I want to do this, and I’ve gotten this far, where do I go next”.
whatever the tech tells you to do, go along with it. It may not make sense to you, but we’ve seen that problem hundreds of times and troubleshoot in order of most likely cause to least likely. Even if you know that’s not it, bear with us, because we have to document that we took all the steps necessary to get to the solution.
It doesn’t matter to me one bit how much computer stuff you know. My mom knows precious little, but when she calls me for help, she has her manuals out, she has pen and paper ready, she describes what she sees accurately, and she follows my instructions. My dad, on the other hand . . . I make him leave the room and put my mom on the phone.
Zette is right on the money. Several years ago I did PC training specializing in computerphobes. There are three kinds of problem newbies IMO:
scaredy cats. They just know that pressing the wrong key or clicking in the wrong place will make the software evaporate and explode the monitor. They’ll do ok once they gain some confidence. Some of these folks have the added problem of having absolutely no insight into how any of it works. The computer impaired are closely related to the mechanically impaired - the ones who have trouble operating any device more complex than a light switch. DON’T ask them to make toast or tighten a loose screw.
shirkers. These are the folks who know how to get you to do their work for them. Wise up and don’t do it.
egotists (another form of scaredy cat) These are the ones who can’t admit that there is something that they either don’t already know or that isn’t intuitively obvious to them. Management types tend to this category. If private lessons don’t help, refer to comments for type 2.
First of all, I’m not “assigned to help him.”
Nobody is. A lot of the stuff I’m talking about is SO OBVIOUS that it’s silly! You don’t NEED someone standing over your shoulder and saying “this is a scroll bar and here’s what it does.” Take a few hours and fool around with it until you get it right.
“I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There’s a knob called ‘brightness,’ but it doesn’t work.”
–Gallagher
I think the problem here is bad attitude. The worst case of this is whichever manager told Tom to just go ahead and use a computer, since it should take him no time at all to learn to use the system and no time at all for puffington to teach him. The second worst case of this is Tom, who resents having to learn something new about his job. He’s done things the same way for years, and he doesn’t like having to take time away from his job to learn something new. He especially doesn’t like having to learn it from someone who’s 20 years younger than him, who Tom thinks still should be in kindergarten. The third worst case of attitude is from puffington, who resents having to take time away from his job to teach someone to use a computer, something that puffington considers intuitively obvious. He especially resents having to teach someone 20 years older, who puffington thinks should be retired or dead by this point.
The manager should have said at the beginning that learning to use a computer is part of Tom’s job. It’s not time away from his job but part of his job. The manager should have figured out how much time Tom would take to learn to use the computer. He should have told puffington that it’s his job to teach Tom to use the computer. It’s not time away from his job but part of his job.
Learning to use a computer isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. (Incidentally, I have friends who are rocket scientists and brain surgeons, and they say that rocket science and brain surgery isn’t rocket science or brain surgery.) Anybody can learn to do anything at any time. That doesn’t mean that they will be great at the task, but they can learn to do it. Sometimes the time required to learn to do something is not worth the time it would take to learn it, but it is possible for that person to learn it.
Sorry, puffington, it seems I misunderstood the OP. If nobody has been assigned to help him, and he has not been sent on any structured training, then that it probably the root of the problem.
It is not necessarily so obvious to somebody who has never used a computer before what a scrollbar is.
You grew up using a computer from a young age. I know you think that senior high school was late to start using one, and it probably is by the standards of your age- and social-groups. If this guy is now in his 40s, he would have been in his late 20s or early 30s before personal computers became commonplace.
Those of us who are now in our 20s have had 10+ years of “casual” exposure to computers at school and college and in the home in which to become conversant with them before having to use them in the slightly more pressurised work environment.
I think you are making a mistake by assuming that it is inherently “obvious” what a scroll bar or a search engine is. If nobody has told him, how is he supposed to know?
I’m with the OP on this. It would be different if you were teaching someone new to computers in a class or something but this is obviously a requirement of the job and they shouldn’t have even been hired if they didn’t even know what a scroll bar was; they either lied in their interview or the question never came up. (Not to mention that’s just so damn common-sense OBVIOUS…I mean, it’s the BAR you SCROLL the page with, couldn’t you at least guess? And the first time I saw a .zip file I think it says right on it that you need an unzipper and tells you where to get one.) This sort of frustration carries over into non-computer related fields as well. For example: In my job (Ortho assistant) we have two wire cutters, one referred to as a “cutter” and one referred to as a “right-angle cutter.” Can you guess which one was bent at a right angle? MY COWORKER COULDN’T! You probably all have someone at your job like that and it may or may not have something to do with computers, it’s about them not wanting to think for themselves.
However, the point about new users being afraid to experiment is a good one. In a computer class I took in college the first thing the instructor said was: “First of all, you cannot “break” the computer by pressing a key, so don’t be afraid of it.” Very helpful.
One week only! Special Valentine’s Candy Heart Sig Line!
"OU KID"
I don’t think it has anything to do with age. It’s possible that he just doesn’t quite grasp the stuff. We’re not born knowing this crap.
I’m 32. I learned to use a computer…ten years ago. It was a terminal, not a PC. Mainframe & everything. Pre-Windows. All I had to do was input information. Not a whole lot of technical knowledge required. Then I had a job where I didn’t use a computer. Then I got another job where I was back on a computer, but again, no Windows.
I didn’t learn to use Windows until 2 years ago. It’s not difficult, but it can be very intimidating, if you’ve never looked at it. There’s just so much stuff. The icons are cute, but if you weren’t born holding a mouse, they can be as confusing as an Escher painting.
I still don’t know diddly, to be honest. I don’t have a homepage. I can put a smiley face in this post, but I can’t make the text change color.
Some things come easily to some people, other things do not, especially if they’ve never been required to know the stuff. Computer class was optional in my high school. I took it, because my dad said to (my dad is a retired computer technician). I barely passed.
I can surf the Net. I can send email, with attatchments. I don’t know much about zipping & unzipping, though. I can use my scanner a little bit. It took me a while to remember what the difference was between a scrollbar, a taskbar, and a toolbar, but I got 'em right eventually.
I guess my point is maybe he’s scared, but maybe he just doesn’t have the gift with computers that some people seem to have.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.
Tom wrote
But that’s not really the problem. My sister is probably the same age as the clueless co-worker (mid-40s), and she learned how to get around her computer (even though she still needs to learn a lot) just fine after a few brief lessons from me.
The difference between her and this co-worker are (I suspect):
1: She wanted to learn. She was cooped up at home, it was this new “toy” to learn. She wanted to get on the internet, use email, etc.
2: She had no one “forcing” her to learn. It was her decision.
3: She wrote things down that she needed to remember to do a task on a computer. She knew my patience would wear thin telling her how to do the same thing over and over again.
4: She is open-minded and enjoys learning new things. In fact, she loves to learn new things.
I don’t know this guy, so maybe he is as open-minded as the next person. But I think the qualities I have listed are what make a person a good candidate to learn how to use a computer without a lot of hand-holding, no matter what their age.
Sure, not everyone is going to be an expert. My sister will probably not be coding HTML on her own home page (unless she gets a bee in her bonnet to do so!) But she functions fine for the basic stuff.
Well, it didn’t become a requirement of his job until recently. He has been working for the company for something like 20 years, far longer than his manager.
Oh, in that case: Quit your bitching! (Just kidding) Nah, I can still see why you’re miffed. It sucks to have to do your job and part of someone else’s too.
One week only! Special Valentine’s Candy Heart Sig Line!
"OU KID"
I think the frustration in the OP comes from the fact that it isn’t his job to be help desk boy. What those of us who understand computers (at least enough to get by even) find is that some people just don’t get it. And if they know you get it, then that’s who they ask. So essentially, you’re doing your job, plus an extra job of IT help desk. Yes, you can say “no”, but sometimes it seems like more effort than it is to open their mail program and set the preferences properly.
Think of the job opportunities for us geeks if companies, organizations, etc. realized that they need to hire a hand-holder for their non-geeks! I got my first Windows computer exactly one year ago, and now I’m coding. Took 2 classes in GIS, and now I have a job designing and implementing a county-wide GIS system.
How did this happen? Because I find it fun, and I have the curiosity to go figger stuff out. Lots of people don’t. I think there’s two people in our county gov’t who can use a spreadsheet. I understand they don’t like it, don’t get it, maybe don’t want to learn. But it’s not my job to do it for them. I have a job already.
That said, it’s going to be up to the “help desk boy/girl” to bring the situation to the attention of those who can do something about it. “Either pay me for working two jobs, or find someone else to do this.”
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. - B. Russell
BUY memory? You BOUGHT memory?! Why, sonny, when I was your age, I had to build memory, one bit at a time. Them bits were hard to come by, too, you had to dig sand up out of the ground and refine the silicon and … and … and …
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
My mom’s a real technophobe, too, and very resistant to being told what to do. She will call me up in hysterics over some problem she’s having with AOHell or WordPerfect (I don’t actually USE either of these programs), then gets upset when I can’t help her.
I got my first computer in 1981. It was an Atari 400.
That said, I still don’t understand how the damn things work. But that’s okay. I can usually figure out enough of what I need to get something done.
And that’s my point. My job is not to understand computers, it’s to get something done. And if someone in your office who’s apparently been on the job long enough to prove himself is so stuck that he can’t get anything done, then don’t bitch at him, bitch at your employer who throws barriers in its employees’ way and won’t provide the training or support they need.
Meanwhile, let’s not get so much attitude about knowing something that someone else doesn’t.
I’ll give you the story of my mom. She’s now very adept at computers, though she wasn’t when she started using them, at an age that was in excess of 40.
She started out very tentatively, looking for the “right” way to do the things she was trying to. She was afraid of doing things incorrectly and messing something up, so she didn’t semi-randomly play around with things.
Later she found out that the way to learn computers was just to mess around with things to see what they did. Not on the most important work you are doing, but on little stuff or when there was nothing going on. Eventually, she was comfortable with computers and realized that there wasn’t much you could do to screw them up really badly, so you should just try to do stuff. It worked.
Another comment: Around the time that we got the internet at our desks, there were a lot of questions about how people would learn to use it. Also there was a memo circulated saying that we were not allowed to use firm computers to access sexually explicit materials. In talking to the guy responsible for computer policy, he said that he was sorry that he had to put out the memo, because he thought that the way that people would learn to use the internet most quickly is to spend a few hours searching for porn. (Perhaps that’s a strategy that you can suggest to Tom, puffington).