Comment Re:hmmph (Score 3, Insightful) 588
You can be the most learned person in the world, but if you can't follow simple instructions, you're an idiot. I have no idea how many people I've talked to that probably have VERY specific high tech jobs in areas such as robotics, circuit engineering, etc. But when it comes to general knowledge about how to actually USE a computer, they know absolutely nothing. That is fine. I do not expect them to know about the insignifant details about why they have to enter a subnet mask or know what DNS is. It isn't important to most people and it shouldn't be. It should just work. I type in the website address and a page is displayed. Nevermind the DNS lookup, the ARP request for the router, the routing protocols that take said piece of information and transfer it across the globe. They design a robot, not a network.
Now, with that said, when I say click on the 'Start' button, I shouldn't normally hear comments like, 'What is that?' Now, granted, it's possible they aren't aware of that type of thing. No problem. But when I say, "It's the button on the bottom left hand corner of your screen," I shouldn't hear dead silence for a minute and have to follow that up with a question such as, "Did you find it yet?"
The inability of people to follow simple instructions is an amazing phenomenon. Years ago when I did tech support for an ISP, we would SNAIL MAIL setup instructions to customers on how to configure their computers. The instructions were very clear and precise and dealt with most issues that came up while setting up the Windows9x IP stack. People would get the instructions, and immediatley call in. It was then my job to read (word for word) the instructions that we had sent to these people. More often then not, there was no troubleshooting. It was just a simple matter of them needing to have someone read the words aloud. These are the same people that worked at SAS institute in RTP as well as the 90 year old man that claimed to have worked on computers for "64 years now."
I've just come to terms with the fact that a lot of people are scared of computers. And I don't mean intimidated. Flat out scared. I onced watched a 60 year old woman's hand tremble as it came near the mouse when I was showing her how to use her recently purchased internet access. Oh god, I'm glad I'm not doing tech support in Florida anymore. Having a tech support person on the phone while they are doing this is like a security blanket.
Now, with that said, when I say click on the 'Start' button, I shouldn't normally hear comments like, 'What is that?' Now, granted, it's possible they aren't aware of that type of thing. No problem. But when I say, "It's the button on the bottom left hand corner of your screen," I shouldn't hear dead silence for a minute and have to follow that up with a question such as, "Did you find it yet?"
The inability of people to follow simple instructions is an amazing phenomenon. Years ago when I did tech support for an ISP, we would SNAIL MAIL setup instructions to customers on how to configure their computers. The instructions were very clear and precise and dealt with most issues that came up while setting up the Windows9x IP stack. People would get the instructions, and immediatley call in. It was then my job to read (word for word) the instructions that we had sent to these people. More often then not, there was no troubleshooting. It was just a simple matter of them needing to have someone read the words aloud. These are the same people that worked at SAS institute in RTP as well as the 90 year old man that claimed to have worked on computers for "64 years now."
I've just come to terms with the fact that a lot of people are scared of computers. And I don't mean intimidated. Flat out scared. I onced watched a 60 year old woman's hand tremble as it came near the mouse when I was showing her how to use her recently purchased internet access. Oh god, I'm glad I'm not doing tech support in Florida anymore. Having a tech support person on the phone while they are doing this is like a security blanket.
