Comment He doesn't seem to understand... (Score 1) 696
...if you don't find User Friendly funny, I suspect you might not have worked tech support. Or if you did, it may have been for engineers, which is Not The Same Thing.
I did a year on the helpdesk at my small northeast liberal arts college. Dealing with dancers and English professors, I am happy to testify that people lose all common sense when placed in front of a computer. Stories like the "CD-ROM cupholder" are not, unfortunately, exaggerations. I have watched these things happen.
We do not have the patience of saints. I have dealt with people who could not find the little Apple logo on the front of their Apple monitor; I have argued with a woman, trying to convince her that yes, her mouse does have a second button, and she should click it now (yes, I was right). Things like UF are funny because they're *real*, and they allow venting of steam, so that we don't vent on the phone to the man whose printer "just won't work", when it's STILL SHRINK-WRAPPED IN THE BOX.
Without such outlets, we would (and I'm not kidding) have tech support people behaving like disgruntled postal employees.
I did a year on the helpdesk at my small northeast liberal arts college. Dealing with dancers and English professors, I am happy to testify that people lose all common sense when placed in front of a computer. Stories like the "CD-ROM cupholder" are not, unfortunately, exaggerations. I have watched these things happen.
We do not have the patience of saints. I have dealt with people who could not find the little Apple logo on the front of their Apple monitor; I have argued with a woman, trying to convince her that yes, her mouse does have a second button, and she should click it now (yes, I was right). Things like UF are funny because they're *real*, and they allow venting of steam, so that we don't vent on the phone to the man whose printer "just won't work", when it's STILL SHRINK-WRAPPED IN THE BOX.
Without such outlets, we would (and I'm not kidding) have tech support people behaving like disgruntled postal employees.
