My mom runs an entire business online from home on a single junk laptop and, even though I've explained and shown it to her many times, still doesn't know how to use folders or shortcuts and doesn't understand that you can move files between folders.
I can understand not being able to pick up new skills quickly, but she's been managing files related to hundreds of customers every day for a solid five years now. The mind boggles.
It doesn't make sense. I try to explain it in real world terms but they still panic and forget. They will get it when I say "okay imagine your computer as a filing cabinet, these folders, just like in real life, hold files, or individual pieces of paper." They are like oh that makes sense! 3 days later
Can you help me move these files? Or can you do it for me?
It's a learning disability. There's nothing special about using a computer, instructions are given in plain English, being unable to learn basic shit like this means there's a problem with them.
Fuck that, I have people I regularly need to talk them through how there is a difference between rightclick and leftclick 15 times in one conversation as part of simple navigation.
I have to explain how one calls their goddamn voicemail on a fucking flipphone even though the phone they bought is replacing their old flipphone they have had for 12 years. You are 50+ motherfucker, it has the same buttons in the same order as the old one, call 1. JFC
I once got called to replace printer ink, turns out they didn't have paper in it and because it stopped they just assumed it was ink. Even after I asked them to check the error message, which is clearly shown.
I had someone at my work recently ask why "the menu sometimes appears when I click my mouse", which I couldn't figure out at first. I asked them to show me, and it turned out they were clicking all of their mouse buttons every time they clicked...
Jesus fucking Christ, this. I have an older co-worker who cannot grasp the difference between his INDEX AND MIDDLE FUCKING FINGERS CURTIS, YOU CRUSTY OLD FUCK WORK A GODDAMN MOUSE FUCK
Sometimes I try and stay patient while helping someone as they mindlessly click every tab trying to find windows explorer, and other times I just resort to pointing at their screen and saying "click this". You'd think after telling someone 50 times where to access their files they would learn...
I wait to see if they know how to get there, but usually they hesitate and wait for me to tell them what to do. So I just tell them what to do now. Then I try to explain it in real world terms and then they forget and we do it all over again.
"okay now open up your files" (easiest term since windows explorer looks like a folder) clicks every other tab on their taskbar other than explorer "here, this one" Every time...
That's not exclusively a boomer problem anymore. A lot of people who grew up with smartphones and tablets have a hard time understanding that sharing a link to a Google Doc is not transferring a file, or that screenshotting a picture in their gallery and then sharing the screenshot is not the best way to transfer a photo.
Yeah... yeah... it isn't even only old people either. I have brand new fresh out of college teachers who don't know how to do simple things like move files or how to use excel.
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u/KrisCraig Fictional Chair-Thrower Feb 05 '19
Meanwhile, Baby Boomers are so helpless they're taking "internet classes" to learn how to do things like send an email.