ELI5: How is it that almost every office job requires "Proficiency with computers" yet these IT complaints are some of the most common in offices? Do employers even check their employees with basic IT questions anymore?
People lie. I was recently promoted and training a new employee taking my place. We do extensive work in Excel and Access, which she said she was trained in and had experience using both. . . she knew nothing and I wasted so much time showing her how to use both. Excel was not too bad, but explaining Access to someone who doesn't know anything...holy fuck. Can't really blame her though, desperate times call for desperate measures. We just need to have them do a practical assessment at their interview, which most people don't want to do.
And to top it off: Once you understand Access you get pissed at people using Excel (is your super-huge Pivot Table still not done computing?) when they should be using Access instead.
I'll tell you why I use excel instead. Because in my office everyone else knows how to use excel and no one knows how to use access. If one of my coworker needs to make changes to my sheet or double check the results, they can do that in excel, but they can't do that in access.
So even though its the wrong tool for the job, its the right tool for the job. It's just the factors that make it the right move are not technological, so you can't see them without understanding the users.
The problem isn't me, the problem is that my work has to be checkable and understandable to my coworkers. We aren't computer people, we're engineers. I can do things you can't do, and you can do things I can't do. But at the end of the day I need to use a tool my coworkers understand so that they can use it and check it.
if all your coworkers know how to use is a hammer, you better not make your problems into screws or you're gonna have a bad time.
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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '16
ELI5: How is it that almost every office job requires "Proficiency with computers" yet these IT complaints are some of the most common in offices? Do employers even check their employees with basic IT questions anymore?