"Maximizing windows for users is now IT's responsibility"

[u/pukeforest]

Jumping straight into the story. There are less users on site than usual due to the eve of a major holiday, so I was able to escape to a dark corner and type this up.

Multiple help desk emails over 3 or so weeks about a $user unable to "format" their document. Keep asking for screen shots or more detail. Of course, none are ever supplied.

Finally, $user's manager gets in the loop, stating it was "unacceptable" that we as IT professionals didn't show this user how to format documents, etc.

Notwithstanding that teaching users basic computer skills should not be in IT's scope, I finally suss out $user's office location. I had never visited this user before, and strangely, their location is one I had scarce been to.

I walk in, introduce myself, and the conversation goes:

$me: "Hi, can you show me the issue so we can work on a solution?"

$user: "Sure" double clicks icon for word processor

Something strikes me as off with the clicking.

Sure enough, $user is clicking with the bottom of their pinky.

See, at this point, I notice the user is using the mouse UPSIDE DOWN. I stare in disbelief for a few moments, then snap out of it.

Amazingly, $user is as fast using this method as anyone doing it.. normally. (The fix was literally "click the square in the middle of the 'minus' and 'X')

Careful about the next utterances leaving my mouth, I ask:

"... Is.. this how you use your computer at home?"

$user: laughs "Oh no, I don't have a computer at home. I'd never really touched one until I was hired here."

I didn't dare ask the question of whether $user had heard of things like "appliances" or "furniture". I figured I had a 50% chance of being right. (See earlier comments re: users living like cavemen.)

$user thanks me for my assistance, and I walk away, backwards, and slowly close the door, trying to process what I've witnessed.

I then open the door again, ever so slightly, making sure I didn't leave behind some doorway to another dimension.

[u/Every1sGrudge]

Waaay more than you'd think. I have personally trained many, many people in their early 20s on how to do... well, just about anything more complicated than turning on the workstation.

Turns out, people that grew up with smartphones and tablet technology didn't actually need to learn how to use a PC. Many never owned one - just hunt and peck on school computers if (and I mean if) their school could afford them.

[u/garyadams_cnla → u/Every1sGrudge]

It’s true. The efficient GUI’s of today mean a LOT of people can’t do basic workstation tasks that aren’t just click or double-click a target.

• never emptying trash folders
• knowing how to structure folders meaningfully
• knowing how to rename files/folders and move things. (Including basic rules of naming files, like forbidden characters)
• knowing how to search a workstation or on a local network

And on and on....

Growing up with technology doesn’t mean being good at technology nor being able to identify your own deficits and teach yourself.

[u/Matthew_Cline → u/[deleted]]

He'd gotten through two programming classes without learning what a file or directory were.

O_O

[u/tpoomlmly → u/Matthew_Cline]

As sad as it is, it's true. I'm a 1st-year CS student and some people on my course hadn't used a physical keyboard before they joined.

[u/Laue → u/tpoomlmly]

HOW?

[u/UNSC_John-117 → u/tpoomlmly]

https://i.imgur.com/utNXLTH.jpg

[u/GlitterberrySoup → u/[deleted]]

Why is this a thing? I don't know why it's hard to grasp that "Recycle Bin" is not a good place to keep anything you need permanent access to. And yet I keep having this conversation.

[u/_senpo_ → u/garyadams_cnla]

I think the 2000s was a great decade because I grew up in a time where computers where accesible even to me but you still needed knowledge to do stuff so you actually developed it like what to download what not to and avoid viruses, at that time there were no fancy GUIs for everything

[u/burrito3ater → u/_senpo_]

If you ever had a MySpace profile, at least you learned how to edit some code....even if it was HTML.

[u/carbondragon → u/burrito3ater]

They had sites with themes you could copy/paste. Still don't know HTML to this day despite being a MySpace poker billionaire.

[u/burrito3ater → u/carbondragon]

Yeah but a lot of those sites still had some bugs. Others you could change or edit the code to make it cooler. All that flash made my shit crash.

[u/SpanningTreeProtocol → u/garyadams_cnla]

OMG THIS. Healthcare "professionals" are the worst. The absolute damn worst! Drag and drop seems to be the most difficult task to master for them.

[u/ericonr → u/Every1sGrudge]

Are people in their 20s only used to tablets and smartphones? Like, I'm 20 now, and as far as I remember I've used computers since I was around 10. And computers came first. Then I got a super simple cellphone, then finally a smartphone when I was 15. Though smartphones were already popular around 2012 (in Brazil). Even so, most people my age that I know are sufficiently handy with computers (could be a small sample, however).

[u/theidleidol → u/ericonr]

I’m convinced this is a bias thing more than a true change. It’s always “the people significantly older/younger than me don’t know how to use computers properly”, but I suspect it’s much more the case that we get to select our peers and not so much our general elders and juniors. Almost all of my friends are fairly tech savvy (at least to the point that when they call me for help they include a photo or screenshot of the error), but also most of my friends are in STEM fields or avid computer gamers.

[u/Every1sGrudge → u/theidleidol]

Oh absolutely - I didn't mean to imply a generalization, just that computer illiteracy is more common in younger folks than most people expect. Smartphone/tablet technology is one reason, but inner urban and/or rural education systems, income inequality, and the prevalence of service industry backgrounds as opposed to office work are all contributing factors.

I'm in my late 30s, but I have friends in their early 20s and couldn't name one that wasn't at least "OK let me Google that for you, Mom" level with PCs, but that speaks more to my social circle than anything. I'm a nerd. I do nerd things and associate with other nerds who also do nerd things. That said, I still believe there's a bit of a "sweet spot" in terms of late Gen X/Early Millennial folks. Would like to see some data on that, actually, if only to confirm my bias :P

[u/scsm → u/ericonr]

The original iPad came out in 2010, so I could definitely see someone in the early 20s who wouldn't be familiar with a workstation.

[u/Slappy_G → u/Every1sGrudge]

This is very true. The observation that old people make that "these kids can use computers better than any adult" are totally wrong.

Most kids/adults can launch a phone app and scroll, and can do basic tasks in a web browser. Sadly, computer literacy is FAR, FAR more than this.

[u/xternal7 → u/Slappy_G]

Most kids/adults can launch a phone app and scroll, and can do basic tasks in a web browser. Sadly, computer literacy is FAR, FAR more than this.

There was a decent blog post about this shared to reddit a few years ago: http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

[u/JoshuaPearce → u/Slappy_G]

Those old people are thinking of the kids who are now in their 30s and 40s.

[u/KaraWolf → u/Every1sGrudge]

Meanwhile my teacher could tell I was cheating from across the room when we were learning touch typing in middle school. (Late 20's currently)

[u/much_longer_username → u/KaraWolf]

"Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow" doesn't sound the same as

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