Computers: People Are More Clueless Than You Think! (1 Viewer)

[Keith Mickunas]

I worked in the IS department of a VA hospital back in '93 and '94. I did mostly tech support there and it was a pain at times. I can't remember too many good stories, but there were a few times I was called up to someone's office because their machine had become unplugged. One time I was working on a terminal that was just not functional at all. The power was on, but nothing would display. Turns out someone had fiddled with the brightness and contrast and turned them all the way down.

Here's a site that'll make you wonder how some people ever consider using computers.

 

[Eric_E]

The reporter obviously heard an old story, because the 'Enter' key hasn't been called a 'return' key on any computer, it is a typewriter-specific key!

Actually, I'm at work, looking at my keyboard that came with my G4 Quicksilver, and it says return on it. Must be a Mac thing.

 

[Tim K]

well, I used to work for an internet start-up. There were about 6 of us who had a clue there and 2 who didn't. The guy who was "acting" president was not one of them.

He was so uncomfortable with technology that when I would send him emails of Word Documents he would print them out, edit them, and FAX them to me (yeah thanks alot).

Just about every day he asked one of us to leave our computers on and "leave Word up" when we would go to lunch. He was incapable of finding the Word icon on the desktop and clicking it.

Our program team would send out project update emails with Excel file attachments. Our president did not have excel on the pc at his desk. Every week he would try to open the attachment. Every week he could not. Every week he would ask me why he can't open the attachment. Every week I would tell him that it is an Excel file and you need to have Excel on your computer to open it, and you don't have Excel on your computer. This routine never ended. Never. Every week from the day he started working in the office to the day I left.

One day there were 4 of us in the office...1 of whom was the above mentioned idiot. So the idiot sits down at one of the PC's. The 3 of us watch him intently knowing he has no clue what he is doing. He begins to move the mouse back and forth (you know, to deactivate the screen saver, though he thought this would turn it on). He moves his mouse back and forth approximately 10 different times. Each time staring at the screen waiting for it to light up. Nothing happens. We all smile and wait. Then he begins to press the power button on the monitor, and then move the mouse. Nothing happens. He tries this about 5 times. Finally he turns to my friend Marc and says "is there some kind of magic you need to make this work?". Marc replied calmly "you need to turn the computer on." Idiot says "how do I do that?". Marc says "See the box sitting on the floor with the lights and wires on it. Press the button that says 'power'."

Needless to say, this is why the company ran out of money and I am out of work. On the positive side, at least I am not surround by idiots every day.

 

[Hunter P]

I had this email sent to me back in my old days of working for Packard Bell back in the 1990's. I would be surprised if the WSJ tried to pass this off as a contemporary article considering it is almost word for word the same article that has been floating on the net for years.

 

[Kevin P]

I have a couple stories of a family member who is, shall I say, not very computer literate. This was a couple years ago. She called, as her husband went away for a few days, and she was having trouble using the computer. She said she turned it on, and the monitor was telling her "No signal or signal out of range", and couldn't get anything to work. I told her to check to make sure the monitor cable was plugged in, maybe it came loose. She reached in back of (what I thought was the computer) and she said there were a bunch of wires there but they were all tight. I figured something was wrong with the CPU and to wait for him to come home to check it out, since I couldn't really troubleshoot further over the phone when she knows so little.

A few days later I called back to see how it went, after he returned home. When I talked to him, he told me that the computer was in the shop getting the memory upgrade put in last week! She never told me that any pieces (e.g. the CPU) were missing! He never told her that he took the computer in for the upgrade, and she thought everything was there, at least the pieces she touches (screen, keyboard, mouse), and to "turn it on" they use a switch on a power strip, so she never noticed that the CPU was missing! It just wouldn't boot up!

What gets me is I had her check to make sure the cables were plugged in tight. I'm not sure where she was checking, but it certainly wasn't the CPU end!

Story #2. Same situation, husband is away, and she's trying to use the computer. Once again, she calls because she can't get it to turn on. She says she turned on the power strip but nothing appeared on the screen. I ask her if the lights on the computer are lit up. She says, "you mean on the hard drive?" "Yes, on the 'hard drive'" (I guess this is what she calls the CPU now). It's all dark. I tell her to press the power button. "Where's the power button?" Dang, this is difficult over the phone. I tell her to describe all the buttons she sees on the front of the CPU. The first one she says is a small rectangular one. I ask, is it under the CD slot? She says yes. Ok, that's the open button for the CD drive. Next button? The floppy eject button. Any others? She says there are no other buttons. I ask if there is anything else on the front panel. She mentions a big round thing in the middle. I say ok, try pressing that. Bingo, it lit up!

I guess in this case, the power button wasn't obviously marked, which seems to be the case on a lot of newer PCs with the more "stylish" cases.

 

[Malcolm R]

Why didn't someone simply load Excel on his computer? Then at least this one recurring problem could have been easily solved.

 

[Ted Lee]

i have no doubt events like this (if not EXACTLY like this) have happened.

i work for a large printer and pc manufacturing company. for a while, i took helpdesk calls for the global community. i used to get calls from all over the world. some of those people had me literally cringing in my seat. they drove me f'in crazy.

now, i provide specialized call-tracking support, but i still get the same type of calls over and over. one of my favorites: if the app doesn't recognize your password, it says RIGHT IN THE ERROR MESSAGE "invalid password for an existing user" -- yet i still get people asking me why they can't login.

anyone get an email with that mp3 file that was a stand-up comic's routine where he was acting like a tech-support agent? at the end he says something about next time instead of calling, find any 8 year old child. so true...

 

[AllanN]

She says, "you mean on the hard drive?" "Yes, on the 'hard drive'" (I guess this is what she calls the CPU now).

Calling the computer a CPU will get you publicly flogged at my work place. Workstation or server is the preferred nomenclature in our tech support circle. "Box" is the generic slang term thrown around.

 

[Tim K]

Why didn't someone simply load Excel on his computer? Then at least this one recurring problem could have been easily solved.

Ahh. Four reasons, A) we didn't have a license for it as it was running Win2k...B) they were too cheap to buy a license....C) "his computer" happened to be the office server (hence win2k) which sat on a counter along the back wall of the office...and which we tried time and time again to get him to stop using. There was a reason we didn't keep a keyboard attached to it...yet somehow he figured out how to reconnect that! Finally we had to convince him that using that computer crashed the network printer...which for some reason it did. Never figured out why or how. And D) we couldn't buy another PC for the office (see reason B)

but when I left it freed up my computer for him to use...and that one had Excel on it.

 

[Tony Whalen]

I used to do tech support for a major local ISP. I've encountered far too many computer illiterate folks. And I personally did have someone ask where their "any" key was.

While I don't doubt that some of those stories have been polished a bit, I tend to believe every one of 'em is true. Just becase I've been there.

 

[MarkHastings]

3. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.

They forgot the best part of that joke. She sent in copies of the front and back because it was a Double Sided Floppy.

and
p.s. "People Are More Clueless Than You Think!" - Ummmm, No! They're actually smarter than I think they are.

p.s.s. The above remark wasn't meant to be a compliment

 

[Scott McGillivray]

Yup, nothing like a bunch of computer tech sitting around and sharing stories about stupid computer users. I have been a network adminsitrator for over 10 years now and I have my fair share.

Just today had one of the "my computer is not working" calls when I had to explain that there was no computer there since we took it away yesterday. (and then you have to argue with them that there is no computer there!)

I went to an older fellows house to teach him how to use his new computer and word processor (WordPerfect as I recall). He complained that he could never seem to fill up a page when he printed it out. I thought that maybe his margins were wrong or the printer driver was wrong etc. No...none of those, his problem was that he would only type until the screen was filled and then print it out. I explained to him that he could just keep on typing, but he exclaimed that the words at the top disappeared off the screen at the top! I then tried to explain how it stores it all in memory etc. It was a tough conversation to say the least.

Oooh! Oooh! Have you ever had a new user try and move a mouse like a steering wheel? I had a guy that would spin the mouse to the left and right rather than move the mouse left and right. Funny stuff.

I will think of more later.

 

[MarkHastings]

When I started working at this educational CD Rom company (in 1994), the job required that you knew how to use a computer (Obviously) and that you had prior experience. There were about 10 of us sitting in a semi-circle around a computer and the supervisor was explaining what we'd be doing, when he was done, he asked if there were any questions...

I kid you not when one of the girls asked: "Yes, how did you move that arrow thingy around?" Needless to say, we had a blast screwing with her computer every day to confuse the hell out of her.

You know what I'm talking about...(on the Mac) Renaming her hard drive to say "New Folder" and then creating a blank folder that says "Hard Drive" (and placing it in the same spot on her desktop as her hard drive) so that when she opened the folder, it looked like she lost all her files.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

The tech flies out the door to the location of the presentation- when he arrives he finds that the call was correct, all the items were plugged in to a 6-strip. However, the plug of the 6-strip (that was supposed to go to the wall), was also plugged into the 6-strip.

I believe this one.. I once had to drive 75 miles because one of our user's had something resting on their ESC key and couldn't figure out why she couldn't open any menus.. "they just kept dissapearing". Probably my fault for not asking if anything was touching the keyboard. Ah well, it was a nice day for a drive.

Everyone in the office received a kitchy business card Mini-CD for a new promo we were rolling out. Well, admittedly, the mini-cd was rectangular but it would still fit and play in a standard CD tray. Except one user thought she should stick it in the floppy drive. Man, did I have a hard time getting that out of there!

Then, we have another user who wanted to print transparancies. I don't know what she was using but it wasn't the right kind of transparancy to print on.. it melted in the printer. Then she thought she would try it on a different printer... melted. She took out 4 printers that day before she thought she should ask someone!

Then, I love the users that apparently just have stuff fall out of their heads. Like the user that called me pissed because he couldn't log in remotely. Because he couldn't remember his login that he had been using for over 6 years!