Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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Blue Mountain said:
Has anyone done something like this?

You: All, right, I want you to open application-name.

User: Sorry, I'm not a computer person. How do you do that?

You: Hmm, I understand. Are you a car person?

User: What?

You: I man, for your car do you have a complete run of all the service manuals, an OBD reader, a car lift in your garage, you've re-flashed the computer's ECU to get better gas mileage, you spend your evenings and weekends planning and participating in car rallies, and you're the Most Knowledgeable User on the forms dedicated to your car's manufacturer?

User: Uhhh ... no ...

You: But you have a driver's license, right?
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It's been stated to death on this thread, but the stuff people use "I'm not a computer person" to excuse not knowing how to do is equivalent to using, "I'm not a car person" as an excuse for not knowing what the gas pedal is for, or not knowing how to check the oil. Then again, I see enough people struggling with head in parking in small cars to realize that there are a lot of people who really just barely know how to drive.
 
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That's been my primary source of hair pulling most of this thread.

"Oh I'm just not a computer person."
 
CORed said:
It's been stated to death on this thread, but the stuff people use "I'm not a computer person" to excuse not knowing how to do is equivalent to using, "I'm not a car person" as an excuse for not knowing what the gas pedal is for, or not knowing how to check the oil. Then again, I see enough people struggling with head in parking in small cars to realize that there are a lot of people who really just barely know how to drive.
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Exactly. The follow-on to the question about having a driving license is that there's a basic minimum of knowledge required to drive a vehicle, and most people have managed to acquire it. Ergo, there's a basic minimum knowledge of how to use a computer, and saying "I'm not a computer person" when asked to perform an elementary task shouldn't cut it in the modern era.

In my opinion, those people should be given the choice of either acquiring that knowledge or being made redundant in favour of people who have.

It's a bit harsh, given there are alternatives to driving (public transportation and car pooling,) but at the same time people in today's work force are usually expected to understand how to use an elevator and a coffee pot. And has been pointed out before, a computer is now considered to be a basic office tool, and knowing how to use one should be considered a basic skill along with reading and arithmetic.

As to what the minimum skillset should be ... I'll start with the following. Others can add to the list or suggest dropping some items.
  • Know how to use the mouse to navigate to the lower left-menu and click to open it
  • Know that the menu contains items you can open
  • (Very important) Understand how copy-and-paste works, both with keyboard shortcuts and File -> Copy / File -> Paste
  • (Important) Know you can use the TAB key to navigate to the next field on a form instead of going for the mouse all the time
  • On desktop systems, understand you can minimise windows, and resize them so you can have more than one open on the screen at once
  • Know how to adjust the sound card's volume
  • (Advanced knowledge) Understand the difference between a file and and application (e.g. you can often use more than one application to work on a file)
  • (Advanced knowledge) Know the difference between a local folder and a file share
 
Blue Mountain said:
Exactly. The follow-on to the question about having a driving license is that there's a basic minimum of knowledge required to drive a vehicle, and most people have managed to acquire it. Ergo, there's a basic minimum knowledge of how to use a computer, and saying "I'm not a computer person" when asked to perform an elementary task shouldn't cut it in the modern era.

In my opinion, those people should be given the choice of either acquiring that knowledge or being made redundant in favour of people who have.

It's a bit harsh, given there are alternatives to driving (public transportation and car pooling,) but at the same time people in today's work force are usually expected to understand how to use an elevator and a coffee pot. And has been pointed out before, a computer is now considered to be a basic office tool, and knowing how to use one should be considered a basic skill along with reading and arithmetic.

As to what the minimum skillset should be ... I'll start with the following. Others can add to the list or suggest dropping some items.
  • Know how to use the mouse to navigate to the lower left-menu and click to open it
  • Know that the menu contains items you can open
  • (Very important) Understand how copy-and-paste works, both with keyboard shortcuts and File -> Copy / File -> Paste
  • (Important) Know you can use the TAB key to navigate to the next field on a form instead of going for the mouse all the time
  • On desktop systems, understand you can minimise windows, and resize them so you can have more than one open on the screen at once
  • Know how to adjust the sound card's volume
  • (Advanced knowledge) Understand the difference between a file and and application (e.g. you can often use more than one application to work on a file)
  • (Advanced knowledge) Know the difference between a local folder and a file share
Click to expand...

Don't forget Right Click - Copy - Paste! That's all I ever use. Well, 99% of the time. Of course, I understand that might be too complicated for some users.

(Hmmm, I did a HILITE on the line in the quote, but it's not showing, except when I try to Edit. But then, I'm not a computer person...)

(Actually, I am. And it's weird. iI wonder if the bullet has something to do with it?)
 
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Wudang said:
One that used to drive me nuts. I'd get asked to join conference calls for problems with systems I did not or no longer supported. I'd start giving the solution and be continually talked over my people who just had to talk about why it was a problem. One bad day I was talked over for the third time and I muttered "for god's sake" and hung up. That's apparently not what people heard. Anyway I messaged the manager running the meeting and said I'd rejoin when people were ready to STFU and listen. He replied "Totally justified mate.".
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I have a head of division who explains what her problem is so we can discuss a solution. She then explains what her problem is, again. We confirm the action plan. She then explains what her problem is.

I'm going to swing for her at some point.
 
Blue Mountain said:
Have you also had callers on the other end of the spectrum? Where they start out with, "I'm having this specific problem: when I try X, Z happens instead of Y, and I've so far tried this, this and this to fix it, with some success, but it really looks like there might be an issue with system."
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I've been that caller. :) It's frustrating when you know the problem is with the IMAP4 server on the Exchange system (because you happen to have worked on the IMAP4 server on a different email system and know exactly what the symptoms mean), but you have to call the IT help desk and try to explain to a level 1 support person that there really is no point in them starting a remote session to look at your laptop screen, and can they please escalate (or was it elevate?) to the next level higher, if not two, to find someone who knows about the server end of things...
 
I admit to wincing when I encountered the term "smug reports" for someone who submits reports with lots of detail.



And as an ex-IBM who used to help support IBM's problem management system RETAIN and who worked in a lab developing new products getting massively hacked off with the low level IBM tech who kept insisting she knew exactly what the problem was and then talk about sonething completely unrelated. I kept asking to assign to "cics,262" because the guy who would then look at it knew that code inside out. Ended up having to escalate via our assigned IBM SE. Fixed in no time, the only bit in the entire product where someone got the code to iterate linearly through a massive table instead of doing a hash or binary chop even. Schoolboy error.
 
alfaniner said:
Don't forget Right Click - Copy - Paste! That's all I ever use. Well, 99% of the time. Of course, I understand that might be too complicated for some users.
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Well, just Right Click in general, context menus are damned handy.
Also - which button power cycles the computer and (Advanced) With the rise in VMs for remote work, where your computer actually is.
I've had a number of conversations at work that summed up as "My VM locked up, so I tried rebooting my laptop and that didn't fix it"
 
Wudang said:
I admit to wincing when I encountered the term "smug reports" for someone who submits reports with lots of detail.
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I've not come across that one before. There is a certain type of customer who thinks they know more about the product than they actually do, and submits lots of irrelevant data and speculation about the cause, which the term could apply to.
 
malbui said:
I have a head of division who explains what her problem is so we can discuss a solution. She then explains what her problem is, again. We confirm the action plan. She then explains what her problem is.

I'm going to swing for her at some point.
Click to expand...

She probably took a management class where she was told to explain the problem three times.
 
Again the core issue isn't a userbase that is "bad with computers" although I fully admit this whole equivalent to being someone who drives a car for their job, having a license, yet not knowing how to change your radio station or shutting down when introduced to technical terms like "steering wheel" that I encounter constantly is completely unreasonable, even that I could process and deal with.

It's having a user-base who has checked "Not a computer person" on their internal character sheets. "Oh I'm not a computer person" isn't a declaration of a lack of a skill set, it's a declaration of adopting a certain persona.

It's not that these people can't learn how to use a computer. It's that they see themselves as just the kind of person who isn't a "computer person."

"Carol" from Accounting hasn't forgotten how to resize an Excel column and needed it shown to her yet again literally every goddamn week since I've provided IT Support for this company because she literally doesn't have the neurons available to create a pathway for this tasking, it's because in her head "computers" are just this thing other people are good at even their her entire job, literally every single tasking she has or ever will do at her job, is on a computer.

That's why they repeat "Oh I'm not a computer person" over and over and over like a ******* matra when ever you try to explain something to them.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
That's why they repeat "Oh I'm not a computer person" over and over and over like a ******* matra when ever you try to explain something to them.
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They've decided that's a permanent trait on their character sheet. It happens with other things: people declaring "oh, I just can't do art, I don't have any talent!" or "I'm just no good with math!" etc etc. Sometimes it's a choice they make because they like the stereotype's attributes and wish people to think that of them; like the men who pretend they can't do anything remotely domestic because that makes them manly, or the women who pretend they can't do anything technical because that makes them womanly. Sometimes it's just because they're lazy and don't want to bother with a whole field of work, like cooking or yard work or decorating.
 
Yeah but computers are unique because people think that knowing nothing about them to the point that it's part of your identity yet getting a job that requires constant use of them makes perfect sense.

I do wonder, as you allude to, they think that saying "Oh I'm not a computer person!" is somehow a socially acceptable way of saying or otherwise some vestigial version of "Oh I don't want to be thought of as a nerd/geek."
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yeah but computers are unique because people think that knowing nothing about them to the point that it's part of your identity yet getting a job that requires constant use of them makes perfect sense.

I do wonder, as you allude to, they think that saying "Oh I'm not a computer person!" is somehow a socially acceptable way of saying or otherwise some vestigial version of "Oh I don't want to be thought of as a nerd/geek."
Click to expand...

Or maybe they're trying to flirt with you!

Them: Tee hee hee [giggling] I'm just not a computer person!
JoeMorgue: ....You have to turn the computer on to use it.
Them: [fluttering eyelashes] Oh my, that's so technical! I would rather just call you to help me!
JoeMorgue: [restraining urge to murder]
Them: My, what big muscles you have! Do you benchpress the computers to make them go? Tee hee [giggle] hee [flutter eyelashes] hee hee [remove undergarments] tee hee hee!
 
alfaniner said:
Don't forget Right Click - Copy - Paste! That's all I ever use. Well, 99% of the time. Of course, I understand that might be too complicated for some users.

(Hmmm, I did a HILITE on the line in the quote, but it's not showing, except when I try to Edit. But then, I'm not a computer person...)

(Actually, I am. And it's weird. iI wonder if the bullet has something to do with it?)
Click to expand...

Yes. the pair of HILITE tags was interrupted by the bullet tag, probably qualifies as a bug.

(FTFY)
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yeah but computers are unique because people think that knowing nothing about them to the point that it's part of your identity yet getting a job that requires constant use of them makes perfect sense.

I do wonder, as you allude to, they think that saying "Oh I'm not a computer person!" is somehow a socially acceptable way of saying or otherwise some vestigial version of "Oh I don't want to be thought of as a nerd/geek."
Click to expand...

Maybe they're afraid that learning "geekygeek" stuff will push out "important" information.

 
Just one precautionary note about all this. I've been out in the workforce for 30 years and I've never ever been offered any kind of training in office software. Not a bit. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I had the nous to do something about it but I know of colleagues who struggle with simple things in Excel because they've never been trained on it and given the chance to practice.

An extreme example of this in a slightly different context: when my FIL was bounced into taking over the admin functions for a local association of which he was a member, he was given the laptop used for accounting and paperwork. It was when visiting a while later that I worked out that he didn't know that Excel had a Sum function. He'd been inputting numbers, adding them up on his calculator, and inputting the total manually. And he's a retired university lecturer.

Of course those who are taught and refuse to remember should be condemned to the hottest parts of hell.
 
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