computer illiterate people in the workplace
- Thread starter bluestreak
- Start date
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
My sister and me were having this conversation one dayCrispy said:
Me: Go to to start, programs, windows explorer
Her: ok
Me: double click on the folder marked documents
Her: What's a folder?
Me: *sigh* The little yellow things.
She's been using computers for at least a decade.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Posting on Urban is fantastic practice for basic IT skillsPoot said:One of my colleagues is a complete luddite but I don't mind. I showed him how to do Edit -> Select All -> Change font in Word yesterday and he thought I was some kind of genius. Seriously, he was completely over-the-top impressed.
People just aren't lazy enough - my whole approach to PC use is predicated on learning the least amount possible and exerting the least amount of effort possible.... I suppose many people assume that because it's a computer it's going to be difficult.
I *heart" Word's "format painter" ... if a bit of text looks wrong, don't fret about what's wrong with it, copy the format from a bit that looks right.
I was recently shown how you can lock it in the "on" position and do loads of changes with little effort ...
Jonti
what the dormouse said
I carefully turn their cordless mice the wrong way roundUID said:I am gobsmacked at how illiterate some people are.
When I started my Nursing Diploma LOADS of the other students, even ones that were only 20 or so and really should have learned at school practically needed the 'This is a mouse, This is the on button, This is not a coffee cup holder' lesson!
Had similar a lot pf places I've worked.
I likes to turn thier displays upside down I does.
jæd said:Yes Chymaera, of *course* you did.
Yes I did, because the programmers were so bad they were dangerous.
When you worked on very large NC and CNC of that era they did not have the built in safeguards in the system modern CNC machines do.
If some muppet programmer made a mistake and asked the machine to go a kilometre in rapid traverse instead of 10 centimetres the machine would try and do it. On a lathe with a 200bhp electric motor and a 36 inch chuck with several hundredweight of steel forging in it that is very dangerous.
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
Did you have to shoot any?chymaera said:
gentlegreen said:I *heart" Word's "format painter" ... if a bit of text looks wrong, don't fret about what's wrong with it, copy the format from a bit that looks right.
I was recently shown how you can lock it in the "on" position and do loads of changes with little effort ...
I'm amazed that people don't know about "styles" in documents. I regularly get hundred-page documents where most of the headings are done manually..
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
Poot said:
Why couldn't you do ctrl+a, change font. See, saved you some time.
Funnily enough I know very little about excel or word. I have got a clue on how to make really nice spreadsheets and link data and all that bollocks. I could build you an IDS or use command line unix to recover hidden and deleted data.
Want me to do a budget - wouldn't have a fucking clue.
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
I think it's something to do with the dirty D word.
Documentation. Hate it. At least writing it. Always curse this one
"No manual entry for..."
Documentation. Hate it. At least writing it. Always curse this one
"No manual entry for..."
The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
As an IT Manger I far prefer those people who know fuck all and cheerfully admit it than the slightly computer literate who think they know far more than they actually do.
I don't presume to tell you how to calculate slab loading or fresh air distribution so fuck off with your:
"Oh we should just buy a separate NAS device for each department to use - that would solve all of our disk space problems....don't know why you lot haven't thought about it before...." or
"oh and while I am at it, can you increase my mailbox size please - 250Mb is nowhere near enough - if Google can offer us all 2Gb of space then why haven't we considered using them for our mail" or sometimes:
"My PC keeps bluescreening - I was trying a few performance tweaks and clearing out some superflous files to clear up diskspace and now it doesn't work. I guess the way you set my machine up isn't compatible with a faster configuration"
etc. etc. etc.
I don't presume to tell you how to calculate slab loading or fresh air distribution so fuck off with your:
"Oh we should just buy a separate NAS device for each department to use - that would solve all of our disk space problems....don't know why you lot haven't thought about it before...." or
"oh and while I am at it, can you increase my mailbox size please - 250Mb is nowhere near enough - if Google can offer us all 2Gb of space then why haven't we considered using them for our mail" or sometimes:
"My PC keeps bluescreening - I was trying a few performance tweaks and clearing out some superflous files to clear up diskspace and now it doesn't work. I guess the way you set my machine up isn't compatible with a faster configuration
"etc. etc. etc.
8ball
World is a fuck
sleaterkinney said:
This probably means your sister has a bit of a knack for computers since she's obviously figured out a fair bit for herself.
It can be easy to get short with people who are iffy with computers but I try to remember that no one is born knowing all this stuff and a reasonably bright person can be helped along to the point of being able to teach themselves in not too much time.
Agree totally with Swarfega that the people who know a teeny bit but think they know a lot are the worst to deal with.
Geri
wasn't born to follow
It's really frustrating. One of my colleagues is totally computer illiterate - I've had to show him almost every single day how to attach something to an e-mail. He's just incapable of taking it in. Then the other day he was asking me for help, saying he couldn't see the paper clip - I went over and he wasn't even in the e-mail, he was in the word document. 
Thank fuck he has moved to another office now, he can bother someone else about it every day.
Thank fuck he has moved to another office now, he can bother someone else about it every day.
EastEnder
Brixton Barnacle
Documentation is a two edged sword - I've lost count of the number of times I've diligently documented a particular procedure, only to have no one bother to read it - because it's easier to ask the overworked bloke who built the system than actually bother reading the comprehensive documentation he spent so long writing...Boris Sprinkler said:
chymaera said:
Its only something I touched on *ages* ago, but mathematical operations are entirely possible with machine code. I never got very far with it, but I distincly remember doing such things.
And if such operations couldn't be done then, how would most software work...?
(Or is this some kind of Cornish Machine Code...
)jæd said:I'm not the one who said I could program in machine code, am I...?
Oh, and is this the swearing + ranting part where everyone realises you are talking bollocks..?
Post reported, btw...
Report away you fucking idiot I spent over 10 years programming setting and operating NC and CNC machines and I don't need a cunt like you being nasty.
