computer illiterate people in the workplace

[EastEnder]

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.

Oh dear god yes!

I'm more than happy to explain things in a very technical manner to others who understand the technology, and just as happy to explain things in a very simplistic fashion to those who freely admit a lack of understanding.

The most depressing, palpitation inducing experience is dealing with someone who knows a tiny bit, but doesn't know anything like enough to realise just how little they actually know! Often found in sales, marketing or middle-management, the kind of people who tell you how they want something done, then get terribly upset when you patiently why it can't be done - after all, they've seen something like it somewhere else, you know, on that other website/product/computer/etc....!

The funny thing is, I've often found that those in the upper echelons of companies are easier to deal with than those in the middle. I've worked at where places where the MD readily accepts my explanation and trusts that I know what I'm taking about, whereas various middle managers would have a go at me for being "difficult", yet when I then explain in detail why something is problematic they decide they don't want to be bothered with boring technical details!

 

[jæd]

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.

I'm not being nasty. I'm just pulling you up on what you've stated... If you say you learnt machine code, expect to be give examples. And it seems you just learnt how to program a machine tool....

(And I spend 10 years programming Binary Load Lifters (a bit like your CNC machines, related to vaporators) in the Finnish town of Kessell, so I know what I speak of.)

Do you have any tales of modern day computer illiterates to elucidate us with...?

 

[jæd]

The most depressing, palpitation inducing experience is dealing with someone who knows a tiny bit, but doesn't know anything like enough to realise just how little they actually know! Often found in sales, marketing or middle-management, the kind of people who tell you how they want something done, then get terribly upset when you patiently why it can't be done - after all, they've seen something like it somewhere else, you know, on that other website/product/computer/etc....!

I'm currently having problems with people who have seen something and what it done now, but think the only way to do it is to pay someone else £££ to do it.

Conveniently ignoring the knowledge the in-house IT dept has on how to do it much cheaper + quicker...

 

[GoneCoastal]

I've worked at where places where the MD readily accepts my explanation and trusts that I know what I'm taking about, whereas various middle managers would have a go at me for being "difficult", yet when I then explain in detail why something is problematic they decide they don't want to be bothered with boring technical details!

That's not uncommon - know the feeling

 

[chymaera]

And it seems you just learnt how to program a machine tool....

Which is more than the prats in the office managed.

 

[8ball]

. . . whereas various middle managers would have a go at me for being "difficult", yet when I then explain in detail why something is problematic they decide they don't want to be bothered with boring technical details!

Why are you so inflexible?

I saw something very similar done on the telly with toothbrushes so why can't you make our telephones talk to the coffee machines in the US office?

<< marks Eastender down for drubbing in next appraisal>>

 

[8ball]

What would a lathe do with my piece of code above?

Whatever it is I bet it would be

 

[The Groke]

Oh dear god yes!

I'm more than happy to explain things in a very technical manner to others who understand the technology, and just as happy to explain things in a very simplistic fashion to those who freely admit a lack of understanding.

The most depressing, palpitation inducing experience is dealing with someone who knows a tiny bit, but doesn't know anything like enough to realise just how little they actually know! Often found in sales, marketing or middle-management, the kind of people who tell you how they want something done, then get terribly upset when you patiently why it can't be done - after all, they've seen something like it somewhere else, you know, on that other website/product/computer/etc....!

The funny thing is, I've often found that those in the upper echelons of companies are easier to deal with than those in the middle. I've worked at where places where the MD readily accepts my explanation and trusts that I know what I'm taking about, whereas various middle managers would have a go at me for being "difficult", yet when I then explain in detail why something is problematic they decide they don't want to be bothered with boring technical details!

*nods*

 

[chymaera]

What would a lathe do with my piece of code above?

Whatever it is I bet it would be

It would not be the multi-start thread on an old fashioned divers helmet.

 

[Mr Smin]

I'm currently having problems with people who have seen something and what it done now, but think the only way to do it is to pay someone else £££ to do it.

Conveniently ignoring the knowledge the in-house IT dept has on how to do it much cheaper + quicker...

Hell yes. My firm spent loads on an intranet and public website from some develop+supply firm. I had to explain basic stuff to the *supplier* like local file paths used during development would have to be changed when it went live.

 

[Edie]

In my experience you IT people are always complete blaggers

When my other half is watching me use a computer his toes curl with frustration at my slowness. Even though I'm not really slow and fairly competent if a little pedantic. Just cos he's some superfast, digital media kid who can whizz through with ninja keyboard skills

 

[bluestreak]

i've just spent an hour in a meeting, the gist of which was my manager patiently demonstrating what a professional spreadsheet looks like (it has coloured cells).

we've reached the point now where she doesn't think i'm a complete waste of space i think. i just think that it hasn't occured to her that i could actually be anything other than an idiot child with potential. meanwhile i'm sitting here watching and trying to actually get useful information out of it like 'what i'm supposed to do' whilst showing her how to get that cut and paste right because ye gods i can't sit here all morning watching her make the same mistake time and time again and get more and more frustrated but when i do recommend a method for getting it right the friendly patient tone goes out of her voice.

thank fuck i'm not hungover today.

 

[EastEnder]

When my other half is watching me use a computer his toes curl with frustration at my slowness. Even though I'm not really slow and fairly competent if a little pedantic. Just cos he's some superfast, digital media kid who can whizz through with ninja keyboard skills

Know your place...

Boys: Computers, cars, mobile phones.

Girls: Hoovers, washing machines, ironing.

nuff said.

 

[Xanadu]

Know your place...

Boys: Computers, cars, mobile phones.

Girls: Hoovers, washing machines, ironing.

nuff said.

I must be 1/3 girl then

Me: computers, ironing, mobile phones

 

[bluestreak]

i must be 1/3 horse...

Me: computers, records, ketamine.

 

[baldrick]

I read this thread the other day and marvelled to myself that people could work in an office and still have no idea about IT.

Today, i have met one of them. I had to log her in to the computer, because she got 1's and l's mixed up , she didn't know where to put the memory stick either and i patiently explained how to open the files on said stick (so she could write it all down) and then how to save.

Bless

I expect i'll have to answer a lot of questions in the next few weeks

 

[EastEnder]

I read this thread the other day and marvelled to myself that people could work in an office and still have no idea about IT.

I can sort of understand it if you're dealing with some middle aged diehard luddite who's spent the last 20 years assiduously eschewing all developments in the modern world... but I do find it bizarre when you meet people in the 20's who've somehow managed to work in an office environment for several years and still haven't mastered the basics of computers. These days, IT stills are practically on a par with reading & writing....!

 

[chymaera]

I can sort of understand it if you're dealing with some middle aged diehard luddite who's spent the last 20 years assiduously eschewing all developments in the modern world.../QUOTE]

Sad old gimmers buy and use more computers than any other group. A computer shop owner I know says he would go bankrupt if it were not for "Silver Surfers."
Some of us are old enough to remember when the only way to program a computer was to re-wire it.

 

[Xanadu]

Silver surfers are the fastest growing group of internet users. But I though those were the retired folk?

 

[jæd]

I can sort of understand it if you're dealing with some middle aged diehard luddite who's spent the last 20 years assiduously eschewing all developments in the modern world... but I do find it bizarre when you meet people in the 20's who've somehow managed to work in an office environment for several years and still haven't mastered the basics of computers. These days, IT stills are practically on a par with reading & writing....!

You'd be surprised... In my company there's a few people in the 20's who are computer illiterate... A month or so ago I had to explain to someone how they opened a document from Word or Excel. They'd never, ever done it before, and always just double clicked on Word documents from "their" Outlook.

There's still some kind of social "stigma" about being computer literate for some people. Not sure why, as they make their own lives harder + less efficient...

 

[bluestreak]

but I do find it bizarre when you meet people in the 20's who've somehow managed to work in an office environment for several years and still haven't mastered the basics of computers. These days, IT stills are practically on a par with reading & writing....!

that's the way i look at it. what surprises me is that most jobs i've been interviewed for in the last few years have had IT skills tests involved, and i'm starting to realise that actually i must be in the uppermost sector of these results, as i can actually get spreadsheets to do basic formulas and stuff. i always thought i was shit because i couldn'\t build one of those spectacular multi-paged jobbies linked into a dozen databases and the kitchen microwave.

 

[chymaera]

Silver surfers are the fastest growing group of internet users. But I though those were the retired folk?

According to many "youff" anyone over 30 is a sad, senile old gimmer.

 

[EastEnder]

According to many "youff" anyone over 30 is a sad, senile old gimmer.

Yep, that's me!

I'm an old fart and have the slippers to prove it.

 

[Orang Utan]

I read this thread the other day and marvelled to myself that people could work in an office and still have no idea about IT.

I've worked in an office for seven years and know fuck all - you just pick up what you need to know to do your job. No-one teaches you how it all works unless they send you on a course. Also, a lot of people couldn't give a shit about how it all works, as long as it does. And when it doesn't, we call IT. That's what they're for. They learn all the dull stuff so we don't have to. Scoffing at people's ignorance is stupid. Like a doctor laughing at a patient for not knowing why his thyroid gland is overactive

 

[Onket]

she didn't know where to put the memory stick either and i patiently explained how to open the files on said stick (so she could write it all down) and then how to save.

Bless

I expect i'll have to answer a lot of questions in the next few weeks

I can't see how anyone can be expected to know this unless someone shows then though. Or they read the instructions or something.

 

[milesy]

i don't how to drive - because i've never needed to.

 

[rorymac]

Yep ..

If you keep going in a barbers shop .. you'll end up getting a haircut.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

that's the way i look at it. what surprises me is that most jobs i've been interviewed for in the last few years have had IT skills tests involved, and i'm starting to realise that actually i must be in the uppermost sector of these results, as i can actually get spreadsheets to do basic formulas and stuff. i always thought i was shit because i couldn'\t build one of those spectacular multi-paged jobbies linked into a dozen databases and the kitchen microwave.

Only wankers make those anyway. That's not what bloody Excel is for.

 

[bluestreak]

i don't how to drive - because i've never needed to.

yeah, but if you'd sat in front of a steering wheel every day for the last few years you might know what the bits were called?

or perhaps, more appropriately, if you went for a job where you needed to be able to drive, then you'd expect to either not get the job or be given some proper training rather than have it assumed that you knew how to do it and that you'd have to wing it.

 

[jæd]

yeah, but if you'd sat in front of a steering wheel every day for the last few years you might know what the bits were called?

or perhaps, more appropriately, if you went for a job where you needed to be able to drive, then you'd expect to either not get the job or be given some proper training rather than have it assumed that you knew how to do it and that you'd have to wing it.

Strange thing is, if someone needs to learn how to drive then most people realise that (with a bit of tuition) they can learn how to do it. For some reason, when they sit down at a computer some people expect that they can't learn, and often seem unwilling to as well...