8 ms·

User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work

59 points by LorenDB 3y ago

jenadine 3y ago
TLDR; The user clicked a screenshot of Excel in the documentation, thought it was the app itself, and got surprised it didn't react to input.
- tom_ 3y ago
  This sort of thing trips me up all the time when I'm collecting screen grabs.
  - rob74 3y ago
    Especially on a smartphone - tap... tap... tap......??? d'oh!
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  Shades of the end of The Website is Down (2009) https://youtu.be/uRGljemfwUE https://youtu.be/uRGljemfwUE
TeMPOraL 3y ago
TL;DR: > one of his colleagues had written a Word document with instructions on how to use Excel. To help the account managers get the message, that document included lots of illustrative screenshots. > Jeremy realized his user had clicked on a screenshot, which had grown to a size at which it was easily mistaken for Excel itself. This also explained why it would not accept input. Also, for context, this happened in "late 1990s".
passwordoops 3y ago
Long winded but the punchline is worth it
solardev 3y ago
The best office prank I ever pulled was on a fellow dev, probably the smartest guy in the room. He came back from lunch and all of his apps stopped working. He couldn't launch anything. He restarted the computer and still nothing would start. He eventually figured out that launching an app from search works, but nothing would launch from his desktop shortcuts. That's because while he was having lunch, I took a screenshot of his desktop, set that screenshot as the desktop background, and then hid the dock and deleted all his real icons :) (Well, put them in a folder for easy recovery). He just kept clicking and clicking on that screenshot for way too long. Best 15 minutes of my life...
- lajosbacs 3y ago
  Of course it is a nice prank, but best 15 minutes?
  - solardev 3y ago
    The secret to happiness is low expectations :)
- a012 3y ago
  It’s fun and game but nowadays if someone didn’t lock their computer when away then we’ll have a security incident to report
  - solardev 3y ago
    It gets better. I think it was actually set to auto lock after a minute or two, but I had practiced the routine on my own computer a few times first and managed to get it down to like ten seconds. He went to the bathroom right before heading out for lunch. I had my window. I did it quickly, and then joined him for lunch, keeping a straight face the whole time. When we came back I nonchalantly asked about some code for him to review but he was like hold on... Didn't suspect me until way too late :D But then after that, every time some random error popped up, he was like... "solardev, what did you do this time!" Fool him once...
  - 3y ago
rvba 3y ago
When you maximize a video for full screen you get those messages that give a warning. Those seem to be impossible to remove due to a potential of abuse by hackers.
frereubu 3y ago
For those adding a TLDR here - the enjoyment of this kind of story is not in the bare facts, it's in the telling, surely?
- tgv 3y ago
  Indeed. We, technical folks for all I know, simply don't expect the answer. I was trying to guess what was happening while reading, and was pleasantly surprised. Summarizing it is like TL;DR Your mom
csours 3y ago
I'm left handed, and I previously put my mouse on the left side of the keyboard. I eventually stopped because video games assume you'll use your left hand on the keyboard for wasd movement etc. I blame this for my poor performance, I used to be good at video games. Anyway, one day at work, my team lead comes over and tries to use my mouse to show me something. It's not moving. They do a double take, pick up the mouse, and realize it's an orange that was sitting to the right side of my keyboard.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  That’s hilarious. I was once in a lecture hall with a friend who was a lefty. I forgot my mouse that day and was using my trackpad. But after break I instinctively came back, sat down, put my hand on my mouse and began driving. He looks at me, my hand on his, on his mouse, and just says, “this isn’t pottery.”
  - scooke 3y ago
    I feel like someone ought to acknowledge the Ghost reference for you. Thanks.
  - heelix 3y ago
    Pulled a funny on the developer in the cube across from me. Plugged in a second mouse into his computer, and would occasionally wiggle it a bit. He was absolutely sure the office was monitoring everything he did. "It moved again!" Walk around to his side -- nothing. "I'm not crazy. It moved"
    - drewzero1 3y ago
      We did that in my office one April Fools' Day. Switched the wireless receivers on the mice of two coworkers whose desks were across from each other. It was a funny moment but of course they figured it out quickly!
- _puk 3y ago
  One favourite is to simply spin the magic mouse 180 degrees on the desk.. Takes a few seconds to work out what is going on, every time:)
nullhole 3y ago
Funny that reading the manual was the source of, not the solution to, the problem. The British-sounding phrase "uppity know-it-all whose seniority level was substantially above their competency level"* is a nice one to put in the memory banks for future use. This reminds me of the classic web-comedy 'The Website Is Down', the first episode of which has a version of the error path in question as a plot point. * To be clear to those who didn't read the article, the user in question was not in that category
- melagonster 3y ago
  maybe this is the point. the user is so friendly that op remember him.
mrweasel 3y ago
Years back I was called in to our accountants office due to a "bug" in SAP. I was demonstrated that when you try to do so-and-so it would not work. After clicking around and filling in a few fields an error message appeared and the accountant made a sound of annoyance and quickly closed the popup with the error, not reading or processing it's content. I was just presented with "See, doesn't work!". Okay, but can we do it again and you don't close the error box? Second time around she refrained from closing the error message, which VERY clearly stated that she had forgotten to fill in a field in the previous form. I just walked away quietly.
- wredue 3y ago
  Sadly, this affliction impacts even the tech savvy. It’s super annoying to get a random teams call from a co-worker, who proceeds to instantly “OKAY” past the error message for the third time that day. Just read the message dude. How many times have we been over this.
tecoholic 3y ago
Reminds me of the time when an aunt of mine complained that the clock in her android phone doesn’t work. Nor can she launch any of the apps on the home screen except the home row (bottom one with phone and contacts). She has been opening the full app drawer for all her apps. Her grandson had taken a screenshot of the phone’s home screen, set it as the wallpaper and removed everything except the bottom row icons.
pimlottc 3y ago
This is a legit problem when including screenshots in a document. The worst is when there's a screenshot of a video player, with a big play button on the thumbnail. Your brain just wants to click it and doesn't understand why it won't play. So please, when you're including screenshots, put a border around it, or an overlay, or a caption, anything that helps make it clear this is just a still image and not an active control!
- lhamil64 3y ago
  Hell, I'm a software engineer and have made this mistake with video players a couple times. Makes me feel pretty dumb.
johnchristopher 3y ago
Be me. Be doing website mock-ups with Photoshop before coding them (which was the style at the time), different mock-ups, send different JPEGs, even some PSD to toggle stuff. Client says "Anon, site is broken, clicking links don't work !". back and forth on the phone Turns out client is clicking on links in the PSD. Did I mention client was running their own 2 person design agency at the time ?
wkjagt 3y ago
I was recently following along with a video tutorial (on FreeRTOS) where the person was live coding in VSCode, which is what I also use. He would type in code while also reading the code out loud. I was switching between the video and my own editor to type along with him, and at the same time try out some other stuff in the same code. I stepped away for something, and when I came back, clicked in my code to place the cursor where I thought I had left, and to my surprise the editor started to write the code by itself while also reading it out loud. It was of course the video, but I was pretty tired and it took me a bit to realize. A very confusing experience.

59 points by LorenDB 3y ago

TLDR; The user clicked a screenshot of Excel in the documentation, thought it was the app itself, and got surprised it didn't react to input.

tom_ 3y ago
This sort of thing trips me up all the time when I'm collecting screen grabs.
- rob74 3y ago
  Especially on a smartphone - tap... tap... tap......??? d'oh!
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
Shades of the end of The Website is Down (2009) https://youtu.be/uRGljemfwUE https://youtu.be/uRGljemfwUE

TeMPOraL 3y ago

TL;DR: > one of his colleagues had written a Word document with instructions on how to use Excel. To help the account managers get the message, that document included lots of illustrative screenshots. > Jeremy realized his user had clicked on a screenshot, which had grown to a size at which it was easily mistaken for Excel itself. This also explained why it would not accept input. Also, for context, this happened in "late 1990s".

passwordoops 3y ago

Long winded but the punchline is worth it

solardev 3y ago

The best office prank I ever pulled was on a fellow dev, probably the smartest guy in the room. He came back from lunch and all of his apps stopped working. He couldn't launch anything. He restarted the computer and still nothing would start. He eventually figured out that launching an app from search works, but nothing would launch from his desktop shortcuts. That's because while he was having lunch, I took a screenshot of his desktop, set that screenshot as the desktop background, and then hid the dock and deleted all his real icons :) (Well, put them in a folder for easy recovery). He just kept clicking and clicking on that screenshot for way too long. Best 15 minutes of my life...

lajosbacs 3y ago
Of course it is a nice prank, but best 15 minutes?
- solardev 3y ago
  The secret to happiness is low expectations :)
a012 3y ago
It’s fun and game but nowadays if someone didn’t lock their computer when away then we’ll have a security incident to report
- solardev 3y ago
  It gets better. I think it was actually set to auto lock after a minute or two, but I had practiced the routine on my own computer a few times first and managed to get it down to like ten seconds. He went to the bathroom right before heading out for lunch. I had my window. I did it quickly, and then joined him for lunch, keeping a straight face the whole time. When we came back I nonchalantly asked about some code for him to review but he was like hold on... Didn't suspect me until way too late :D But then after that, every time some random error popped up, he was like... "solardev, what did you do this time!" Fool him once...
- 3y ago

rvba 3y ago

When you maximize a video for full screen you get those messages that give a warning. Those seem to be impossible to remove due to a potential of abuse by hackers.

frereubu 3y ago

For those adding a TLDR here - the enjoyment of this kind of story is not in the bare facts, it's in the telling, surely?

tgv 3y ago
Indeed. We, technical folks for all I know, simply don't expect the answer. I was trying to guess what was happening while reading, and was pleasantly surprised. Summarizing it is like TL;DR Your mom

csours 3y ago

I'm left handed, and I previously put my mouse on the left side of the keyboard. I eventually stopped because video games assume you'll use your left hand on the keyboard for wasd movement etc. I blame this for my poor performance, I used to be good at video games. Anyway, one day at work, my team lead comes over and tries to use my mouse to show me something. It's not moving. They do a double take, pick up the mouse, and realize it's an orange that was sitting to the right side of my keyboard.

Waterluvian 3y ago
That’s hilarious. I was once in a lecture hall with a friend who was a lefty. I forgot my mouse that day and was using my trackpad. But after break I instinctively came back, sat down, put my hand on my mouse and began driving. He looks at me, my hand on his, on his mouse, and just says, “this isn’t pottery.”
- scooke 3y ago
  I feel like someone ought to acknowledge the Ghost reference for you. Thanks.
- heelix 3y ago
  Pulled a funny on the developer in the cube across from me. Plugged in a second mouse into his computer, and would occasionally wiggle it a bit. He was absolutely sure the office was monitoring everything he did. "It moved again!" Walk around to his side -- nothing. "I'm not crazy. It moved"
  - drewzero1 3y ago
    We did that in my office one April Fools' Day. Switched the wireless receivers on the mice of two coworkers whose desks were across from each other. It was a funny moment but of course they figured it out quickly!
_puk 3y ago
One favourite is to simply spin the magic mouse 180 degrees on the desk.. Takes a few seconds to work out what is going on, every time:)

nullhole 3y ago

Funny that reading the manual was the source of, not the solution to, the problem. The British-sounding phrase "uppity know-it-all whose seniority level was substantially above their competency level"* is a nice one to put in the memory banks for future use. This reminds me of the classic web-comedy 'The Website Is Down', the first episode of which has a version of the error path in question as a plot point. * To be clear to those who didn't read the article, the user in question was not in that category

melagonster 3y ago
maybe this is the point. the user is so friendly that op remember him.

mrweasel 3y ago

Years back I was called in to our accountants office due to a "bug" in SAP. I was demonstrated that when you try to do so-and-so it would not work. After clicking around and filling in a few fields an error message appeared and the accountant made a sound of annoyance and quickly closed the popup with the error, not reading or processing it's content. I was just presented with "See, doesn't work!". Okay, but can we do it again and you don't close the error box? Second time around she refrained from closing the error message, which VERY clearly stated that she had forgotten to fill in a field in the previous form. I just walked away quietly.

wredue 3y ago
Sadly, this affliction impacts even the tech savvy. It’s super annoying to get a random teams call from a co-worker, who proceeds to instantly “OKAY” past the error message for the third time that day. Just read the message dude. How many times have we been over this.

tecoholic 3y ago

Reminds me of the time when an aunt of mine complained that the clock in her android phone doesn’t work. Nor can she launch any of the apps on the home screen except the home row (bottom one with phone and contacts). She has been opening the full app drawer for all her apps. Her grandson had taken a screenshot of the phone’s home screen, set it as the wallpaper and removed everything except the bottom row icons.

pimlottc 3y ago

This is a legit problem when including screenshots in a document. The worst is when there's a screenshot of a video player, with a big play button on the thumbnail. Your brain just wants to click it and doesn't understand why it won't play. So please, when you're including screenshots, put a border around it, or an overlay, or a caption, anything that helps make it clear this is just a still image and not an active control!

lhamil64 3y ago
Hell, I'm a software engineer and have made this mistake with video players a couple times. Makes me feel pretty dumb.

johnchristopher 3y ago

Be me. Be doing website mock-ups with Photoshop before coding them (which was the style at the time), different mock-ups, send different JPEGs, even some PSD to toggle stuff. Client says "Anon, site is broken, clicking links don't work !". back and forth on the phone Turns out client is clicking on links in the PSD. Did I mention client was running their own 2 person design agency at the time ?

wkjagt 3y ago

I was recently following along with a video tutorial (on FreeRTOS) where the person was live coding in VSCode, which is what I also use. He would type in code while also reading the code out loud. I was switching between the video and my own editor to type along with him, and at the same time try out some other stuff in the same code. I stepped away for something, and when I came back, clicked in my code to place the cursor where I thought I had left, and to my surprise the editor started to write the code by itself while also reading it out loud. It was of course the video, but I was pretty tired and it took me a bit to realize. A very confusing experience.