12 ms·

I get the feeling that the author was judging the person he was helping far more harshly than the perceived judgement she might have passed on him. Maybe she w

I get the feeling that the author was judging the person he was helping far more harshly than the perceived judgement she might have passed on him. Maybe she was tired, clearly she was frustrated, but it wasn't obvious that she held the author in any disdain, though the author seemed to perceive it. What we're sure of is that the author held her in such low regard. I wonder if she picked up on that. I suspect she did, and I suspect it contributes to the negative stereotypes that the author wanted to rail against by mentioning all this. > ‘Do you know where the proxy settings are?’ I asked, hopefully. > It took me about ten seconds to find and fill in the proxy settings. Well for Christ's sake don't ask her something she almost surely doesn't know if it only took you ten seconds of looking. Look for ten seconds first. The first rule of any educator is to never, under any circumstances, make someone feel inept. And it was so easily avoidable here. ~~~ Of course people can't use computers. They're not trying to use computers. They're trying to get X done. The computer is a device that, most of the time, just gets in the way of doing X. Just the way that cars are a device that get from point A to point B. Few poeple get in a car to drive. They get in a car to locate themselves to point B. In this case, the person can't use a computer because people like the author condescend a bit, fix the problem in ten seconds, and don't set them up to be just a bit wiser for next time. The important part of the story is the part where the author explains that on some networks, you need to set extra settings so the office network can communicate with the outside world network. I hope the author explained what it took him ten seconds to do, so that she might be able to help herself next time. The omission (and disdain) leads me to suspect not, or at least that actually helping her was not an important part of the story.

rhizome 13y ago
Maybe she was tired, clearly she was frustrated, but it wasn't obvious that she held the author in any disdain Are you kidding? She's a school teacher. Stress-free living at its best. It's been a long time since I've read an essay by an IT person so proud of their lack of bedside manner.
- codyb 13y ago
  Have you ever been a school teacher? Or was that sarcasm? I'm going to imagine there are quite a few school teachers who would not call their jobs stress free.
  - eieio 13y ago
    I'm not rhizome but I'm pretty positive that the "stress free living" comment is sarcasm.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    It was sarcasm.
- salem 13y ago
  Did you read the blog? He's a teacher first, and defacto admin second due to everyone else's laziness and ignorance. That takes a lot of patience.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  Here, Take mine: <sarcasm> </sarcasm>
ender7 13y ago
To extend your car analogy, I wonder if the author knows how to fix his own car? I certainly don't. I know it involves pistons and carburetors and...tubes.
- blakestein 13y ago
  The difference I see here is I don't think there's some sort of prevailing idea that young people all know how to fix their cars, like there is that they know how to use a computer.
  - notahacker 13y ago
    I see it as the opposite: there's no prevailing idea amongst mechanics that inexperienced drivers who rely on assistance to diagnose and fix simple engine faults are incapable of using the road
  - anfedorov 13y ago
    Knowing how to use a computer is a lot more integral to living in modern society than knowing how to use/debug a car, though. Especially in areas with good public transit, one can live life without knowing how to drive, much less fix a car. Computers, on the other hand, are quickly becoming our best windows into the world at large. Knowing the technical difference between China's great firewall, the NSA's snooping, and the the UK's proposed porn filter is vital for people making decisions about them, as well as educated voters.
  - drcube 13y ago
    I don't know about you, but in the lower class area where I grew up, every teenage boy was expected to know about engines and pistons and cam-shafts and gaskets and whatnot. Not that they did, mind you. It was enough to know a few makes and models so you could say "Gee look at that bad ass Thunderbird with a hemi!" when something cool drove by. That, and everyone had to pick a side in the Ford/Chevy debate, with a few parroted opinions to back up your choice. Actual mechanical ability was something most people just pretended to have. To be honest, it's not that different than with computers these days.
- 13y ago
GuiA 13y ago
This guy sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder. As you pointed out: >The first rule of any educator is to never, under any circumstances, make someone feel inept. And it was so easily avoidable here. There are many sentences in this article indicating that this is not an isolated, unique reaction from the poster. This paragraph especially irked me: > I’ve messed up, as I’m sure many of you have. When we purchased an XBox it was Techno-Dad to the rescue. I happily played about with the mess of cables and then created profiles for everyone. When my son’s MacBook was infected with the FlashBack virus Techno-Dad to the rescue. I looked up some on-line guides and then hammered away in the terminal until I had eradicated that bad-boy. When we purchased a ‘Family Raspberry Pi’ Techno-Dad to the rescue. I hooked it all up, flashed an OS to the SD-card and then sat back proudly, wondering why nobody other than me wanted to use the blasted thing. All through their lives, I’ve done it for them. Set-up new hardware, installed new software and acted as in-house technician whenever things went wrong. As a result, I have a family of digital illiterates. Well, maybe it shouldn't have been "techno dad to the rescue", but rather "dad spending a moment with his kids showing them how to setup a raspberry pi/their xbox/etc.". And if the kids aren't even interested in setting up their own XBox, well then that's their prerogative. Give a man a fish, etc. Addendum: when I was a pre-teen/teen, I spent all my free time learning about computers, reading programming books, etc. There was another kid just like me whom I hung out with, but it was just the two of us in our entire school. Nowadays, when I teach I meet kids who know python/html/php, fiddle with minecraft mods, jailbreak their android tablet so they can run a GBA emulator, etc. all the time. So I couldn't disagree more with OP's title. Having heavily worked with educators/as an educator has led me to believe that when someone complains that "kids can't X", it's more often than not their own shortcomings than the "kids'".
- MarcScott 13y ago
  That was my point when I said I've messed up. From now on I intend to spend more time teaching them rather than doing it for them. Believe me, I never intentionally make people feel inept. I'm patient in the classroom, and teach to the ability of my students.
- _xzxj 13y ago
  On the other hand, when I was a kid whenever I broke something on the computer it was my responsibility to fix it. My parents told me I broke it, so I'm able to fix it. So this particular paragraph really actually resonated with me, because if it weren't for my parents going "Well, you broke it, if you don't fix it it's going to stay broken." I probably wouldn't be nearly as computer savvy as I am today, and I probably wouldn't have gotten into programming (ok, maybe I would have, but certainly not as young as I did)
angersock 13y ago
The computer is a device that, most of the time, just gets in the way of doing X. I responded to this in somewhat more detail down below, but I'll be really blunt here: Their own fucking unwillingness to seek out knowledge and have the patience to learn to solve problems is what gets in the way of getting things done. And every IT person with bad manners or an unwillingness to teach whatever they know and answer questions is complicit in this farce.
- astral303 13y ago
  Just like their fucking unwillingness to learn how to fix a car that won't start is what gets in the way of them getting to work? Oh yeah, it was easy, the clutch pedal switch failed, duh, that's a $5 part and 10 minutes to replace. What do you mean, you missed a day of work for that, you fucking idiot?
  - angersock 13y ago
    There is quite a difference between fixing a car and fixing computers. In your example, you need to fix a specific broken mechanical part, which takes time and resources to fix if it was designed to be fixed at all by a home user. In my example, the information is freely available, costs nothing to duplicate or implement, and is simply a small investment of time--which will pay huge dividends if made. Most computers even come with all the tools needed to fix them, something which cannot be said for cars. It just takes patience.
  - kmm 13y ago
    You're kidding if you think those are even of remotely comparable level of difficulty. I've fixed many small electronic or mechanical devices by just opening them up and looking at them. It's a lack of critical thinking and problem solving ability, that's all.
    - kbart 13y ago
      > It's a lack of critical thinking and problem solving ability, that's all. Exactly these abilities that most people do not have. And those who do are usually called "engineers", "programmers", "doctors" etc.
bndw 13y ago
thank you
Morphling 13y ago
I get your point and I usually try to gage the techincal level of the person I'm helping and how interested they are in learning new stuff and explain/fix accordingly, but the author still has a point, way too many people these days have no idea how to do anything on a computer and the situation only gets worse when parents try to tell the world that their kids are "tech natives" when in fact they know nothing more than how some socialnetwork's UI works. For example I graduate couple years ago from basic computer science vocational institution where we learned how computer hardware works, how to install a new OS and basics of web developement (PHP & MySQL), but now all of my former class mates contact me for tech help through skype even though they should all be "IT literate", but it was just a degree with for most of them, something to waste couple years on to figure out what they wanted to do. Now I'm studying a computer science engineering degree and easily 1/3 of my class mates have no idea how to code or even how to use basic HTML and CSS tags and we've been at it for 2 years now, sure they are passing "Java 101", but if you gave them a task to write a piece of software most would just raise their hand in air and state "I can't do that" without even giving it a go and I know this I've been trying to recruit new blood to tech club where we write simple apps for Android phones for fun, experience and credit.
300bps 13y ago
I get the feeling that the author was judging the person he was helping far more harshly than the perceived judgement she might have passed on him. There are certain professions that get brought problems constantly by people who think nothing of having you work for them for free. Doctors get this constantly at parties, at the grocery store, functions for their kids, etc. "Does this look like anything to you?" To a much lesser extent, IT people get similar requests from people. I have been brought at least a dozen computers in the last year with desperate pleas of, "I have x years of pictures on this computer and it won't turn on!" Take a look and half the time they have a virus the other half their hard drive is dead. My profession is in corporate IT but they just know I "work with computers". So they trudge right over, notebook in hand asking me to recover their data. I've spent as long as 7 hours and as much as $50 for these data recovery jobs on things like circuit cooler and replacement hard drive circuit boards. The more appreciative always offer to pay. But I always decline because then I'm responsible for anything that doesn't work on that computer for the next 10 years. "You re-installed Windows nine years ago and last week my Caps Lock key broke, WHAT DID YOU DO?" The nicer ones end up buying me a case of beer then. So then I end up working hours on behalf of an aquaintances for beer instead of providing for my family at my typical $150 hourly rate. Ignorance is your right so long as you don't ask other people to clean up after you for free.
- ryanmcbride 13y ago
  >So they trudge right over, notebook in hand asking me to recover their data. I got this in spades at my last job. We were a web app startup, and the youngest people in a 13 story building. Everyone in the building knew we did something with computers, so they would never hesitate in bringing us their ancient machines and ask us to fix it, ask us to fix their network, in one case, ask us to do their daughter's final project for her intro to C++ class. People really do just assume that everything to do with computers is directly related, and that they can ask anyone to fix it for free because "it'll only take a second". I definitely got the feeling that the author had a bit of a chip on their shoulder, but I got through it and loved this article, because I have that same chip on my shoulder. edit: One cool thing about those old people asking us to fix their shit, was that I got to see an authentic modem from 1999. They wouldn't upgrade because they didn't want to have to change their email addresses.
GhotiFish 13y ago
This is how I keep myself from being angry at regular people just trying to use computers. I have a car, I just want to use my car. I don't really care all that much how it works (thought to be honest, combustion engines are pretty cool!). I'm vehicularaly inept. I can drive, but I can't diagnose and I can't troubleshoot (though I can change a wheel). In my position, It's my hope that the vehicular technicians opposite from me assist me in continuing to use my car. In response for that kindness, I'll assist them in using their computer.
- robbles 13y ago
  The difference here is that we're willing to pay those vehicular technicians a realistic amount of money for their expertise, and nobody expects a mechanic to fix your car for for free, even if it'll "only take a second". I also have a healthy respect for their skills, and if my car breaks down, I'd be embarrassed about my ignorance and inability to fix or diagnose the problem (and I suspect most people would too).
  - bennyg 13y ago
    It's because everyone says "time is money" but not one single person actually believes it. Mechanics make tangible shit happen, sometimes using new parts, etc. Software isn't tangible.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    Sorry your interactions have being so rough. I give tech support to my family for free, and people who are looking for a quick fix from me are often willing to pay for the privilege. I've heard stories like this quiet a bit though, but I don't think it is a universal attitude. and I will grant you, the situations are not entirely symmetric.
    - BruceIV 13y ago
      Yeah - I never want to get paid to do tech support - I generally find it either so trivial it's not worth charging for, or so hair-pullingly frustrating that no reasonable amount of money would be enough.
BWStearns 13y ago
>> The first rule of any educator is to never, under any circumstances, make someone feel inept. And it was so easily avoidable here. In none of these instances did anyone attempt to seek out knowledge. They were looking for a solution. If they had said "how do I [get on the network|reinstall the OS|rip this file off YouTube]?" then it would be a lot easier for me to dismiss him as a curmudgeonly holier-than-thou IT guy. I know plenty of people (and I even like some of them as people) who intentionally do not learn to do things on the computer because then they can't ask me to do it for them. When I like these people I make a subversive effort to teach them anyways, otherwise I just get it done for them to get them away from me, feelings be damned. Actual computer literacy (not MS Office literacy) is actually a necessary skill today in almost every office job. Knowing how to program? Probably not. Knowing how to connect to a network? Probably. Finally, it is so damned easy now to google something, that much of the described behavior is inexcusable. Oh, but your problem is connecting to the internet? It sure would be helpful if you had a small computer in your pocket that could independently connect to the internet over some infrastructure that wasn't dependent on your local network, bummer. </rant> But seriously we should actually be concerned about this and I hope that education does get better on this. I do fear that interfaces are almost too rich, meaning that it takes a concerted effort to "really" use a computer, unlike in even the recent past where you were forced to. Many people who were accidentally exposed to the more in depth aspect of computing and found it interesting would not have sought it out on their own, meaning that as a community we are losing out on that category of people going forward.
- bennyg 13y ago
  > In none of these instances did anyone attempt to seek out knowledge. They were looking for a solution. If they had said "how do I [get on the network|reinstall the OS|rip this file off YouTube]?" then it would be a lot easier for me to dismiss him as a curmudgeonly holier-than-thou IT guy. Still inexcusable, especially as an educator. Here's what I would of done: "Oh you can't connect to the internet? Watch this. See the little icon at the top that looks like ripples going up? This one? That's the hub for any wireless networking connection - just click it and pick an option. Each of those options is a network to connect to. The ones with little locks next to them means you need a password to connect. If you're ever having internet problems on your laptop, just check this icon out and see if you're connected." Then fix the situation for them. You still offered a solution, and they'll probably never come to you for help with that again - and whenever they hear a friend, they'll repeat it. It's really not complicated to explain AND fix the problem at the same time.
daraul 13y ago
The car analogy falls apart though, when you consider the complexity of the tasks that he's complaining about. We would rightly laugh at anyone who complained that their car wouldn't 'turn on' when they jammed their key into the gap between the ignition and the steering column, or because the car was out of fuel. We'd laugh if they complained that they can't see at night because they didn't turn the lights on, and needed reminders every time they drove at night to find the light switch. We'd laugh at someone who burned the car's engine and transmission up because they stomped on the gas pedal while the car was in park, because "when I press it the car usually goes forward but this time it didn't." Repeat, so on and so forth with every 'common' function in a car. The problem is that people aren't learning about these basic functions that are required in day-to-day operation of a computer, like they do with a car. The wifi is a good example: Someone who owns a laptop should have a cursory familiarity with the wireless networking functionality and be able to find and connect to networks, because a laptop is made to be portable and will therefore be expected to use unfamiliar networks. Granted, the proxy settings are somewhat more forgivable as that's a non-standard setting, but it still doesn't excuse the person's total inability to find the network. And the main point of the article stands as a rebuttal of the truism "Kids are better at computers", because they significantly aren't. They're only slightly less clueless than their parents.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The rebuttal to that is that people might be able to learn if software people didn't keep changing how it works. It's obvious on nearly every car since 1960 where the ignition is. Can you say the same for the Wi-Fi settings on computers?
  - daraul 13y ago
    I included the bit about the keys/ignition not because it's in an odd place, but because it's a mistake I make fairly often due to carelessness. Most people blindly reach for the ignition and that's fine; most people also don't immediately quit when they miss the hole on their first try.
  - BWStearns 13y ago
0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
Why is this guy so nice to people? Is he British?
altero 13y ago
> negative stereotypes that the author wanted to rail against by mentioning all this. > ‘Do you know where the proxy settings are?’ I asked, hopefully. > Well for Christ's sake don't ask her something she almost surely doesn't know Ehm, negative steretypes, ehm...
dsuth 13y ago
OTOH, if I've been summoned to fix something for you, and I introduce myself to you, you damn well better respond in a polite manner, not just hand me the offending object and glare at me silently. Manners go a long way. Honestly though, I question his whole premise. As he quite rightly points out, he can't fix a car (or probably wire a light fitting, fix a drainage system, or install an air conditioner), and nor should he. These roles have all been specialised, which improves their efficiency by allowing more complex and specialised techniques and hardware to be used. Computer systems are no different, and it not obvious to me that they should be an exception to this trend.
ceol 13y ago
I thought the author made a bunch of assumptions about her, too. Things like: She handed me her MacBook silently and the look on her face said it all. *Fix my computer geek, and hurry up about it.* That's quite a leap from merely the look on her face that you saw for all of 2 seconds before taking her laptop. To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She’d be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs, snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can’t display her PowerPoint on the IWB she’ll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with. Hooooly cow, that's quite a lot of bitterness. I'm surprised this was written for a website called "coding 2 learn" and not "people, who should never be in a position to teach, talk about why they hate others for no good reason." I’ve heard this sentence so many times now from students and staff, that I have a stock reaction. Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say ‘Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States… NO I WILL NOT HOLD, this is an emergency… Hello, Mister President, I’m afraid I have some bad news. I’ve just been informed that The Internet is not working.’ It just keeps getting worse and worse. That's probably the most painfully unfunny thing I've ever heard. I feel sorry for the people at his school; they got the stereotypical "caustic geek who thinks he's so much better than the plebes who don't know computers" as their network support. He treats everyone who approaches him for help like shit and then wonders why no one knows about computers? Real head-scratcher there.
- NoodleIncident 13y ago
  So what you are saying is that through some combination of luck and circumstance, you have never been treated like this? Good for you. Now stop calling people who have been liars.
  - ceol 13y ago
    What I'm saying is that rarely anyone is treated like that, and the OP sounds like he was just reading all of his insecurities into everyone he was assisting. But what do I know? It's not like there are loads of other people in this very thread saying the... same... Oh.
bane 13y ago
> Of course people can't use computers. They're not trying to use computers. They're trying to get X done. The computer is a device that, most of the time, just gets in the way of doing X. Far too many times, "Computer Nerds" think that using a computer == getting X done -- because X for them is satisfying some arcane ritual to get some computer usage accomplished. I'm reminded of Nick Burns from SNL http://vimeo.com/24762526 http://vimeo.com/24762526
aufreak3 13y ago
I believe you're just reading the surface message here. When I read the article, what I felt was "man, he's really railing against a general decline in curiosity". To paraphrase Marvin of HHGttG fame, our computers may lament so -- here I am, a GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER in your pocket, and all you ask me to do is to tell your friends what you had for lunch? Sadly, I've been part of this decline in curiosity as well. My son, when he was 4 years old, reminded me of that unadulterated fascination. (translated) son: "Look, dad!" me: (looking up) "What?" son: "Tree!" ... and I humbly thanked him for the lesson of missing a magnificent glorious tree right there in front of my eyes. Its a tree! It made itself mostly from the contents of air by trapping energy from the sun! How cool is that! All that said, the above anecdote is promising too. If only, we'd nurture our kids curiosity without providing canned solutions for them all the time, as the OP says. Again, different people are curious about different things. Some are curious about the workings of things around them, some about their origins/history, some about people, some about societies, some about how people think, some about plants and animals and life, some about the planet and the stars ... and some about stuff that they think has-nothing-to-do-whateosver-with-anything-but-in-the-end-hell-it-does (hint - math). Perhaps we're in an era where polymaths are rare, but curiosity, though heavily fragmented, does live on. edit: area->era
Schwolop 13y ago
In this case, the person can't use a computer because people like the author condescend a bit, fix the problem in ten seconds, and don't set them up to be just a bit wiser for next time. When I try to teach people how to fix their own problems, 90% of the time they don't care and "just want it fixed". 9% of the time they write down the instructions on a piece of paper that promptly gets lost, and the process of teaching them is considerably long than the quick fix. Perhaps 1% of the time they actually pay attention, get that spark in their eyes that shows they've learnt something new and interesting, and can demonstrate it back to me a week later. I con honestly commiserate with real teachers and lecturers now - if the ratios are anything like these it must be the most soul crushing job on the planet. Ultimately, I've learnt that 99% of the time I'm better off fixing things quickly and moving on. I'm hoping I can instil (heh - I typed "install" first time around) curiosity in my children such that they can learn to help themselves, but my wife, parents, parents-in-law, brothers, and most of my friends are a lost cause by this point in their lives.

rhizome 13y ago

Maybe she was tired, clearly she was frustrated, but it wasn't obvious that she held the author in any disdain Are you kidding? She's a school teacher. Stress-free living at its best. It's been a long time since I've read an essay by an IT person so proud of their lack of bedside manner.

codyb 13y ago
Have you ever been a school teacher? Or was that sarcasm? I'm going to imagine there are quite a few school teachers who would not call their jobs stress free.
- eieio 13y ago
  I'm not rhizome but I'm pretty positive that the "stress free living" comment is sarcasm.
- rhizome 13y ago
  It was sarcasm.
salem 13y ago
Did you read the blog? He's a teacher first, and defacto admin second due to everyone else's laziness and ignorance. That takes a lot of patience.
GhotiFish 13y ago
Here, Take mine: <sarcasm> </sarcasm>

ender7 13y ago

To extend your car analogy, I wonder if the author knows how to fix his own car? I certainly don't. I know it involves pistons and carburetors and...tubes.

blakestein 13y ago
The difference I see here is I don't think there's some sort of prevailing idea that young people all know how to fix their cars, like there is that they know how to use a computer.
- notahacker 13y ago
  I see it as the opposite: there's no prevailing idea amongst mechanics that inexperienced drivers who rely on assistance to diagnose and fix simple engine faults are incapable of using the road
- anfedorov 13y ago
  Knowing how to use a computer is a lot more integral to living in modern society than knowing how to use/debug a car, though. Especially in areas with good public transit, one can live life without knowing how to drive, much less fix a car. Computers, on the other hand, are quickly becoming our best windows into the world at large. Knowing the technical difference between China's great firewall, the NSA's snooping, and the the UK's proposed porn filter is vital for people making decisions about them, as well as educated voters.
- drcube 13y ago
  I don't know about you, but in the lower class area where I grew up, every teenage boy was expected to know about engines and pistons and cam-shafts and gaskets and whatnot. Not that they did, mind you. It was enough to know a few makes and models so you could say "Gee look at that bad ass Thunderbird with a hemi!" when something cool drove by. That, and everyone had to pick a side in the Ford/Chevy debate, with a few parroted opinions to back up your choice. Actual mechanical ability was something most people just pretended to have. To be honest, it's not that different than with computers these days.
13y ago

GuiA 13y ago

This guy sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder. As you pointed out: >The first rule of any educator is to never, under any circumstances, make someone feel inept. And it was so easily avoidable here. There are many sentences in this article indicating that this is not an isolated, unique reaction from the poster. This paragraph especially irked me: > I’ve messed up, as I’m sure many of you have. When we purchased an XBox it was Techno-Dad to the rescue. I happily played about with the mess of cables and then created profiles for everyone. When my son’s MacBook was infected with the FlashBack virus Techno-Dad to the rescue. I looked up some on-line guides and then hammered away in the terminal until I had eradicated that bad-boy. When we purchased a ‘Family Raspberry Pi’ Techno-Dad to the rescue. I hooked it all up, flashed an OS to the SD-card and then sat back proudly, wondering why nobody other than me wanted to use the blasted thing. All through their lives, I’ve done it for them. Set-up new hardware, installed new software and acted as in-house technician whenever things went wrong. As a result, I have a family of digital illiterates. Well, maybe it shouldn't have been "techno dad to the rescue", but rather "dad spending a moment with his kids showing them how to setup a raspberry pi/their xbox/etc.". And if the kids aren't even interested in setting up their own XBox, well then that's their prerogative. Give a man a fish, etc. Addendum: when I was a pre-teen/teen, I spent all my free time learning about computers, reading programming books, etc. There was another kid just like me whom I hung out with, but it was just the two of us in our entire school. Nowadays, when I teach I meet kids who know python/html/php, fiddle with minecraft mods, jailbreak their android tablet so they can run a GBA emulator, etc. all the time. So I couldn't disagree more with OP's title. Having heavily worked with educators/as an educator has led me to believe that when someone complains that "kids can't X", it's more often than not their own shortcomings than the "kids'".

MarcScott 13y ago
That was my point when I said I've messed up. From now on I intend to spend more time teaching them rather than doing it for them. Believe me, I never intentionally make people feel inept. I'm patient in the classroom, and teach to the ability of my students.
_xzxj 13y ago
On the other hand, when I was a kid whenever I broke something on the computer it was my responsibility to fix it. My parents told me I broke it, so I'm able to fix it. So this particular paragraph really actually resonated with me, because if it weren't for my parents going "Well, you broke it, if you don't fix it it's going to stay broken." I probably wouldn't be nearly as computer savvy as I am today, and I probably wouldn't have gotten into programming (ok, maybe I would have, but certainly not as young as I did)

angersock 13y ago

The computer is a device that, most of the time, just gets in the way of doing X. I responded to this in somewhat more detail down below, but I'll be really blunt here: Their own fucking unwillingness to seek out knowledge and have the patience to learn to solve problems is what gets in the way of getting things done. And every IT person with bad manners or an unwillingness to teach whatever they know and answer questions is complicit in this farce.

astral303 13y ago
Just like their fucking unwillingness to learn how to fix a car that won't start is what gets in the way of them getting to work? Oh yeah, it was easy, the clutch pedal switch failed, duh, that's a $5 part and 10 minutes to replace. What do you mean, you missed a day of work for that, you fucking idiot?
- angersock 13y ago
  There is quite a difference between fixing a car and fixing computers. In your example, you need to fix a specific broken mechanical part, which takes time and resources to fix if it was designed to be fixed at all by a home user. In my example, the information is freely available, costs nothing to duplicate or implement, and is simply a small investment of time--which will pay huge dividends if made. Most computers even come with all the tools needed to fix them, something which cannot be said for cars. It just takes patience.
- kmm 13y ago
  You're kidding if you think those are even of remotely comparable level of difficulty. I've fixed many small electronic or mechanical devices by just opening them up and looking at them. It's a lack of critical thinking and problem solving ability, that's all.
  - kbart 13y ago
    > It's a lack of critical thinking and problem solving ability, that's all. Exactly these abilities that most people do not have. And those who do are usually called "engineers", "programmers", "doctors" etc.

bndw 13y ago

thank you

Morphling 13y ago

I get your point and I usually try to gage the techincal level of the person I'm helping and how interested they are in learning new stuff and explain/fix accordingly, but the author still has a point, way too many people these days have no idea how to do anything on a computer and the situation only gets worse when parents try to tell the world that their kids are "tech natives" when in fact they know nothing more than how some socialnetwork's UI works. For example I graduate couple years ago from basic computer science vocational institution where we learned how computer hardware works, how to install a new OS and basics of web developement (PHP & MySQL), but now all of my former class mates contact me for tech help through skype even though they should all be "IT literate", but it was just a degree with for most of them, something to waste couple years on to figure out what they wanted to do. Now I'm studying a computer science engineering degree and easily 1/3 of my class mates have no idea how to code or even how to use basic HTML and CSS tags and we've been at it for 2 years now, sure they are passing "Java 101", but if you gave them a task to write a piece of software most would just raise their hand in air and state "I can't do that" without even giving it a go and I know this I've been trying to recruit new blood to tech club where we write simple apps for Android phones for fun, experience and credit.

300bps 13y ago

I get the feeling that the author was judging the person he was helping far more harshly than the perceived judgement she might have passed on him. There are certain professions that get brought problems constantly by people who think nothing of having you work for them for free. Doctors get this constantly at parties, at the grocery store, functions for their kids, etc. "Does this look like anything to you?" To a much lesser extent, IT people get similar requests from people. I have been brought at least a dozen computers in the last year with desperate pleas of, "I have x years of pictures on this computer and it won't turn on!" Take a look and half the time they have a virus the other half their hard drive is dead. My profession is in corporate IT but they just know I "work with computers". So they trudge right over, notebook in hand asking me to recover their data. I've spent as long as 7 hours and as much as $50 for these data recovery jobs on things like circuit cooler and replacement hard drive circuit boards. The more appreciative always offer to pay. But I always decline because then I'm responsible for anything that doesn't work on that computer for the next 10 years. "You re-installed Windows nine years ago and last week my Caps Lock key broke, WHAT DID YOU DO?" The nicer ones end up buying me a case of beer then. So then I end up working hours on behalf of an aquaintances for beer instead of providing for my family at my typical $150 hourly rate. Ignorance is your right so long as you don't ask other people to clean up after you for free.

ryanmcbride 13y ago
>So they trudge right over, notebook in hand asking me to recover their data. I got this in spades at my last job. We were a web app startup, and the youngest people in a 13 story building. Everyone in the building knew we did something with computers, so they would never hesitate in bringing us their ancient machines and ask us to fix it, ask us to fix their network, in one case, ask us to do their daughter's final project for her intro to C++ class. People really do just assume that everything to do with computers is directly related, and that they can ask anyone to fix it for free because "it'll only take a second". I definitely got the feeling that the author had a bit of a chip on their shoulder, but I got through it and loved this article, because I have that same chip on my shoulder. edit: One cool thing about those old people asking us to fix their shit, was that I got to see an authentic modem from 1999. They wouldn't upgrade because they didn't want to have to change their email addresses.

GhotiFish 13y ago

This is how I keep myself from being angry at regular people just trying to use computers. I have a car, I just want to use my car. I don't really care all that much how it works (thought to be honest, combustion engines are pretty cool!). I'm vehicularaly inept. I can drive, but I can't diagnose and I can't troubleshoot (though I can change a wheel). In my position, It's my hope that the vehicular technicians opposite from me assist me in continuing to use my car. In response for that kindness, I'll assist them in using their computer.

robbles 13y ago
The difference here is that we're willing to pay those vehicular technicians a realistic amount of money for their expertise, and nobody expects a mechanic to fix your car for for free, even if it'll "only take a second". I also have a healthy respect for their skills, and if my car breaks down, I'd be embarrassed about my ignorance and inability to fix or diagnose the problem (and I suspect most people would too).
- bennyg 13y ago
  It's because everyone says "time is money" but not one single person actually believes it. Mechanics make tangible shit happen, sometimes using new parts, etc. Software isn't tangible.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  Sorry your interactions have being so rough. I give tech support to my family for free, and people who are looking for a quick fix from me are often willing to pay for the privilege. I've heard stories like this quiet a bit though, but I don't think it is a universal attitude. and I will grant you, the situations are not entirely symmetric.
  - BruceIV 13y ago
    Yeah - I never want to get paid to do tech support - I generally find it either so trivial it's not worth charging for, or so hair-pullingly frustrating that no reasonable amount of money would be enough.

BWStearns 13y ago

>> The first rule of any educator is to never, under any circumstances, make someone feel inept. And it was so easily avoidable here. In none of these instances did anyone attempt to seek out knowledge. They were looking for a solution. If they had said "how do I [get on the network|reinstall the OS|rip this file off YouTube]?" then it would be a lot easier for me to dismiss him as a curmudgeonly holier-than-thou IT guy. I know plenty of people (and I even like some of them as people) who intentionally do not learn to do things on the computer because then they can't ask me to do it for them. When I like these people I make a subversive effort to teach them anyways, otherwise I just get it done for them to get them away from me, feelings be damned. Actual computer literacy (not MS Office literacy) is actually a necessary skill today in almost every office job. Knowing how to program? Probably not. Knowing how to connect to a network? Probably. Finally, it is so damned easy now to google something, that much of the described behavior is inexcusable. Oh, but your problem is connecting to the internet? It sure would be helpful if you had a small computer in your pocket that could independently connect to the internet over some infrastructure that wasn't dependent on your local network, bummer. </rant> But seriously we should actually be concerned about this and I hope that education does get better on this. I do fear that interfaces are almost too rich, meaning that it takes a concerted effort to "really" use a computer, unlike in even the recent past where you were forced to. Many people who were accidentally exposed to the more in depth aspect of computing and found it interesting would not have sought it out on their own, meaning that as a community we are losing out on that category of people going forward.

bennyg 13y ago
> In none of these instances did anyone attempt to seek out knowledge. They were looking for a solution. If they had said "how do I [get on the network|reinstall the OS|rip this file off YouTube]?" then it would be a lot easier for me to dismiss him as a curmudgeonly holier-than-thou IT guy. Still inexcusable, especially as an educator. Here's what I would of done: "Oh you can't connect to the internet? Watch this. See the little icon at the top that looks like ripples going up? This one? That's the hub for any wireless networking connection - just click it and pick an option. Each of those options is a network to connect to. The ones with little locks next to them means you need a password to connect. If you're ever having internet problems on your laptop, just check this icon out and see if you're connected." Then fix the situation for them. You still offered a solution, and they'll probably never come to you for help with that again - and whenever they hear a friend, they'll repeat it. It's really not complicated to explain AND fix the problem at the same time.

daraul 13y ago

The car analogy falls apart though, when you consider the complexity of the tasks that he's complaining about. We would rightly laugh at anyone who complained that their car wouldn't 'turn on' when they jammed their key into the gap between the ignition and the steering column, or because the car was out of fuel. We'd laugh if they complained that they can't see at night because they didn't turn the lights on, and needed reminders every time they drove at night to find the light switch. We'd laugh at someone who burned the car's engine and transmission up because they stomped on the gas pedal while the car was in park, because "when I press it the car usually goes forward but this time it didn't." Repeat, so on and so forth with every 'common' function in a car. The problem is that people aren't learning about these basic functions that are required in day-to-day operation of a computer, like they do with a car. The wifi is a good example: Someone who owns a laptop should have a cursory familiarity with the wireless networking functionality and be able to find and connect to networks, because a laptop is made to be portable and will therefore be expected to use unfamiliar networks. Granted, the proxy settings are somewhat more forgivable as that's a non-standard setting, but it still doesn't excuse the person's total inability to find the network. And the main point of the article stands as a rebuttal of the truism "Kids are better at computers", because they significantly aren't. They're only slightly less clueless than their parents.

rayiner 13y ago
The rebuttal to that is that people might be able to learn if software people didn't keep changing how it works. It's obvious on nearly every car since 1960 where the ignition is. Can you say the same for the Wi-Fi settings on computers?
- daraul 13y ago
  I included the bit about the keys/ignition not because it's in an odd place, but because it's a mistake I make fairly often due to carelessness. Most people blindly reach for the ignition and that's fine; most people also don't immediately quit when they miss the hole on their first try.
- BWStearns 13y ago

0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago

Why is this guy so nice to people? Is he British?

altero 13y ago

> negative stereotypes that the author wanted to rail against by mentioning all this. > ‘Do you know where the proxy settings are?’ I asked, hopefully. > Well for Christ's sake don't ask her something she almost surely doesn't know Ehm, negative steretypes, ehm...

dsuth 13y ago

OTOH, if I've been summoned to fix something for you, and I introduce myself to you, you damn well better respond in a polite manner, not just hand me the offending object and glare at me silently. Manners go a long way. Honestly though, I question his whole premise. As he quite rightly points out, he can't fix a car (or probably wire a light fitting, fix a drainage system, or install an air conditioner), and nor should he. These roles have all been specialised, which improves their efficiency by allowing more complex and specialised techniques and hardware to be used. Computer systems are no different, and it not obvious to me that they should be an exception to this trend.

ceol 13y ago

I thought the author made a bunch of assumptions about her, too. Things like: She handed me her MacBook silently and the look on her face said it all. *Fix my computer geek, and hurry up about it.* That's quite a leap from merely the look on her face that you saw for all of 2 seconds before taking her laptop. To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She’d be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs, snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can’t display her PowerPoint on the IWB she’ll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with. Hooooly cow, that's quite a lot of bitterness. I'm surprised this was written for a website called "coding 2 learn" and not "people, who should never be in a position to teach, talk about why they hate others for no good reason." I’ve heard this sentence so many times now from students and staff, that I have a stock reaction. Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say ‘Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States… NO I WILL NOT HOLD, this is an emergency… Hello, Mister President, I’m afraid I have some bad news. I’ve just been informed that The Internet is not working.’ It just keeps getting worse and worse. That's probably the most painfully unfunny thing I've ever heard. I feel sorry for the people at his school; they got the stereotypical "caustic geek who thinks he's so much better than the plebes who don't know computers" as their network support. He treats everyone who approaches him for help like shit and then wonders why no one knows about computers? Real head-scratcher there.

NoodleIncident 13y ago
So what you are saying is that through some combination of luck and circumstance, you have never been treated like this? Good for you. Now stop calling people who have been liars.
- ceol 13y ago
  What I'm saying is that rarely anyone is treated like that, and the OP sounds like he was just reading all of his insecurities into everyone he was assisting. But what do I know? It's not like there are loads of other people in this very thread saying the... same... Oh.

bane 13y ago

> Of course people can't use computers. They're not trying to use computers. They're trying to get X done. The computer is a device that, most of the time, just gets in the way of doing X. Far too many times, "Computer Nerds" think that using a computer == getting X done -- because X for them is satisfying some arcane ritual to get some computer usage accomplished. I'm reminded of Nick Burns from SNL http://vimeo.com/24762526 http://vimeo.com/24762526

aufreak3 13y ago

I believe you're just reading the surface message here. When I read the article, what I felt was "man, he's really railing against a general decline in curiosity". To paraphrase Marvin of HHGttG fame, our computers may lament so -- here I am, a GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER in your pocket, and all you ask me to do is to tell your friends what you had for lunch? Sadly, I've been part of this decline in curiosity as well. My son, when he was 4 years old, reminded me of that unadulterated fascination. (translated) son: "Look, dad!" me: (looking up) "What?" son: "Tree!" ... and I humbly thanked him for the lesson of missing a magnificent glorious tree right there in front of my eyes. Its a tree! It made itself mostly from the contents of air by trapping energy from the sun! How cool is that! All that said, the above anecdote is promising too. If only, we'd nurture our kids curiosity without providing canned solutions for them all the time, as the OP says. Again, different people are curious about different things. Some are curious about the workings of things around them, some about their origins/history, some about people, some about societies, some about how people think, some about plants and animals and life, some about the planet and the stars ... and some about stuff that they think has-nothing-to-do-whateosver-with-anything-but-in-the-end-hell-it-does (hint - math). Perhaps we're in an era where polymaths are rare, but curiosity, though heavily fragmented, does live on. edit: area->era

Schwolop 13y ago

In this case, the person can't use a computer because people like the author condescend a bit, fix the problem in ten seconds, and don't set them up to be just a bit wiser for next time. When I try to teach people how to fix their own problems, 90% of the time they don't care and "just want it fixed". 9% of the time they write down the instructions on a piece of paper that promptly gets lost, and the process of teaching them is considerably long than the quick fix. Perhaps 1% of the time they actually pay attention, get that spark in their eyes that shows they've learnt something new and interesting, and can demonstrate it back to me a week later. I con honestly commiserate with real teachers and lecturers now - if the ratios are anything like these it must be the most soul crushing job on the planet. Ultimately, I've learnt that 99% of the time I'm better off fixing things quickly and moving on. I'm hoping I can instil (heh - I typed "install" first time around) curiosity in my children such that they can learn to help themselves, but my wife, parents, parents-in-law, brothers, and most of my friends are a lost cause by this point in their lives.