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I had the same problem with a past coworker, a "how is this person being paid to work with technology in any capacity" person doing development and having never

I had the same problem with a past coworker, a "how is this person being paid to work with technology in any capacity" person doing development and having never learned how to read graphs ("the CPU is at the top of the graph, so that is the cause of the performance problem" was common). Or knowing that Excel could do visualizations of data. And I found myself doing the "Blatantly type their question into google right in front of them and click on the first link" thing and being super short and RTFM-y which made me feel bad afterward. But so resentful.

fallinghawks 12y ago
I had an IT job where I was the only person taking care of all office technology for 22 locations. This got bigger over time and I pushed management to get me some help. I got some halftime assistants, one of which was great, but he was a young guy and decided to move on after about 2 years (I was rather pleased this was the longest he had ever held a job!) Then the powers that be decided I needed a manager, and hired some old wreck retired from IBM. I have no idea why. Old? Male? Wore a suit and would be more presentable to the board than me (not hard)? It was certainly not for his knowledge. He couldn't fix a PC, diagnose Windows problems, or use a Unix command line, and actually added to my workload because he would break his computer and need me to fix it. A co-worker quietly told me he spent his day playing Solitaire and taking messages because he was unable to solve problems. He didn't seem to want to learn, either. That was the kicker. I would usually spend an hour a day teaching my previous assistant about networks or software, but this guy, his ignorance was just too big and he just didn't express any curiosity. I'm pretty sure his job was to collect a paycheck. I quit. There wasn't really much choice. I was overworked and insulted. And within 2 weeks he resigned as well.
- cxseven 12y ago
  You made the right choice.

fallinghawks 12y ago

I had an IT job where I was the only person taking care of all office technology for 22 locations. This got bigger over time and I pushed management to get me some help. I got some halftime assistants, one of which was great, but he was a young guy and decided to move on after about 2 years (I was rather pleased this was the longest he had ever held a job!) Then the powers that be decided I needed a manager, and hired some old wreck retired from IBM. I have no idea why. Old? Male? Wore a suit and would be more presentable to the board than me (not hard)? It was certainly not for his knowledge. He couldn't fix a PC, diagnose Windows problems, or use a Unix command line, and actually added to my workload because he would break his computer and need me to fix it. A co-worker quietly told me he spent his day playing Solitaire and taking messages because he was unable to solve problems. He didn't seem to want to learn, either. That was the kicker. I would usually spend an hour a day teaching my previous assistant about networks or software, but this guy, his ignorance was just too big and he just didn't express any curiosity. I'm pretty sure his job was to collect a paycheck. I quit. There wasn't really much choice. I was overworked and insulted. And within 2 weeks he resigned as well.

cxseven 12y ago
You made the right choice.