Do your computer skills make some people uncomfortable?
I use hot keys extensively. It bothers some people when they can’t track what I’m doing because the mouse isn’t moving. “Print that off, Dutchess.”
“Done.”
“I SAID PRINT THAT OFF!”
“I did. It’s printing now!”
Hears the sound of the printer printing, walks away in disgust.
I once had a job at our local newspaper that required me to note dollar amounts on a ledger. They handed me a long, green ledger book and a calculator. I said, “Can I make a spread sheet to calculate it automatically?”
Blank look.
I was responsible for some advertising, and of course words needed to be spelled correctly. They handed me a paper back dictionary. I asked if I could download spell check.
Blank look.
I needed to send out reminder notices to those who advertised with us consistently. I made a master letter in Word, just filled in the names and tweaked the letter if needed.
Whispers “What is she doing???”
They seriously wanted things to run the way they did in the 60’s. Do not sent documents by email. Fax only. NO CHANGING!!!
I type 60 WPM and was told I needed to slow down….no reason given. Man, that trips me up when I have to force my fingers to go much slower than my brain. I’m far more likely to make mistakes.
I eventually lost that job because one of the older women there, who had been with the company for 40 years, didn’t like me.
Adverts ALWAYS say the want people with computer skills…but they don’t mean it.
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26 Answers
I get the opposite, they want to learn more!
I show others How to do things quicker, although I do not have some of the
above skills that you say.
One could have had an opportunity to TEACH and get paid for upgrading
the coworkers?
That company lost a valuable employee who could have taught them.
Not if they don’t want to learn.
Find your own niche.
To teach to the community.
How about…I get a Bachelors degree in Education! Wait. I already have one.
That’s a thought though…Hmmmm.
I am not a big computer fan, I enjoy browsing the web, emailing and Fluther, and research on things of interest to me, but..I am not interested in being computer savvy for a job. I’d say I am middle of the road, love the internet but not into becoming super computer literate and working in a job that requires lots of program training.
I love all things computer!
only when they notice me on the other end of their web cam . . .
Will you come to work for me @Dutchess _lll? I need someone like you in my life.
The property management company I use still uses manual spreadsheets for all their apartments. They have thousands of units.
You don’t want to move to sunny California and manage apartment communities?
The managers have to to those creaking spreadsheets every month. It’s hard to find someone who is a great sales person and also good at the detail crap.
can you tell which way I lean?
LOL! Well, you sold ME @Judi! I would only move if I could bring my kids and grandkids with me. Oh yeah. And my husband. :)
Your sample spread sheet is ready @Judi!
I think some people are uncomfortable around computers, especially if they have difficulty catching on to all the programs and processes involved with them. It’s much easier for those people to make the people that are good with the computers feel bad than to try to improve their skills. Change is difficult for many people and although computers have been around for quite a while now, I think there are still a good bit of older companies that haven’t really fully bought in to using them.
I have always been open to change. I love learning. Being that closed minded is utterly incomprehensible to me.
I’ve used up all my questions for today, but I want to ask why change makes some people uncomfortable.
Mine freak some people out, but the ones that are most freaked out are those that have good-but-conventional computer skills. Like everything else, I tend to view things a bit differently, don’t always do things the same way others would do them, and rarely am able to communicate what I am doing, how, or why. I won’t hit the same keys you would. I may use the mouse, or I may use a keystroke command. (@Dutchess_III I don’t have my Nostromo at work, nor am I allowed to customize the shared work computer, so I occasionally have to do that sometimes.) And that just utterly confuses people and freaks them out.
I can understand that though since I am scared and confused by things I don’t understand. Like people. Change means leaving one’s comfort zone, something that is already traumatic for some, and force one to journey into the unknown, something that will have them gibbering in fear.
Personally, I find people that are that neophobic to not only be annoying, but actually genetically defective and thus need to be removed from the gene pool for the sake of our species.
REMOVE THEM FROM THE GENE POOL! Or at least drown them in the gene pool. Splendid idear, Jerv!
And Febreeze. Cause they stinky too.
@Dutchess_III Fax machine? We quit using them in our office ten years ago! But no one had one before 1985 or 86, to do things like the 60’s you’d have to get a bike messenger or a courier service.
Right, I know that Zen. I remember when faxes came out. I was just making a point. Yeah, in my most recent position my boss didn’t want me getting student transcripts by email. She insisted that they get faxed to me (which, of course, leaves you with a very poor quality copy) and then scan them and save them to a student’s online file.
Egh I feel your pain. It’s fucking annoying as hell to be honest. A simple example, I have a radio show, every show I do I have to fill out my playlist for the FCC. As it is, we have to hand write all the songs we play on paper.
“uhhhh heyyy wouldn’t it be way easier if we just made an excel file and had everyone just fill out their playlists on a premade template instead of having literally stakes upon stakes of paper that no one will ever be able to go through or read?”
“No no, that is way to complicated.”
“oh….”
Sadly, I run into this at work too. It’s especially problematic since I’m a CNC Machinist. For those that don’t know, CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control. Simple stuff can be done right at the machine, but longer programs are easier to do on the PC using a text editor with a full keyboard, copy/paste functionality, and a search/replace command. My boss uses the MS-DOS editor since it’s what he learned and he refuses to deal with the Windows-based editor. He knows copy/paste, but I blew his mind by using Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V instead of the menu. And don’t get me started on when the company tried to get him to learn MasterCAM….
and drunk uberbatman writes stakes upon stakes instead of stacks upon stacks…..fail
People who don’t use keyboard shortcuts make me uncomfortable. I’m getting impatient when looking at their screen.
“Too complicated…” I’ve heard that. It just FLOORS me.
@mattbrowne I found out about hot keys totally by accident, thanks to my 18 month old back in 1987. We were the first of our friends to have a home PC. I had my baby sitting on my lap, and she just started banging keys and things started happening on the screen! It was cool. In fact, that’s how I learn just about everything computer-wise, by accident. By making “mistakes” and taking note of what just happened and figuring out what I had just keyed on accident to cause that to happen. There are no mistakes on MY PC’s, ever. Just learning experiences!
In fact, I have found that F12 brings up a bunch of HTML stuff. I assume the JCL for the page / site. I can’t change anything, which is probably a good thing!
My sister graduated with a degree in computers. We got into a disagreement over hot keys. She said they weren’t any faster than a mouse and “That’s what the mouse is for!” I challenged her to a dew-ell. We had to start with our hands in our laps. I was going to print using hot keys while she used the mouse. “Go!” My hands flashed up, ctrl P, back in my lap before she even got the mouse to the icon. She refused to acknowledge that. She clicked “print” about 2 seconds after me and said, “See? The mouse is faster.”
Great story, @Dutchess_III !
There are not that many use cases where the mouse is faster, but they do exist. Parts of image editing, for example.
The mouse is also faster at the beginning when you change tools and have to face shortcut changes.
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