While helping my mother troubleshoot her phone:
I can’t do anything because the keyboard keeps going away
Everything I click on tries to take me to WalMart
It keeps saying the phone is overheating but it’s not overheating, should I download this program it’s recommending?
No! I didn’t download anything! I don’t download things! Wait… Is the app store considered “downloading”?
I can keep going lol
Fortunately my dad is a retired cybersecurity architect so they live as modern-day Luddites.
Don’t know about most painful, but it definitely sticks out.
My mother screamed for me at the top of her lungs on the other side of the apartment. I hurried into her office, where I see her pointing at the screen saying “FIX IT!” So I look at the screen and… it’s a save dialogue in Word, asking her if she wants to save her document.
Me: It’s asking you if you want to save the document.
Mother: Well how am I supposed to know that?
Me: Do you want to save the document?
M: I DON’T KNOW!!It’s like she saw the dialogue and her brain crashed. She definitely could’ve read and understood it, but just chose not to. That sort of thing was a frequent occurrence sadly.
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Thanks. Yeah, she’s a horrible and abusive person, and I’ve had zero contact with her for a year and a half now.
🚨
Helping my octogenarian mom with her iPhone is the most painful experience. She often calls me about something that has “popped up” in some app that she’s using. I tell her to just close it and she says “how?” I then say something like “just click the OK button … or the Done or Close buttons, that will be some unknown color … or click the X in the upper right or maybe the upper left corner … or click “Done” or “Close” in the toolbar, on the left or right sides … or maybe the thing has slid up from the bottom and you need to swipe down to get rid of it … or maybe you need to click the Home tab on the app’s bottom bar.”
I’ve actually been an iOS mobile developer for 15 years now. Anybody who thinks there’s any sort of consistent, intuitive design principles behind Apple products is insane.
At least it’s the same type of phone you use. My mom has a cheap android phone, with all sorts of crap and limitations from the provider. I guess it’s cheap, but sometimes it’s just not worth it. Anyhow, I haven’t used an Android phone in at least ten years, have no idea about all the crap on hers, and she doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe what she sees or does, but I’m supposed to help over the phone?
It’s much easier if she has an Android phone, you can just use TeamViewer to see and control her phone remotely https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.host.market
the fact that my grandmother absolutely, hard ass refuses to do anything that would improve her situation. Just bitches and moans and has great big narcissistic pity parties until someone forces it down her fucking throat.
For example, her vision isnt great, she complaints its hard to use the computer cause she cant see to type (Shes one of those chicken peck typers). I tell her to get a large print keyboard with a backlight, it’d be easier for her to see and use.
She says no, it wont help. nothing will help. boo hoo pity me blah blah bullshit.
Long story short, it goes back and forth for a month, with her refusing the idea, refusing when I directly link her to a keyboard to buy (it was cheap, too), etc etc. Just making a big fucking woe is me pity party out of it.
I finally say fuck it, buy the goddamn keyboard myself, take it over to her house, put it on her computer.
within 5 minutes “Why didnt you tell me about this before? Its amazing! I can see it and use the computer again!”
Shes the reason i’ve been balding for 20 years.
My parents: “You’re a nerd, can you help with our computer?”
I reluctantly overlook how insulting they always are and help
Many months later
My parents: “Our computer isn’t working right lately. It’s probably your fault from the last time you were messing with it.”
It’s probably your fault from the last time you were messing with it.
“Ok, you better ask someone else then. Clearly I’ll only make it worse.”
You’ll never prove them wrong by falling for the manipulation tactic.
I set up my mom on Microsoft Outlook many years ago, back when you had to set the server and so on.
She called me a few days later and said her email wasn’t working, so I walked her through looking at the options, making sure the right addresses and preferences were checked, etc.
After about 45 minutes, I remembered that I already set everything up correctly and it was working. Then I decided to ask, “are you typing the @ symbol, or are you typing the word at in the email address?”
Yep.
The first question after “it’s not working!” Is always “what isn’t working?” followed by “show me what you were doing”.
Used to have to deal with getting information out of customers that were having issues with our app (as a software dev, not sure why that was my job). Eventually we just asked for a video of what they were doing first thing when anyone called.
There’s so many tech illiterate people out there, even young people who grew up with their phones often don’t really know how to use it besides opening apps.
My mom called me a few years ago, after she clicked the big red warning message in a pop up. After the nice tech support man got on her phone. After she let him install “some program”. Then she thought, maybe she should check with Perish. Yikes.
A few weeks ago, my parents complained that the laptop kept going to a “screensaver” while they were trying to work on it.
So I changed the screensaver setting from like 3 minutes to 15 minutes… but it kept happening. I knew something was up when they said “well it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to reopen the Internet every time.”
Guys… it was a touchscreen laptop. They were grabbing it by the corner and closing out the window. 😆 And one of these people showed me how to make a website in HTML when I was younger…
Are we all doomed to be daft in our old age?
I can only hope I get my chance at the bliss of ignorance one day.
Cave woman that I helped: “You’re not installing porn are you?”
Me: “Uhh, no?! Is that what you meant by helping you to setup the computer. Are you mistaking me for your husband?”
Friend of the family but still…
Had to travel by boat to an island with no road connection to turn on a printer, after having been promised that it was, in fact, on.
Once turned on it was working. Well as much as a printer can work.
Well as much as a printer can work.
Only after a ceremonial blood sacrifice on the Tuesday after a blood moon. Got it.
Step 6. Grab a bat and perform percussive maintenance
Waste of two goats. Better to have them mow your lawn.
Unfortunately there were no other parties present to provide a second opinion, only their cat. Which, to be fair, is probably less tech illiterate than the human.
Mother in law calls me during work, blaring warnings sounds blaring in the background, warning her that she has a virus and NOT to try to reboot or unplug the computer….
MIL: what do I do/why is this happening?
Me: you clicked on something… unplug the computer
MIL: but it says not to
Me: it’s ok, it is trying to get you to call the number so that you will give them money
MIL: I am too afraid
Me: ok, if you want to give them money or your credentials so that they can take all of your money, feel free. Just don’t drive to Walgreens to buy gift cards again… you will miss your soap operas
MIL: Ok, I’ll unplug it
My father is an engineer, which has its ups and downs. He can definitely be trusted to read a dialog box and nearly 100% of the time even understand what it says. Abstract concepts, problems he’s never encountered before, all generally no issue.
My stepmother, however, once asked me if she needs to rewind a DVD before putting it away. We’ve been working on it with her over the years. She’s certainly better now, but she still has an acute case of just randomly clicking on things without reading them.
I bought my mother a laptop and she treated the touch pad like something that was to fragile to actually use. So she hardly used the computer because no matter how many times I showed her you could actually press it and move your finger across it and it wouldn’t break and she kept asking me how to move around the desktop using the keys cause “I don’t want to damage it”. I finally got fed up one day and found myself tapping the touch pad really hard repeatedly while saying “See it won’t break!!!” She ended up giving the laptop away cause she was too afraid to break it.
buy her a mouse?
She didn’t like the mouse for some reason, I could never get a straight answer as to why.
Thinkpad with a trackpoint?
Dad: “I don’t have my wallpaper anymore on my desktop !”
Me: “Ok, what’s in C:\User.…\Pictures” ?
Dad: "I don’t have C:, I juste have D:"
Me: “WTF ? You don’t have a C:\Windows folder ?”
Dad: “No, I just have a D:\ drive. Windows is installed on D”
How th fuck did he managed to not have a C drive ???
At least he understands that windows is installed, and on that drive.
How th fuck did he managed to not have a C drive ???
It happens. You should have just told him to go to the D: drive if its the only one
