I once asked some of my friends what they were up to at work.
An accountant friend said “I’m making a VBA macro to restructure and convert our customer’s XML data into an SQL transaction so that we can import it into our accounting system”.
A car mechanic friend said: “I’m trying to find the specsheet for this obscure ECU so that I can flash in this profile that I’ve tweaked with hex editor”
A teacher friend said: “I’m setting up integration between moodle and shopify so that we wouldn’t have to enroll our students manually”.
And every time my response was “YOU WHAT NOW? You should work in IT”
And they always responded with something along the lines of “Yeah, nah, I’m not that smart”
And here I am, slapping webpages and forms together, earning more than all of them combined. That’s really unfair, but I’m not in a position to complain.
My current boss will print out Excel sheets and use a calculator to sum things and then write in sharpie on the page the changes that he wants me to make to the sheet.
I do feel kinda bad for people. There’s very few jobs left where you don’t interact with a computer in some form or another, and the reality is that it’s not for everyone. Of course most people can benefit from using these “tools” but since they’re always upgrading, there keeps being something new to learn.
Personally, I love technology and playing around with new tech. However, if I’m great at sales or a lawyer or something, that’s where I add value, not in knowing how a computer works. So I can see how people get frustrated with it.
In the end it boils down to, pretty much everyone needs IT, but IT doesn’t need everyone. Think about it, when was the last time you worked at a company where an employee didn’t have a computer or need a computer for some task that they do?
Most technology problems would be solved by people having basic problem solving skills. I don’t feel bad for people who don’t “understand” technology while at the same time not putting in the slightest amount of effort to understand. Some people get thrown off by 2FA, and every single 2FA I’ve ever done has had easily followed instructions. People just don’t put in the effort.
On the flip side are IT people who are apparently unable to RTFM. They try 15,000 solutions that logically make sense, exhaust logical options and start doing random shit that’s got almost no chance of working, but never stop to just check the docs.
Personally, I usually try something before going to docs. Sometimes I exhaust all ideas I have before going to the docs. But I never just do random shit until I’ve tried everything that makes sense, read the docs, and asked around the internet (maybe try random stuff while waiting for replies online)
I was mostly kidding, though it depends on the problem itself - if I need an explanation for a function argument, no point testing shit if the docs answer it in 15 seconds. If it’s something more solution-y, I might do some testing before consulting the papers
Everyone who uses a computer has a responsibility to understand the basics of how it works because computer usage is so ubiquitous to daily life, and that’s true regardless of your field.
I have worked(as pedagog and construction) with people that doesn’t give a sit about IT. But are forced to it, and it’s just to document they’re work to bosses ex. So they just do what is needed and if there is a problem it’s not they’re respons to get it working, this must be the guy/lady that forced them to it, BUT they have zero sense to solve it problems.
If this is a situation you relate with, you might be an arrogant asshole.
I help people all the time with computer related issues, and they love that I do that. None of them give me the stink eye, and I never judge them or think they’re idiots for not being specialized in general computing.
I decided to make a career change into IT (didn’t stick). When I was working the other employees were just other people trying to make ends meet and I never judged them for, like you said, not being specialized in general computing. I did however judge some of the other admins for their decisions and attitudes. It was so weird being an “admin” and this being told I’m “above” the general employees.
I mean, you have a bit of a point, they’re not exactly idiots even if they seem that way, but I definitely get the stink eye. You must know a lot of nice people.
I used to provide some user support at a previous job. (It wasn’t exactly my job, but people would ask for help.) And it’d be easy to get frustrated, thinking people were stupid or incompetent, but I’d remind myself that being good at computers isn’t part of their job, it’s part of my job. These people were hired for other areas of expertise. If I had to do take on parts of their jobs, I’d look stupid and incompetent too.
That said… sometimes the level of incomprehension people have really is incomprehensible to me. There’s a level where you’re reaching wilful ignorance. When I point at something on the screen and tell the person to click on that… and they can’t or won’t move the mouse there and click on it…
There should be a basic level of understanding a skillset when using a computer when using a computer is part of your job. Users shouldn’t be required to fix technical issues but they should know the terminology (click the file menu, select properties…, or right-click on your desktop and select an option.
Its amazing how people use these tools daily but never learn how to use them. Imagine using saws, lathes, grinders, etc, but not knowing how to safely use them. It’s the same for computers. If you don’t know basic safety, you’ll infect your work network with malware, encrypt important files with CryptoLocker-type malware, etc. Honestly, companies should force a base-level of competence before allowing users on the network, but a lot of the users causing issues are directors or the CEO.
There should be a computer license, like a driving license, that you need to get before you can operate computers connected to the internet in the modern world.
Yeah one of these views is more valid than the other:
“I got an error message! It says, Please right click the application and select ‘Run As Administrator…’ What does it mean?! What do I do!!! Why are these instructions so confusing?!”
“I got an error on the page! It says ‘Password incorrect’ What does that mean? How do I fix it?” “Have you tried using the correct password?”
Why on earth are you putting double quotation marks inside double quotation marks? We have single and double quotation marks for this exact reason. It took me forever to understand what you’re saying
Yeah, I’m in the IT dept (companys conatantly flop between throwing software into engineering, IT, or its own dept) and the other day, 5 minutes before I leave for a week long vacation a user comes up and asks if we’re ignoring her.
Outlook is constantly asking for a password to one of the emails she uses. She doesn’t know it and keeps clicking close on the popup. So she sends an email, FROM THE ACCOUNT SHE IS LOGGED OUT OF, to helpdesk a few days earlier.
I’ve had to walk someone over the phone through a prompt that says “Click OK to continue” and there was nothing else except the OK button.
Also when I used to work for Federal Student Aide help center it was common for (people who were about to enter into higher education) to get stuck at the end of the online form when a final screen came up with the options “Submit” and “Cancel”
That just seems like bad software design with a prompt like that, unless its for audit trail purposes and it’s used to log the user is actively accepting to continue.
A long, long time ago in an internship far, far away, I encountered a user who did not need management. He remembered his passwords without writing them down, even as they changed. He could be trusted to apply software patches himself and return the media the same day. He needed nothing more from us than a friendly hello.
It has been over six hundred million seconds since then and I have yet to encounter another user such as this.
Just today I tried to understand the backup principle behind Veeam with my senior.
After that I (soft) bricked my head trying to visualize the GFS principle.
Lol that was fun.
But then I remembered someone imagined the whole backup cycle and not only invent it but the dev team needed have so much knowledge to not only adapt it into software but that it’s considered beyond business critical software.
In Germany we have the saying “Kein Backup, kein Mitleid” (No backup, no pity) and we literally just hope the software does as it’s told to do.
Even if we test backups it’s crazy how we rely on it.
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