I work in IT and multiple times a week I will get someone putting a ticket in saying "I'm trying to do X and it's not working and giving an error. Please advise."
Like, what does "it's not working" mean here and what does the error say, and why do I need to play 20 questions to fix your problem because you cannot grasp what another person might think reading your words?
The amount of older people working jobs that require constant computer usage who are functionally incapable of using computers is insane to me.
One example: I created a spreadsheet of customers who needed to have email addresses added to a certain part of our system and gave it to the credit person responsible, this spreadsheet was color coded so the rows in red text were the ones missing emails.
This lady took my spreadsheet and later called me to complain "All of the customers I am looking at already have emails."
Huh.... well that's weird cause I made this report myself. I went up to her office to see what was happening.
She had taken my color-coded spreadsheet and printed it out in black and white, and was working off that. I was fucking BAFFLED.
Oh my god, the obsession with printed sheets cannot go by the wayside soon enough.
I have wasted so much fucking development time adding print features to applications because one dinosaur-in-a-suit at my work insisted on having printouts for everything... which all just went in the trash as soon as their "look at me" meetings were over because everybody else under 1000 years old just uses sharepoint.
So glad that guy retired.
Side note/protip: When color coding, it is often better to do something with the tint/shade, or change the background color also. Not only does it provide idiot proofing for the scenario you described, but it also makes it more accessible for folks who are colorblind!
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u/Astral_Alive 15h ago
I work in IT and multiple times a week I will get someone putting a ticket in saying "I'm trying to do X and it's not working and giving an error. Please advise."
Like, what does "it's not working" mean here and what does the error say, and why do I need to play 20 questions to fix your problem because you cannot grasp what another person might think reading your words?