Helping the older generation with their technology: even possible?

Tbh if you are not getting that ppl earning 170k don't need to know shit about pdf rotation then you are destined to remain the pdf guy not earning 170k

The embarrassing shit I have to ask ppl to do since I started management would make pdf me squirm but I have nicer things than pdf me ever did

I was temping at a place where they mentioned offhandedly that they'd spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring a contractor to navigate the daunting terrain of inserting bookmarks into a number of PDFs, a process which I subsequently walked them through in 5-10 minutes time. They went for an external hire when the opportunity arose to make my position permanent.

(I am perpetual PDF guy.)

Still one of the greatest blocks of text ever deposited on ILX, from the beginning of the 'stupid annoying co-workers' thread:

She was once asked to provide a file that she had finished working on to another co-worker. The file was not on her hard drive for, as she explained, she ?didn?t want to fill it up with things? (and it was a 20 G HD!) File was eventually determined, by her, to be on a floppy. But floppy was blank when co-worker opened it. Eventually ?S? showed supervisor where she stored all of her floppys containing important info. She was attaching them to the metal parts of her cubicle with large magnets, so she ?could always find them.?

My mom got a nice new computer monitor a few years ago. Afterward, she often suspected that some items that had been saved on her desktop had not been migrated to the new monitor properly during the switchover.

My dad used to blame the slowness of the family computer on the assertion that my siblings were 'going deep' when they used it. Deep into what, it was never quite clear. The computer's files? The internet? At any rate, there were forbidden depths being plumbed which somehow contributed to a compromised experience for other users, and my dad was tired of it.

― Senior Soft-Serve Tech at the Froyo Arroyo (Old Lunch), Friday, 26 January 2018 2:44 AM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is splendid

just lay off

the thing needs a break

a cooldown period

With my parents it's been a bit easier, happily:

* My dad is the computer user, he's had a couple of laptops over the past ten or so years now. He pretty well figured out exactly what he needs from it in terms of contacting certain people and the like, and every so often will ask me questions on visits home to either review a problem or two that's cropped up. Sometimes it's just a matter of running updates, other times a file gets misplaced, etc. He doesn't care about social media in the slightest and is content to only check it every couple of days for email and quick work on the web regarding various things he does locally.

* My mom has never thought much about computers at all -- I think she's sent me one email via my dad's account, that was it. For Christmas my dad and I finally did arrange for something we knew she would love, a Roku. I set it up fully for her and spent a couple of hours with her getting her used to how to search the channels, find programs, start from the beginning etc. -- happily I knew she would be all over it just so she could catch up on a ton of shows and that she would figure it out very easily from there with practice. And such is the case! The odd bonus in all this is that they're finally upgrading their home wifi as a result as well.

i am the one helping me: it seems to be going fine

I'm trying to convince my mom that the new cell phone she should buy is one that's simple to operate, since all she uses it for is making calls. But the best uncomplicated nonsmart cell phones now seem to be marketed with the word "Senior," and she strongly rejects the idea of using such a stigmatized product.

Fair enough really

the new 3310 might be an option, that's hip

That was my thinking! But the cute 3310 I suggested is what we are looking to replace now because she is an incorrigible accidental mis-pusher of buttons and it's always getting her into modes like "Add a voice tag" or "Rename radio station."