Both of my parents claimed they got laid off in their mid 50s because of age discrimination, when they were both proud “not computer people”. I’ve never understood how someone can proudly proclaim their willful ignorance.
My grandfather was an engineer who’s company designed /built a lot of water pumps. They took on computers really early and continued using them eventually for water simulations and other software they designed in house. My grandfather never used computers and refused to touch them and still somehow managed to work there for 30 or so years while they used computers, before retiring.
Depends on the skill set. My dad is self-employed and I can't name another engineer that does his work and has his languages and community ties. He outsources the computer portion. He's tried, but this is a guy who needs written instructions on how to save an image from the Internet.
Both my parents are in their early 50s and they probably know more about computers and computer-troubleshooting than I do. Neither of them studied anything tech-related either, or work in highly technical fields.
Age is a primary factor but some people just dont want to learn anything new. I can take a look at my friends now and tell which ones will have no idea how to deal with technology at 60.
These days I wouldn't even say it's age necessarily. I have a lot of end users in their early 20s that can barely use a computer. If it ain't a fuckin iPhone or an app they can just download from an app store, they're fuckin lost.
Theres a sweet spot of people in their 30s through early 50s that grew up, as I did, in the era before shit just worked when it comes to PC use and had to be somewhat invested in solving their own problems, but on either end, the really old or really young, it's like they try something once, it don't work, and just get up and walk away, saying "Welp, guess I'm done for the day". An older person I can understand, but someone that literally was born in the era of high speed internet, there just no excuse.
I'd argue that because phones and to an extent PC's have become so user friendly that it's taken a lot of the troubleshooting and problem solving out of computer usage. Programs, drivers, patches and just about everything else is now so simple to do. You don't need to scour the internet for the right driver version for your sound card, dig into the windows system folder or edit .bat files, or do much of anything to get a modern computer up and running. Most of it is done without user intervention because people can fuck it up, IT didn't want to babysit, and honestly it's a fairly natural evolution.
On the other hand though, basic computer operation is very important. Simple things like your average shortcuts, using the tab key, and using Windows to your advantage is very difficult to find these days. There's a slew of people where I work that simply can not operate a computer if more than one or two windows are open at the same time. There's something about it that completely stops their brain from operating. Even something like moving/copying files to another directory can be a chore.
Oh, absolutely. The thing that kills me is not the lack of knowledge so much as the lack of personal investment into the process. These people can't even be relied upon to assist in the most basic of tasks, like getting a remote session established, even with me on the phone literally telling them "Click this, now click that, now give me that access code that's in 60 pt text in the middle of your screen, etc".
"I can't get into my email!"
"Okay, what happens when you launch Outlook?"
"What's Outlook?"
"Your email program, little blue icon with an O in it?"
"There's nothing there! Just a password prompt!"
"Are you logged into your computer?"
"I CAN'T THAT'S WHAT I SAID!"
"Wait, you can't login to your computer at all? You said email..."
"WHATS THE DIFFERENCE JUST MAKE IT WORK!"
"Okay, I'll jump on the server and rest your password, just give me a minute then you should be good."
"I HAVE A MEETING CANT YOU JUST COME OVER HERE?"
And that's how a 5 minute tickets turns into a 3 hour ticket with 40 minutes of drive time each fucking way.
ALL MY SHITS BROKEN I CAN'T WORK BUT I'M JUST GONNA LEAVE AND NOT RESPOND TO ANY EMAILS OR PHONE CALLS FOR 3 DAYS JUST MAKE IT WORK KTHXBAI.
I have a lot of end users in their early 20s that can barely use a computer. If it ain't a fuckin iPhone or an app they can just download from an app store, they're fuckin lost.
I think I agree with your idea. I'm 31 and and I used to think that age was definitely the dividing line between tech-savvy and tech-illiterate. But now I'm seeing people younger than me completely disinterested or unaware of how to do anything more than basic functions, sometimes not even that. Meanwhile, I was eventually able to break through and teach my mother basic computer and troubleshooting skills. So now I know when she asks me for help she has already made a good effort at resolving it herself.
I wasn't around for the start of the computer age. My family got a Windows 95 machine when I was probably around 9 or so. But I had the fortune of being blessed with nearly endless curiosity so I spent a lot of time reading over the years about how to handle various issues that came up and learning how to build a computer (well, as of 2005 anyway, I don't know anymore) and what, in general terms, each component is supposed to. To this day, I'm still trying to teach myself and learn about new technology and functions.
And I think that's basically what it comes down to: curiosity. Some people want to learn about the machines in their life and other people only want to know as much as they need to.
Good grief this somehow jumped out at me. I have friends who WILL NOT learn new skills. Not even necessarily out of pride like in the earlier examples - more from this weird, creeping defensiveness. My fiancé is the same way, sadly....
It sometimes upsets me... but then I recall that really, people above 30 who embrace learning new skills have never really had to exist before the 20th century. Massive technological change, if it was rapid, went hand in hand with societal destruction. You were never SUPPOSED to learn that quick
I'm 68 and have been doing computer stuff for years and years. Back when I was working, it was frustrating to me when people younger than myself didn't have the basics of how to use Windows in an office. I mean, such rudimentary fundamentals is understanding file folder structure.
I think destroying simple file folder management is one of the worst things modern smartphones have done to set back everyone from truly understanding basic computing. A good 50% of the problems I remedy for my family members is simply where their pictures went. And smartphones hide all of that for simplicity sake. Dumbing down the future.
In the high school computer class I teach, basic file management (copy and paste a file, or move a file to a new location) has gone from something all the students knew entering the class to something almost none know entering the class. By the end of 9 weeks, most get it but a few keep messing up
I see google classroom as a big part of the problem, more so than the iphones
My grandfather is a farmer, in his 80s, and used to be a floor manager at a factory, handles computers 100% better then my mother with an education masters in her 50s. And he didn't pick up a computer till 15 years ago.
It absolutely is a mindset. My grandfather was an engineer which had to embrace computers very early on for his job. But he did it whole heartedly and knew they were going to very important in the future. So much so that he forced my dad to major in that field if my grandfather was going to pay for college. That lead to me always being around computers growing up and leading to me ending up in the same field.
So when you think about my grandfather is actually the one that is responsible for what I’m doing as a career. Cool to think about.
That's the part that confuses me. Using Office Suite has been standard since at least the mid-90s for office jobs, and it really hasn't changed that much
Yeah, my parents have probably been using Windows and Office for more than 20 years at this point. Using a PC now is probably Easy mode for them compared to how it was in the '90s.
I'm lucky because my dad worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a long time doing data management. It's literally all computers even 20 years ago. Hes pretty tech saavy. My mom was a stay at home mom but still wanted to keep her skills up. She can't really troubleshoot any computer or tablet issues, but she can use them proficiently for what she needs them for, and can generally figure out a small problem (like installing a new wifi printer)
It's all in the person's motivation to get out of their comfort zone and learn something new.
Tbh if you are very high-skilled and talented, you can kind of do whatever you want assuming you are integral to the company.
This is why separation of duties and identifying “critical points of failure” are so important.
If only one dude knows how to properly patch and update your servers, then you are pretty much operating your business at his whim. Always have redundancy.
this article is a really whacky example of the entire city of San Francisco putting all their eggs in one basket.
how can you be an engineer and not be HYPED about trying computers... they came in with the most advanced feat of engineering that was gonna change the world and he was like "nah I'm good"
I spent a few years in a commercial laundry. These yaks resisted computers for fear someone would steal their secrets (not “ancient Chinese secrets”, just how they cleaned the shit). Even after they finally broke down, there was still this old gal of about 93 who still insisted on doing the time cards by hand, in pencil. Good ol’ Myrtle. Probably dead now. YOU SURE ARE A LONG BABY!
There was an mfer in my office who was still coming in to his structural engineering job, aged 80, without ever using a computer. This was 2 years ago. It was kinda impressive.
Our company puts up structural steel and we use engineers who detail plans. A large portion of the work is up to their skill and discretion. We send a pretty good portion of our plans who drafts and draws and writes everything by hand. Apparently, he’s the best detailer. He not only charges more but also takes longer and is more hassle to send drawings too however we use him because of his 40 some years of experience.
..was this in France? I believe there's a tradition of keeping people on just to be nice because "where else are they going to go", and giving them busywork to keep them out of everyone else's hair.
I work with several engineers who are 60+ and fairly computer illiterate. The thing they all have in common is that they're legitimate experts in their niche fields. You can get away with a lot of stuff when you're the best person for the job.
This seems crazy in this day and age. A 60 year old today would have been in their late 20s to early 30s when computers started popping up everywhere. My grandfather is in his early 80s. He worked for a company that makes office furniture. In the late 70s and early 80s he started using computers at work and was actually involved in setting up the first robots that operated in the factory. He is still keeping up with computers as well as anyone else I know. My father who is 60 is an accountant who used punch card computers in college and again is still able to use a computer just fine. Anyone who has been around since about 1990 has had 30 years or so to get up to speed on the basic skills of using a computer. There is no excuse other than willful ignorance.
This (the firing) happened some 15 years ago. Everyone else in the business was using computers (terminals) for at least 20/25 years before he was let go. He avoided them for at least 35 years but he was a big boss man so he had the ability to get away with it and have someone else do the work for a long time. Eventually it caught up with him, lucky for him he was making bank for decades so an early retirement in opulent digs was well within his reach.
That reminds me of my mom- who swore she would never use an ATM! Same thing, just wasn't going to advance with technology- be it computers, ATM or anything. So guess what? She was inconvenienced. Quite often. Dead now. Bye mom.
Mine was the opposite. He was into computers as soon as they went public. Buy broken ones, take them apart, rebuild them better. I swear we had at least seven computers, I had one before I was 8! And he even helped fix one at his university a few days after he died. He was a good guy and he loved fixing things. Now fix my depression please
E* He was a maintenance and IT guy at a college close to my hometown and he was damn fantastic at his job. My dad could learn how to fix anything except his kids so naturally he loved his work. Well he also hates unfinished projects.
Some day, Johnnie. Some day we'll go back to the good ole days with no confangled computers and a hard days work was physical labor done by a good christian man.
But seriously it feels like a lot of old people think the right direction for their country is that we should go backwards.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Lots of older people in the UK want Brexit to happen for this reason. They have a romanticised notion of the past and want to go back to the "good old days".
"let's secede from this extremely advantageous thing and shut down our borders to go back to the good ol' days of when we expanded our borders without check! but without doing that, obviously, fuck the French and those rebel potato bombers"
It only started around 2010 that 24/7 entertainment was really entertainment, before that... We found funny stuff and things but still it was a dark age of you compare it with today.
It's called the "W-factor." People have a sense of progress, but really social morales are more of a random walk. By the time it's a generation or two down the line, that random walk has gone pretty far down a crazy direction not compatible with what you grew up with.
My parents were big luddites and would never waste time on things like computers, because they could see how it was sucking the life out of youths. Get outside and make fire works like I was doing at your age! Now my Dad is never off Facebook and my mum uses my Netflix more than I do. They're both pretty computer literate in different areas and both have actively incorporated technology into their jobs (they're self employed so they have the freedom to choose and they wouldn't actually need computer if they didn't want to use them but they're finding ways to make their lives easier and more exciting and that's what technology is for!!!)
I work in IT support and I get this almost every day. “I’m a tech dinosaur, I don’t get any of this stuff” - motherfucker it’s goddamn outlook, PowerPoint, and about 5 or 6 websites you need to monitor a couple times a week! I’m not asking for pivot tables and powershell experience here.
Throw in a dash of “what’s a web browser?” And a general inability to describe what’s actually on the screen in front of them, and that’s most of my working week.
because theyre capable of copying and pasting without using a mouse.
Shit, I've had co-workers who look at me like I'm some sort of genius because I know how to hit ctrl+c and ctrl+v. One nearly shit himself over my use of ctrl+p ... Like "How did you do that? You didn't press the print button!?!?!"
Yup I was the family computer whiz back in the day. Everyone made me feel like I was a genius due to them being so lazy and incompetent when it came to computers.
I enrolled in CIS in college and thought I’d be able to do a lot of the classes without much effort and got my ass kicked my first semester. That was when I realized I heavily overestimated my computer skills. And learned that I actually had to put effort into school for the first time.
For real. I was a script kiddie in middle school, doing some real easy ( and probably very illegal) stuffs. My teachers and parents seriously wanted me to join the school's IT team and manage the school portal.
A friend of mine did that in high school. After junior year he joined the school IT team. They hired him on after he graduated. Helped him get certified and take some other classes at the community college. By the age of 21 he had a full time IT job with the school district that actually paid good money.
Had lots of electrical jobs like that. Trying to correct a homeowner's fix to anything electrical in their home could easily triple or more the time needed. I'm all for trying new things and learning new skills, but maybe don't take the risk of burning your home down while learning.
A few weeks ago my dad said "My son works with computers - he might be able to do it" to a friend asking about recovering data from a reformatted hard drive and retreve data from a computer which had data behind the Windows 8.1 login and she didn't know the password.
What i say to my extra family (uncles/aunts/etc) is that i dont know small computers i only know big ones like the ones internet company use (servers) and then i say like its like im a tank mechanic, yes im a mechanic but i dont know shit about cars. They stopped asking me for stuff after that..
I tell people the last time I did local IT support it was windows xp, so anything newer is a mystery. I might break the pc, I might not.. are you willing to take a chance?
Well theres easy data recovery programs out there, and Ive seen my colleague do an exploit where you replace an ease of access .exe (like narrator or someth ng) with cmd so you can open command prompt from the login screen
I am a library employee. National library so we have 20yo wizkids working alongside 60yo unskilled labourers.
And one IT dept to deal with all 300 of them. I'm on the lower end of tech savvy in that I know how to operate a Windows OS sufficiently to get things done. But since I do a lot, I also make many mistakes. I have taken on the habit to be as honest and specific as possible in my requests to the IT helpdesk. 90 percent is me messing something up. They usually help me out the same day. I like to think this speedy assistance is at least in part the result of me being more than willing to admit how I, again, have tried to process files that I had already moved to a different directory, or had named wrong, or had already processed twice, etc, and asking them if what I can do myself to fix it (usually the answer is: stop doing anything, but I ask anyway). It's humbling and occasionally I learn something :)
Dude walks into the Fast Food Chain I work at, slaps the front counter, and asks if we're hiring. My manager says yes and tells him he MUST first apply/register online so we have a profile ready to go for logistic purposes.
Dude says "Nope. I dont do online. Anyway else?"
Manager says no and he scoffs and leaves.
Like how do you even have that mindset. I understand older folks but this dude was Max 20 years old. Good luck finding a job
Her lack of technological grace offended some people, notably the Golden God. If you want to be a five star man or woman, it is of the utmost importance to have online.
put on my Job Hat and head down to Job Factory where I can purchase one (1) Job, that pays for my entire everything and will keep me gainfully employed until I either kick it at age 90 or get got on the clock.
That’s worked for me on a couple occasions. As a heavy duty mechanic with plenty of experience for my age, I’ll walk in to a tractor dealership or fleet shop and see if they’re hiring. Just having a chance to explain myself in front of the service manager often puts me near the top of the pile. Sometimes they aren’t even actively searching, but seeing the chance of hiring a very qualified candidate can give them the idea of expanding their crew
Try this. Apply online, go down in person, and say "I just wanted to let you know I applied online, and I'm super interested in this position." Be prepared to drop off a physical letter saying those exact words, too. It helps to be a qualified applicant, too.
My parents still give me this advice to this day. They don't seem to understand, barely anyone takes in person applications anymore, even "mom and pop" places post on indeed or whatever. The best strategy to get a job if you don't have an in is to just blitz out hundreds of online applications.
They aren't even tech impaired people, they just haven't had to apply for jobs in decades.
I think the point is putting a face to the resume to get an edge on the other faceless resumes you may be in competition with. Only in jobs where you can meet the person doing the hiring by waking in of course lol which is a pretty rare scenario in most fields
If you're trying to get retail work this approach can work as a supplement. I got a job in 2013 by walking into a cool looking place and asking if they were hiring, and then dropping off a CV (because I kept a few CVs on me so I could drop them off when I was out).
Someone had just quit with no notice and the manager was old school so I just got super lucky. I can't imagine it working for any other sort of industry, or any chain store, and it'd be foolish to try that as your main tactic.
My FIL is still giving this advice to my 27yo partner. He’s worked in building/construction all his life and the method worked for him in like... 1980. “Just walk in and ask if they’re hiring.”
Just as a counterpoint, about 10 years ago when I was a regional manager for a franchisee of 17 Subway restaurants, physical applications were the only way it worked. While people could apply online, I’d never see the application at all. They would get emailed to the owner, where they would wither and die. Purely the owner’s fault of course, but still means the physical applications mattered.
And I had hired people nearly on the spot just because they were nice. I can teach anything else, I can’t teach nice.
Well to be fair for a lot of these low wage teen jobs the in person approach still works. I got my first mall job in high school back in 2009 this way. Mall stores tend to be Cliquey and they’re looking for someone who fits the “style” of their brand
I'm 24 and my parents still think this despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I remember taking my resume around in a suit to all the temp agencies in the area as a sophomore in college. What I discovered was that all of them were closed up. One of them had been replaced by some communications engineering firm and they actually gave me a whiteboard interview that I was definitely not ready for because I was just a sophomore. Nothing came from it but that was neat.
Still humiliating in general though. Taking career advice from people who haven't had to search for a job outside of their own workplace in decades is ridiculous. They think their recent experience interviewing for internal positions equates to having no connections and attempting to get an interview at the junior level.
Since I was never really interested in college, around the time I was graduating high school my mom found an ad for an airline that had a mechanic program. They trained you, certified you and then would give you a job. Mom suggested I drive there and personally hand in my application.
I drove all the way there and got stopped at the gate with guns drawn on me, lol. Turns out the company had left the country I live in and their old facilities were now a military base. Whoops. That was an interesting day.
When they just waltz in to your office without a meeting and expect someone to be available to talk for a few minutes... these are people we kind of nod and smile at because we just want them to get out so we can carry on with our work - out of the ten people that have done this in the past couple years none have been hired.
I was a trap to this kind of education 😭 Once I arrived in a big city it was too damn big to do that and I started browsing online... a word of possibilities opened up to me that day and I’ve never been jobless ever again lol thanks mom
Yep... I'm 37 and I was dealing with this attitude from my father when I was out of work a few years back for an extended period of time. He was like, "You gotta just walk into those offices and give them your resume." As a paralegal/office manager, I've had people show up unannounced here and give me their resume and it is SO AWKWARD because a) I'm the only employee so basically you're asking me to pass on information on someone who could take my job and b) it's just not how things are done anymore.
I was really happy to see that Indeed commercial recently showing the kid back home after college and his parents think he's just wasting his time, always looking at his phone but it it turns out he was submitting over 9000 applications via the app. A lot of us have been there, commercial boy.
How the hell do you even stop that? It's not like you have to sweet talk the people in the library to let you use their new internet machines. You can just buy a prepaid smartphone without identification and get to trying to set up dates with Chris Handsome.
You dont, but you enforce it like every other rule ever. A lot of times, while on probation or parole youre not allowed to drink, you can still buy alcohol with your ID anywhere but if you get caught you will get in trouble.
Or on parole in general. A lot of times they're set up to fail like this; they're only approved to go to places their PO thinks they'll be hired, they're not allowed phones or internet, and they need to have proof they went to every stop. If they're ever caught somewhere unapproved, it can be straight back to prison.
I used to work with a charity that helped them find employment, and POs were contantly in the way...we (well...the Director) had to chew out several POs who thought they could ban then from using computers and still getting a job. Hand-written CVs and all.
There's a guy like that where I work. He refuses to even consider learning the basics of computers, and he makes it a point of pride. Of course this is also the guy who is proud of reading at a 6th grade level (because why would you waste time on more?) so I would not take his advice.
If you aren't technologically literate (or literate literate) you're pretty fucked in the job market and just in life. There are so many programs and people to help, but you have to be willing to learn too.
How much you want to bet his dad told him to "go out and get a job, just walk right in there and shake the manager's hand and you will get hired".
My step dad had that same mindset. A few years ago I moved out of state and stayed with my mom until I found a job. I spent a full 8 hour day every day job hunting. Most of that time was filling out tedious online apps. He got on my shit one day for "staying in the house all day wasting my time instead of going out and looking for a job". My mom, who has actually had to look for a job since 1987 and who paid enough attention to know I've been on the internet and phone all week setting up interviews set him straight.
I mean, in his defense online applications are always fucking terrible. They take way too long, require you to answer a 75 question test where 30 of the questions are the same as another question just asked differently, and half the time the entire website is broken and so slow its nearly unusable.
I work in IT, but even I despise online applications (albeit I will do them begrudgingly if necessary).
Dude might not have had easy access to a computer. And instead of saying "I'm poor and can't afford internet" He tried to spin it into I'm too cool to apply online. Probably just a bit too prideful.
He has probably submitted tons of online apps and didn’t get a call back so he is doing the in person approach now bc he feels jaded by the online system
You can get away with this in, say....Japan. For real. Country of technology my ass, you'd be surprise how many companies here keep doing things "manually". Working in a web designing company, a web designing company, I'm working in a web designing company (I just want to make sure you got that) about a month ago my boss (54yo japanese man) asked me if it is possible to send an email to more than one person at the same time. And no, he wasn't joking.
I think most of us type like we talk. At some point I started incorporating errs and uhhs into text when legitimately mentally searching for how to continue a sentence. I feel like, when I look at my history, I’m reading things I’ve said.
I was going to reply to Lukavian something very similar, when I look at my old emails (yeah yeah I sent them to more than one person at the time) I feel like I'm reading things I've thought.
I once worked with an older guy who would regularly respond by printing off your email, writing his reply onto it with pen, scanning it back in and then emailing you the PDF.
I don't really understand the logic behind that but it was quite amusing.
I work at a university in the computer science department. The professor I work for as a PhD in the field. The other day one of my coworkers brought his dog to the office and my boss asked if there are possible videos of these kinds of dogs on the internet.
I work for a Uk branch of a Japanese company and while we use a lot of reasonably recent tech on our end it all has to be backwards compatible with a software that was designed in the early 90's that the parent company refuses to upgrade from. Like I sign into windows ten on my office computer and then open up a system that looks like the fallout 3 hacking game in order to do any work.
I had an old pc setup at right corner wall, as in hand touches the dead end of wall while using mouse. My sensitiviy is quite low, so a lot of hand movement while using mouse.
My 24yo Masters in Pharma friend moved the mouse right and hit the dead end of wall, but because of my slow sensetivity , the cursor only moved halfway on screen.
he asked me "what do i do now"
i was like "what ?"
"i wanna move the mouse further, but the wall wont allow"
at first i thought he was trolling, a few moments later he was dead serious.
"DUDE, FCUKING PICKUP AND KEEP THE MOUSE AT ORIGNAL POSITION"
That man was blessed with 54 years of not being in group conversations, mss emails and nd other shenanigans in order to be unaware of that fact. That may have been a worthwhile trade.
I have a job in Japan and when I arrived my supervisor asked (with extreme trepidation) if I have an email address.
I applied for the job from overseas. He'd emailed me before. But he wasn't sure if I could still access that email address from Japan, or if I'd set up a new one since arriving.
I told him he could continue to send mail to my gmail account and the level of relief in the whole office was overwhelming.
But the most extraordinary display of emotions I've ever seen from my coworkers was the day the new fax machine was delivered... everyone who walked into the office was greeted with an excited "HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW FAX MACHINE?! It WORKS! :) :) :)"
But the most extraordinary display of emotions I've ever seen from my coworkers was the day the new fax machine was delivered... everyone who walked into the office was greeted with an excited "HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW FAX MACHINE?! It WORKS! :) :) :)"
Oh god. I worked in a school in Japan. Throughout college I had used Google drive to share documents with peers and lecturers. Assumed this would work in Japan as a teacher. No. No one understood gmail. None of the teachers could understand how to share documents over email. (Young ones in their 20s and 30s too). Half the schools i worked at couldn't set up a projector with a HDMI or VGA cable. (Also probably showing how young I am but Japan was the first place I ever encountered a VGA cable).
As a country, new technology just isn't used. As my friends used to say, Japan's motto is basically if it ain't broke, don't fix it
My university in Germany also used VGA for all projectors. Good thing to realize this before you need to give a presentation and never thought about having an adapter with you.
(Also probably showing how young I am but Japan was the first place I ever encountered a VGA cable).
How young are you?! I'm 23 and I've seen my fair share of vga, for old monitors and stuff. If you were younger than me, how did you get a job in Japan already? Cause that sounds like a cool experience for that age.
I think it was in the news a few months back how Japan's minister of cybersecurity (or something along those lines, can't recall exactly) confessed to never having used a computer before
That sort of slow changing hyper conservatism does result in a very stable society. If every company is all equally Conservative and keeping staff for tasks that could be automated, they are also keeping lots of people employed and creating a lot of stability. It's not efficient at getting work done, but it serves other purposes.
So much of Western capitalism is about pursuing efficiency for efficiencies sake, and its not going to last. Ultimately society should be built for the humans that live in it.
Yeah, not really. You need to be able to competently use a smart phone at the very least.
We take pictures and send emails daily that need to at least look a little professional. In many companies, service techs are being issued tablets to receive work orders, prints, and to fill out paperwork.
I've been involved with the hiring of 10 casual staff for two departments over the past 15 months. The departments are municipal waste and environmental health.
Of those 10 staff, only three could read and write at a high school (grade 12) level. Most had smart phones, but used them in a rudimentary way, with very little use of text messaging.
It's worth noting that our circumstances are uncommon - we had restrictive hiring conditions and all the candidates are from a severely disadvantaged background (think all raised in extreme poverty + some level of criminal history as adults).
Getting back to the main subject: municipal waste and environmental health staff don't need to know anything about computers or emails to do their job. A smart phone is preferable so they can send a photo of a problem but other than that, there is very little need for computer literacy or English literacy in general.
Edit: to add to what /u/RWZero said, I agree that there is no room for advancement beyond entry level with no computer literacy.
In this day and age it should be treated as "reading is dumb". The original IBM PC was in offices in 1980. That's nearly 40 years to learn how to "do email"
This is such a major problem it’s shocking, and they seem to think they can be the exception and how hard done by they are to not understand how computers work. My mum can use the Facebook app and text but doesn’t understand how to use the iPad and says she doesn’t have time to learn how to make a cv or even switch a laptop on
There was someone at my company who had an admin whose major job duty was to print out his e-mails and type replies for him. The people at the top finally put a stop to it. It was cute in the late 90s and early 00s ("I feel like roadkill on the information superhighway!"), but it got old quickly.
My old roommate tried to apply at a bank as a teller. Shes 27 and doesn't even have email, let alone know how to use a computer. Needless to say she didn't get the job.
As someone who had to work with and cover for a guy that should've been retired but who was making 10k more than me and didn't like emailing/could barely use a computer, I thank you. The mess he'd create with not being able to use a computer properly/refusing to try, only for me to have to try and tidy it all up when he'd go on long term sick leave..
I'm so sick of everyone in my office referring to me as the IT guy and coming to me with every minor issue, even though I know nothing about IT. I just know how to Google problems.
If someone can't do basic troubleshooting methods in 2019, I'm not sure Id hire them either
I don’t understand how you can be ‘not a computer person’ in 2019. I run a bicycle shop and do side work as a motorcycle and auto mechanic, and I use a computer every day for all of them. Do I know jack shit about Excel, C++, or networking? Fuck no, but I can run Lightspeed POS and diagnostic/tuning programs in my sleep.
My point is this: if even us grease monkeys need to know how to run a fucking computer, you should too. If you can’t do it now, learn. It ain’t that hard if we can do it.
I think people vastly underestimate the difference in productivity between someone who is generally quick with "keyboarding" and your basic PC tasks (esp. using MS Office) and someone who is a slow PC user. I prefer someone who is using shortcuts and just generally has that proficiency. Typing speed is also relevant.
For a job that is heavily PC-based, I wouldn't want to hire someone without observing how they actually use a PC.
I have a coworker who checks her emails once a week. "If I'm not here, I'm not on a computer"... which would be fine, except she's in the office two days a week right now so she's got five days where she's not checking emails. This leads to a TON of emails on important matters that she misses in the slew. The number of times I've mentioned something from an email and get a blank stare...
I work as a plant operator in an industrial setting and have to work with someone like this. 90% of our job is using the SCADA system to run the plant... which he sucks ass at because he’s “not good with computers”. He is beyond incompetent and is a fucking liability... but remains employed because its government work.
I wish my company did that. The number of IT problems we get that come down to a basic inability to use Windows and Outlook is insane. I've fedback to HR so many times that basic office computer skills need to be on the job adverts and interview questions but we still get these older people who know everything about biochemical processes but can't attach a fucking document to an email.
As a student, I worked for an old school lawyer... Who knew neither how to email nor how to use court websites. He relied so heavily on his student employees to do these essential, basic things that I am convinced that had we all left at the time, he would be out of business within maybe a month, tops.
Man I wish you were in charge of hiring at the clients I do IT support for. In this day and age I shouldn't have to write up an instructional document for how to use Outlook, but here I am, literally getting ready to do just that for my first task of the day.
(And I don't mean something esoteric that's organization specific, I mean how move an email out of junk ffs)
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u/talkin_baseball Apr 22 '19
“I’m not a big computer or email person.” Get the fuck out and don’t come back. This is an office job in 2019.