willful ignorance
2004-02-05 : 12:16 p.m.

All I can say about this story is GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I felt like I was reading my own brief biography. My coworkers have a serious (and infuriating) case of "willful ignorance". "I'm not good with computers" doesn't really impress me anymore. Everyone has to write a report, and who in the year 2004 doesn't have a passing familiarity with Word? This is not computer science, kids.

I think I'll start charging by the hour for computer "help"...and when family and friends complain, I'll suggest that they outsource their technical support needs to India. Or just get a clue.

Addendum: here's an insightful comment from a Slashdot poster:

"Can we really blame the users though?"

Yes. Yes, we can.

I often use the analogy of the car when describing tech tasks: no one expects to buy a car and have it run forever (and remain safe) without maintenance. Most people understand the need to check tires (treadwear, air pressure), get the oil changed, etc. Draw parallels to these items for technically-challenged folks and they seem to understand. YMMV.

No one should purchase potentially problematic machines (computers, blenders, cars, etc.) without understanding in a general sense how these things work. I would like to think that would be common sense, but common sense is often neither common nor sense. Discuss.

And a reply from another Slashdotter:

I take it a little farther, actually. If a driver is proceeding along a fast road and, approaching an intersection, makes a fast left-hand turn into the wrong lane of oncoming traffic, what will happen to him? There will be a head-on collision and he will die. Will the traffic signals stop him from doing that? No. The car? No. The road? No. Henry Ford? No.

What stops him from dying every time he makes a left turn? Knowing, based on some combination of training, experience, and observation, that he can't do that.

Yet the same person will sit in front of a computer for hour after hour, making the same mistake over and over again, and blame (a) the computer (b) the software vendor (c) the Training Department, for "not giving him good training" (d) the "techies", for "not giving him good support" (e) the "techies", for "talking down to him" {well, they are: from the 4th time on} (f) pretty much anyone except himself.

Well, it makes him feel good (or less "uncomfortable") I guess, which is something. It doesn't help him get anything done, though, which is particularly a bit of a problem in profit-making organizations.

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last 5 entries:
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did you get that thing i sent ya? - 2005-05-17
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