Ugh... my mom is just... ugh.
My parents celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary a few months ago. They forewent (the internet tells me that this is the past tense of "to forego") giving each other presents for a while. Eventually, my dad got my mom a laptop (which she wanted, even though I warned her that it'd be difficult to adjust to[she is one of the worst people with technology I know]), and she got him a really nice camera. As in, really expensive. What he gets her is a Dell Inspiron 15, 3000 Series, with 4GB RAM and 500GB HD. Not bad, but what she wanted was 8GB RAM with a 1TB drive. So, it gets here, we see her unboxing it, and then we don't see it for like 2 weeks. Then, I ask about it, and am told about how "creepy" it was that she gave Windows 8 her Hotmail username and password, and it now has access to her calendar and whatnot. Further questioning reveals that she is absolutely incensed that it didn't work exactly the way the quickstart guide said it would, even though it was apparently preloaded with stuff. It then turns out that she is REALLY FREAKING ANGRY that it didn't come with a full, detailed guide to EVERY LITTLE FREAKING THING about it, and is unable to locate the power on button without detailed instructions. (it is worth mentioning that the inside of the laptop is really simple, it's literally just a QWERTY keyboard, a trackpad, and a power button.) Literally, that's what her rant amounted to.
She also explained intelligently that since the cord in the quickstart guide didn't look exactly like the one it came with, she was unable to plug it in. She went on to rant about how in this day and age, we should be able to include an instruction manual with a computer! When I explained to her that any documentation that she cared to name was available online, she yelled at me that she couldn't, because she didn't know how to use the computer!!!!! (she owns both a smartphone and a desktop.) There was more insanity, but these were the highlights.
When I tried to explain to her about what a power button looks like, she yelled at me for "belittling and berating her". I just know that if I try to teach her how to use it, I will be accused of "acting condescending" to her.
1) Newsflash - you are being condescending and belittling her. If you're willing to be so nasty in a post about her, I'm very, very sure you're showing the same attitudes face to face.
2) Have you ever tried to use Windows 8? The UI is terrible and confusing even for people good with technology. Many people have problems with it. It's no surprise she does too. How can you know anything about IT and not know that?
1) Yes, it may be a bit condescending. But when I just was on the receiving end of a ten-minute rant about how terrible the computer is and how she needs a detailed manual to find the power button, believe me, I have
much more scathing things to say.
The fact that she needed a manual isn't the worst part. What is is that the quickstart guide that came with it showed exactly where it was (in two separate places).
2) I'm not saying that her not liking Win8 is bad, I have every intention of "downgrading" it to 7. However, she has trouble getting past the "turning the computer on" stage.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14932817 times)