The main difference between me and my cat is that when she sleeps all day and does nothing productive, she doesn’t feel crushing guilt and overwhelming societal pressure.
This might come as a shock to some of you but saying “I’m not informed enough on this particular topic to have an opinion” is about 100 times more respectable than being misinformed
I know in school they often teach us that ‘I don’t know’ is the worst possible answer and that you are better off making your best guess than admitting ignorance, but that’s because the educational system is a dumpster fire, and this is a habit that it pays to un-learn.
An Exotic Dancer Demonstrates That Her Underwear Was Too Large To Have Exposed Herself, After Undercover Police Officers Arrested Her In Florida
Dorothy Counts – The First Black Girl To Attend An All-White School In The United States – Being Teased And Taunted By Her White Male Peers At Charlotte’s Harry Harding High School, 1957
Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII
Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888
A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936
Job Hunting In 1930’s
German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945
Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961
Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934
Mafia Boss Joe Masseria Lays Dead On A Brooklyn Restaurant Floor Holding The Ace Of Spades, 1931
Lesbian Couple At Le Monocle, Paris, 1932
The Most Beautiful Suicide – Evelyn Mchale Leapt To Her Death From The Empire State Building, 1947
The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967
Race Organizers Attempt To Stop Kathrine Switzer From Competing In The Boston Marathon. She Became The First Woman To Finish The Race, 1967
Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974
Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter”
Client: “Is e-mail on the internet? I have no internet, can I still read my e-mail?”
Me: “Well yes, you must be able to get online to view your e-mail.”
Client: “Oh, dear. I can’t see my e-mail.”
Me: “Well, let’s see. Can you open up Internet Explorer for me and tell me what you see?”
Client: “Open what?”
Me: “Your browser, can you open up your browser?”
Client: “My…my…?”
Me: “What you click on when you want to browse the internet?”
Client: “I don’t use anything, I just turn my computer on, and it’s there.”
Me: “Okay. Do you see the little blue ‘e’ icon on your desktop?”
Client: “You mean I have to start writing letters again?”
Me: “I’m…what, I’m sorry?”
Client: “I don’t have any pens at my desk. I just want my e-mail again.”
Me: “No, ma'am, your desktop, on your computer screen. Can you click on the little blue ‘e’ on your computer screen for me?”
Client: “Oh, this is too much work. I’m too upset. Just send me my e-mail. Can’t you send me my e-mail?”
Me: “We…okay, ma'am. Can you tell me what color the lights are on your router right now?”
Client: “My what?”
Me: “The little box with green or possibly a couple of red lights on it right now - it’s most likely near your computer?”
Client: “Lights and boxes, boxes and lights, just get my e-mail for me.
Me: “My test is showing that you should be able to get online right now. Can you tell me what you’re seeing on your computer screen?”
Client: “It’s been the same thing for the last two hours.”
Me: “An error message?”
Client: “No, just stars. It’s black and moving stars.”
Me: “…Do you see your mouse next to your keyboard?”
Client: “Yes.”
Me: “Move it for me.”
Client: “Move it?”
Me: “Yes. Move it.”
Client: “My e-mail!”
This post gave me a fucking ulcer.
You meet people like this at the library. People who have been coming in every day for YEARS to use the computers and monopolize your time with conversations like this, that seem to go out of their way to avoid listening to anything you try to teach them because they’d rather you just do it for them.
So one day, this tiny, frail little woman comes to the desk with a huge folder of papers under her arm. She says “I need to use one of the computers,” and I’m like “alright, I’ll set you up with a guest account.”
And then she says “I’ll also need you to show me how to use a computer. I’m 97 years old and I’ve never even touched one before, but I need to file my health information and they told me I needed to do it using this,” and she holds out a little scrap of paper with a url scrawled on it in a shaky hand.
And I’m just mentally like ‘oh no,’ but I say of course I can help her. So I sit her down and sign her in, and she stops me to ask basically what the mouse is, and I explain it, but I’m just thinking that this is going to take a million years. But I start doing a quick and dirty run down of the parts of the computer, the programs, the desktop, what a url is and what the Internet is, what a search engine is, what websites are, and so on.
She doesn’t interrupt or ask any questions or anything, and then I’m like ‘okay let’s go to this url’ and it’s an interactive, multi-page form that she needs to put all that info in her folder into and submit, and I’m just terrified as I’m explaining it that I’m going to spend all day with this woman.
But she’s just like “alright. I think I’ve got it.” And she must have had a secretary job back in the typewriter days, because she just *whips* through the first page of the form and submits and goes on to the next, and tells me she’ll find me if she needs me.
She came over once to tell me she needed an email address and wanted to know how to set one up - I told her about her options and she picked Gmail and went back to the computer and set it up all by herself, and got her information all filed properly in about an hour and a half – and she’d NEVER used a computer before in her LIFE.
When she was done, she came over to ask me how to turn it off and I showed her and she thanked me for being so patient, and I told her quite honestly that I’d NEVER seen a novice adult pick up using a computer so fast.
And she said “oh, but it’s so simple! And so useful! My grandkids made it sound so difficult, but I’m going to pick up my own computer tomorrow!”
And I think she must have, because I never saw her in the library again.
Anyway I hope I’m that quick when I’m 97.
^ thank you for sharing this very positive experience because the experience from OP really gave me a headache. it was nice to end on a positive note.. gives hope
A nice reminder that the older generations ARE capable of change; they often just don’t want to put in the effort to learn.
if deadpool gets a bf in the sequel i want someone to say “wait… i thought you were straight!!” and deadpool’s just like “hoo boy, someone obviously hasn’t read my comics” while staring at the camera
