I am not cut out for a tech support career

This morning, before work:
Dad: “Do you have [cousin’s] email address? I just got an email about cheap train fares that I want to forward to her”
Me: “It’s in my Gmail. I don’t know it off by heart, because I just use the auto-complete function. Your programme might have the same feature”
Dad: “How do I find out?”
Me: “Well, you just start typing her na-
Mum, cutting in: “Didn’t you email her last week? It should still be in your sent messages folder”
Dad: “Oh, good idea. Do you have a pen and paper, Catherine?”
Me: “Why do you need that?”
Dad: “So I can write down her email address (“you idiot” implied but not stated). I know that it’s one of those long ones and I won’t remember all of it when I start typing it in”
Me: “Just copy and paste”
Dad: “…”
Me: “Here, I’ll show you”
Dad: “No, it’s OK, I’ve got it on the screen now. I’ll just write it down”
[pause for writing email addresses in]
Dad, typing: “Oh! I started to type her name and the full address came up! This Mac of yours is very good, I might get one”
Oh well, at least it made leaving for my dentist appointment seem like a more attractive proposition than it might have done otherwise.
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For no particular reason, here’s a picture that freaked me out. Happy weekend everyone!
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About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010
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8 Responses to I am not cut out for a tech support career

  1. Åsa Karlström says:

    🙂 Hope all went well at the dentist!
    With the risk of sounding old fashioned, I write down emails every once in a while too… since I remember them easier if I write with an old fashioned pen and paper. Of course, I already own a mac though so maybe those two statements negates each other? 😉

  2. Matt Brown says:

    Ha. Reminds me of my dad. He got an iPhone six months ago. When I asked him recently what apps he’d installed, he looked blank and asked what an app was. Well that’s £35 a month well spent.

  3. Cath Ennis says:

    Åsa, as well as can be expected I suppose! I might still need a root canal though.
    Incidentally, I had a dream last night that my former boss was my dentist. Says a lot, I think.
    I don’t think I’ve written down a single email address (or phone number) for years. Even before I got my iPhone I’d just put them into my phone instead and text them to myself 🙂
    Matt, that’s funny! My parents loved my iPhone, but thought it was too complicated for them. Did you manage to persuade your Dad to learn to navigate the app store?

  4. Ken Doyle says:

    I’ve had more of those conversations than I care to remember. Fortunately, I was getting paid for most of them 🙂

  5. Richard Wintle says:

    Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…. [head explodes]
    This reminds me of certain relatives of mine, not naming any names of course.
    At one not-so-terribly-far-in-the-distant-past job, I seriously considered posting a sign on my office door saying “I AM NOT THE I.T. DEPARTMENT”. I doubt it would have helped, though – especially since I was responsible for setting up and maintaining the network there. 😛

  6. Cath Ennis says:

    Ken, payment would be nice. I should start charging – either by the minute, or by the blood pressure readings.
    Richard, I want one saying “I AM NOT THE SECRETARY” (I sit where my boss’s former assistant used to sit, and it’s surprising how many very educated people don’t understand that I’m not there to track my boss’s schedule).

  7. Henry Gee says:

    Ah me. Since Mrs Gee and I have been working at home a lot I have become the IT Guy. I am hoping to convert her to Macs, but for some reason her (remote) IT Guy, the one who actually gets paid, hates them with a passion. Deep sigh. Maybe if everyone had a Mac then many tech support people would be out of a job.

  8. Cath Ennis says:

    My friend who owns a data recovery company hates Macs because they rarely go down – but when they do, it’s catastrophic, and he can’t rescue any files at all. Not good for a “no data, no charge” guy 🙂
    On the other hand, he LOVES them for editing videos (new father), and called me an hour after getting his iPhone to apologise for laughing at how much I loved mine!

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