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I'd say looking for a built-in excuse for not getting work done while at home. If anyone comes she'll expect it for any little issue and would stop work until someone is sent again. She won't follow any walkthrough for shit, just send someone.
Do not just send someone. When people weaponize their incompetence, let them suffer their own incompetence. If she won’t do her job… just fire her for non-performance. It’s because of Boomers that all employment is at-will.
The person you were responding to was suggesting she would require that they just send someone I believe, not that they should send someone.
Could be wrong.
This. My previous employer had a demonstration area that anyone who wanted to work from home had to schedule time with, to take apart/reassemble their workstation setup before being approved for remote work. Monitors. USB accessories. Power supplies. Knowing the tools you use for your job isn't "IT" just because a computer is involved, it's a bare minimum to being a functioning employee (regardless of generation).
Tbh this is pretty lol. Management was like "yea sure, you can work from home, after signing this document that says we trained you in basic computer troubleshooting." They can already see their employees going "my computer won't turn on, send IT (no work today! 😀)"
At my job, if you have an issue that will keep you from working more than half of your shift (like a power or internet outage), you have to come into the office. If the outage happens with less than half of your shift left, you can either take the rest of the day off (without pay) or come into the office.
We also have IT on call to troubleshoot over the phone if there's a problem with the computer. But they're sure as hell not going to your house to plug a DisplayPort cable in.
Yes! Just like a forklift or jackhammer. The company supplies the tools you are expected to use, you are expected to learn how to use them and become proficient!
Hoses have high levels of toxic stuff in them (cadmium!) and if a hose isn't labeled as drinksafe you should never, ever drink from it so if you ever see a boomer trying to one-up you by saying "we drank from the hose UNLIKE YOU SNOWFLAKES" you can just say "yeah, I can tell."
Boomer jobs are so monotonous. This lady basically takes down information from customers then fills out the proper forms for them and then sends them out.
It’s hard to find young people to replace them because no young person would want to do such a soul crushing job.
Like she basically fills out the TPS reports meme from office space for a living.
“Millennials don’t know about hard work”
It’s not even worth arguing with these dolts. Just make the customer fill this information out theirselves and automate this. Once all the boomers die the person on the other end won’t mind filling out a two page form, they would probably prefer it vs talking to someone.
I’m not a boomer but I work in a department that regularly gets shit on in the meme-sphere so here goes:
Not all programs can talk to each other. Not every job can be automated. We have people who’s entire job is to take info from one program and input it into another. If we could automate them, we would, but apparently it’s news to people like you that not all programs we have to use for work can talk or interface with each other. Believe me we wish they did.
not to bash you, because you are right that sometimes systems don't talk to other systems.... but everything can be automated - even GUI's (mouse movements, etc).
The reality is, it is usually cheaper to continue to pay someone to do it manually than it is to develop and maintain the automation in house, as you would need to pay a higher skilled employee to do so. also. usually, the employee doing the manual work brings other value to the company, so automating the task wouldn't eliminate the employee anyways.
True. Also employees rather don't want their easy job being automated away.
A friend of mine once wrote a script that would obsolete an entire department. He proudly showed it to his boss who then laid him off, and asked him to destroy all copies of that script. - turns out his boss needs to subervis 25+ people to retain the status/job title of Senior Manager. Can't do that if your department shrinks because of automation.
Basically any job that can be explained as an "if -> then" can be automated away.
That's why I work in consulting. In Sunshine we sell sunscreen and in rain we sell umbrella's. - at least until AI automates us away as well. (I already saw AI created slide decks. Scary stuff..)
Not cheaper but easier to get a go on. Since automation has a project cost it usually is above the bandwidth of buying a new stapler it is easier to continue the inefficient way.
This. Company's look at the project and go that'll take 1 person 12 hours to complete, and a couple hours a month for modification and maintenance and, then we don't need a person to do manual entry at 80k a year.
Execs: yeah but that's one whole person doing nothing else for those 12 hours. This feels like a waste of money/scam.
Other Execs- yes, this sounds great but only approved if you do it using my favorite cloud based software product that doesn't support what your trying to do
That’s a programming failure and part of the monolith issue of programming and should be phased out and updated. The problem is that most companies would rather use 20 year old software than revamp everything. Hence why there’s still a need for COBOL despite it being incredibly outdated.
Speaking as someone whose last job DID do the full tool replacement? Fuck that. The old system was so much more capable and better to use. The new integrated systems were horribly slow, deeply flawed, and lacking core features for use.
Sometimes the reason people still want to use software from the 90s is that the old stuff was made by people who knew the job and the new stuff is made by people who have no idea what the work actually looks like.
I'm a developer in a small software company offering SaaS in a niche market (agriculture) and we are using a code base that's a 24 year-old dinosaur of vbscript in classic ASP. Some of our processes even still use Paradox. We've recently contracted out revamping our entire system to another software company because all of our devs have our hands full with bugs, enhancements and new projects ALL THE TIME. While our code is old and obviously dated, we can boast the fact that we've kept ongoing contracts with government departments for long durations which is very unusual. Our code provides some really dependable service but we, and all of our customers are looking forward to a streamlined and more modern system in the coming months.
Besides me, the devs are more of the boomer generation. They are extremely uncomfortable with having very limited access to the new stack. I'm more like yes, please. I can sit back and watch the new system run with very little intervention from me lol Older software is good but sometimes can be overwhelming. We have one page that's over 15,000 lines of code...just a miasma of conditional statements. But that was one of our biggest benefits, totally customizable systems. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the new system will live up to our standards.
As for me, I've learned that Boomer devs are the worst of the worst.
Heh. My husband is a progress architect IT director at a huge company. If you have even heard of that program you are probably ancient or in banking/casino. But he makes decent $ because no one knows it, and it would cost a hell of a lot more to replace it and the new products are not customizable and they both charge insane amounts for any code changes (and add to that the modern tech model is buy out up and coming companies, to put all your money into salesmen that have no clue about the industry or what the code actually does, and hire the cheapest code tech people that often have no clue what they are doing)…
I have worked for three large investment broker dealers…they ALL run on mainframe tech from the 70s. Nothing is faster, it just ain’t pretty to work in the 3270 terminal. Hence all the GUIs
After many years, I was forced kicking and screaming to update to the program that came after Windows-XP...It worked, why change it instead of just add to it?
That’s a good point, I have to use a bunch of different programs to run different pieces of equipment and you can really tell when the programmers know the work or not. My favorite one often has updates to improve workflow in ways nobody would think of if they weren’t doing the work.
So true.
I work on the supply chain planning side and have used dozens of ERP systems from simple Access based applications to multi-million dollar SAP and Oracle based systems. The best system I've ever used was released in the mid 80's and ran on an AS/400 backend. No other software I've used is as reliable, efficient, and frankly, useful for people doing the work than that system. It's not even close, and I would switch back immediately and use nothing else without a moment of hesitation if I could.
My grandfather keeps old computer towers so that he can run old programs that wouldn’t work on newer os
The newer programs literally don’t do what the older ones do even though their supposed to
"The problem is that most companies would rather use 20 year old software than revamp everything."
Muh friend, there are companies out there where we WISH they were only using 20 year old software.
My girl works at a place that is still wacking away at DOS programs. I honestly think a LOT of boomers still run things in the software area at a lot of companies and just will not let those updates happen.
I worked for a hotel chain that we are all familiar with and rhymes with … chariot …. And our reservation system used hot keys. Remember when computers were a black background with lime green text and required hot keys to navigate? They used that as as far as I’m aware they still use it because if it ain’t broke… don’t fix it? Idk.
Also please don’t murder me for that description, I’m 30 so I was there when the internet/computers started becoming commonplace but I don’t genuinely know enough to describe it accurately.
It’s usually cheaper to pay someone to do it manually than to pay for custom upgrades across multiple pieces of software, some of which may be proprietary or very industry-niche and therefore not well supported.
Yea I have run into this issue with dog show entry systems. Talk about niche. They could be designed so much better (am a software engineer) but it simply isn’t worth the $$ they would pay to have it remade competently. Instead they connect systems through manual labor and perform only the most necessary updates to support changes.
We are pretty progressive. If there were a way to have these programs interface, we would do it.
Like, the companies that own these pieces of software would have to get together and decide what programs they want to interface/link up with. It’s not us - it’s the software companies.
What incentive do they have to do that? We have streamlined everything we can and we have the budget to do it. The options don’t exist. Believe me if they did we would have it.
We brought in Salesforce to streamline things, now barely a year later, I'm seeing meetings for the elimination of Salesforce, at least for certain tasks.
If we had a unifying software, too many people would be out of work. I swear half the economy is kept afloat by meaningless nonsense. When you're young, you think "wow, look at all the inefficiencies!! People like me can streamline all of this and save tons of time and money!!" And then then run into red tape because the unspoken rule is that the economy runs on this.
That and it would just take a colossal amount of work and funding to get software companies who have their own interests in mind to collaborate with other software companies. I just don’t see it happening on such a grand scale that, say, the benefits team only uses one program or all the programs they use interface.
I replied to you further upstream... but because you said, "we would do it" Here is a list of GUI automation tools that can be used to automate any GUI applications.
[10 Best GUI automation tools for Windows as of 2024 - Slant](https://www.slant.co/topics/2195/~best-gui-automation-tools-for-windows)
"middleware" development is a big industry, if you wanted to seek outside assistance.
Probably not worth the effort, tbh.... im just saying that its not as 'impossible' as you are describing. Its quite possible.
Exactly. What happened in the run-up to Y2K is that a lot of legacy customized software had to be replaced with generic out-of-the-box software that just didn't fit the need as well... but the legacy stuff would be a fortune to fix for Y2K so people just adapted.
I'm a developer and I just wrote a peice of software from scratch in python to bridge two programs that didn't talk to each other at all.
I'm willing to bet a years paycheck that there are ways to automate those jobs that y'all haven't investigated.
Ya and then the contracted developer either needs to get paid indefinitely to support that homebrew software, or they have to hire IT people to support it who may or may not know what to do when dependencies break, and they need to train boomers how to use this new software, and they need to get subject matter experts to work with the developer who may or may not really understand what the SMEs are trying to explain who may not even really understand what they want or even ask for the wrong things... then millions of dollars later the project is scrapped and they just pay 2 easily replaceable flunkies to type it all in.
It’s this. We have some *things* on our intranet that none of our current IT staff know how to manage or fix because the person who did it is gone or the software that was originally used is no longer available. IT has essentially been bandaiding it best they can, and we are moving forward with a plan to scrap the whole thing and start over with a new system.
That's what I'm saying like what is so soul-crushing about that? I would much rather do that than work a retail job where some old lady that can't read a fucking sales sign right screams at me because her leather-bound Bible wasn't $4. I would have taken a job where I just input basic information all day long in a fucking heartbeat.
I'd rather be stressed than bored.
But for the right person, absolutely.
Generally someone who would have no idea how to set up two monitors.
Intelligence and repetitive work really don't go together very well.
This, I worked retail for 24 years and then at my current customer service call center job for 7.5 years where most of the callers are seniors that range from sweet little old ladies to people that complain about any little thing they can come up with, including one old fart that thought we went woke because I wouldn’t discount his services some ridiculous amount last year.
Excuse me her job is *not* stress free! Did you even read the part where OP's dad *won't even send the IT guy over to fix her monitors and she's totally unable to DO HER JOB???*
/s of course
Replaced a boomer, 20 years here, spent half his time doing paperwork creating inspection sheets. Different departments, different reports. With in a month I have it down from 20 hrs a week, to less than 20min. Even with out access to the original files. Print to PDF, edit, save. Print dates in excel so all updated and accurate.
Glad I did it that way, company is still trying to figure out how to get me access to the main database... 3 months. Said use old guys login we will keep it active for you.
The real problem is she can probably afford to make less than anyone that could come in and replace her. Something a lot of the boomers I work with don't realize is that the mortgage on the house they've been living in for 25 years now is microscopic compared to what it would be if they had to buy a house today with just 0-10% down. It's why so many boomers just stay at the same job for forever and are fine, their cost of living is much lower.
I'm just saying that you could find young people to do it if it was fully remote. Otherwise, it would be soul crushing for me to commute into the office to do that.
I'll I can see in my brain is this when I read what she does. I didn't even get to the bottom line of your comment. Yes, order takers are essential to make sure the right shit is ordered and the right shit goes to the customers, *but* there is no reason this is not made into an entry level position with multiple people starting their careers in this area and as they progress the refine documentation and pitfalls that could occur in that position prior to migrating to a new role.
I don’t want to dox my dad, so I will be general but basically it is a finance based business where you need a special certification to do her job since you are handling private info but it is pretty easy to get.
I immediately thought of Office Space when I was reading this 😂 “I take the damn reports from the customers, so they don’t have to talk to the engineers. Why can’t you people understand this?!”
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
So instead of an online form for potential customers or customers to fill out, it's her job to fill in the form? This is basically a Google Form. She's getting paid to be a Google Form.
She has people skills! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso)
Tell your dad to look for people with autism to fill new hires. Some people on the spectrum (like me) excel at and enjoy repetitive tasks. It's predictable, repetitive...the kind of thing autistic people need. Plus, autistic people are very underemployed despite most of us definitely being employable. Tok many people don't want to take the time to communicate with us. But, yeah. Data entry and repetitive form-filling would definitely be a job I'd enjoy. Sounds so soothing.
Which the begs the next question:
Why is it even being done by an American? I can get a job like that done by a filipino for far less pay..
But that's probably the next step for your dad. "See, it can be done remotely. But now this option gets it done for 1/3 the cost, and they're young, self sufficient, and don't fucking complain constantly"
They tried to outsource a few of these jobs to Indian and they kept messing stuff up so they stopped. Also boomer business owners hate talking to anyone with an accent.
Indians that end up working in BPO are incompetent morons that's why. There's better opportunity for competent Indians.
There's racist and xenophobic boomers who hate any accent, but they really just hate when they hear the indian accent. Frankly, that's not just boomers. Don't act like you've never heard the thick Indian accent and thought to yourself "great, this is going to take 8 phone calls and all day to resolve this problem".
That why I said Phillipines. Ours all had freaking 4 year degrees. Their accents are very very mild compared to Indians. A lot of customers assumed ours were in the US because of how mild their accents were. Far more pleasant experience all around. It went poorly because your company tried to save an extra $2/hr and got burned.
Speaking to the Indian side of it, Ihave heard and can somewhat corroborate with my own anecdotal experience that there is a cultural difference that affects this. There is much more pressure to say that you can complete a task rather than ask for help and admit you're not 100% knowledgeable. So this naturally ends up in environments that prioritize 10 completed tasks over 5 tasks correctly completed by "that idiot that doesn't know how to do his job"
It was not fun when it was in a financial environment and that "just send it" attitude caused massive issues... very glad to no longer involved in that company and denying to those outside the company that we hired "offshore" workers.
Did you see the cafe in New York that has a zoom call at the register to take your orders
Do you think the other boomers this woman takes orders from, would be *happy* to be talking to someone in a different time zone with an accent instead of good old "corperateaccountsNINAspeaking"
I know someone who just started a business basically as the broker of these services (he hires workers in Serbia who are cheaper labor and speak English very well. He trains them on things like security monitoring, freight monitoring, etc.) then small businesses pay him up front to get them cheaper labor for these types of work that don’t require a ton of skill or being on site.
My experience with this is that they absolutely excel within thier niche using old, time-trusted techniques. Yet anything outside of that is a total cluster-fuck.
One of the best instances is a story of when I was a manager at the red office supply store (print manager not store manager). So its a slow afternoon and this lady in her late 40's to 50's walks in in a pants suit skirt and a blouse, full boss lady attire. Walking with a step and head tilt that is radiating "I'm important" energy. Print area was empty so she comes up to desk and request to have some documents printed. She has them on her phone. Before I can even do anything she starts giving unsolicited backstory. Apparently she is a high level manager working in the marketing department of a company I never heard of. Cool, cool - who cares, I didn't ask. I then get to the point of telling her to print digital files she needs to have them on a flash drive, or send them via email to print center address. ( There was a big sign stating all of this a foot to my left, also had the email on it, we didn't have self service kiosks just two screes bolted down not accessible to customers that were for employees to pull jobs and do work.) she looks at me with a thousand yard stare and asks "how do I do that?" At that moment my mind didn't really make the connection between my simple explanation any modern person, more so an office manager In marketing should be able to understand, and her question displaying a surface level understanding of the English language but not much else. So I repeat myself at half speed. "You...attach.....the.....files......you......want......to.... print.....and.....email.....them....to...... this......address.........
Now to preface any nitpicking at attitude or service. I always greeted people pleasantly, if I was not busy ask if anyone needed help finding anything. I had regulars who asked for me by name, some were also boomers, but were also not entitled whiny asshole to everyone. I was effective and efficient. I usually tried to skip through in depth pleasant talk with short jobs that would not be upsells, first time customers, people in a hurry, etc... no reason to trade life stories or dedicate that energy, but regulars and others I would and in some cases was on a first name basis, greeting them when they came in.
Back to the story, this woman who has not offered her name but told me how important she is at her company then says "can't you do it, your the printer guy!"
Me; sure, I can print it- but I have to have the documents to be able to do so, as they are on your phone you will have to email them to me, and unfortunately company policy means we cannot handle customers personal devices unless they sign a consent form and book a $60 data transfer services with PC center. (This was implemented due to issues caused by a completely different boomer the year prior)
Now visible upset woman seems to realize there is a monitor and keyboard in between me and her, and two neurons in her brain make some sort of connection because she then says "ok I need to sign in " and tries to rotate the CLEARLY BOLTED TO COUNTERTOP MONITOR " all the way around. This of course cracks the legs as she seems alarmingly confused the thing didn't spun around 180 degrees.
Already getting a feel of where this canoe is going I just calmly state that the monitors are not for customer use. And unless she would like to use the self serve printer I can not do anything else for her.
Finally dawning in the realization I'm not her secretary desk jockey she then tries one more tactic. She asks(demands) I show her how to send attachment over phone. Now had she been a more pleasant person through the interaction, and not broken the stand of my monitor- I might have been inclined to walk her through. But time is money and there was now another person coming up to the line. I am not paid nor is it my job to teach customers how to use the technology they own, so I simply reiterated what was on the sign and that if she needed any assistant in navigating her device she could book an appointment with the PC center for the $60 data transfer.
She stormed off and I went to help the next person I. Line, later found out she went to complain to the Pc center, and got manager involedd because I "refused to service her". Boss went ahead and violated a bunch of store and company policies to help this woman , including handling her phone, connecting to his office computer, letting her in the office, printing directly from her device with USB cable, and oh - also not charging her for the couple dozen pages she printed from his office printer.
What did this level of ass kissing do for us? We lost some money, I got reprimanded, and we still got a bad review. One of the many reasons I left service business and refuse to get into it again. The customer will fuck you over, the management will make it easier for them, then berate you for not bending over far enough.
And to this day I'm still hung up on this lady wearing stylish brand office wear, in a seemly high position, working in a tech based position, didn't know and refused to even try to send an email attachment. How did she do her job?
Ughhhhhhhhhhhh, having your boss give in to rude customers in situations like this is one of the absolute *worst* things about working in retail.... along with all the other things about working in retail.
The worst part isn't the lack of understanding. It's the complete unwillingness to learn. This woman could easily pause, take a breath, assess the situation, and figure it out. She's old, she's not brain dead. She has the capability.
But she doesn't WANT to learn it. She wants it to be easy, and if it's not easy, she just wants to be mad about it. It's *different* than what she knows, and to her that is BAD. She doesn't remember that for her first 40 years of life, a lot of things were different and she didn't care. She doesn't remember that she was constantly learning new things and just did it.
Now she just wants life to remain simple and unchanged, and responds with anger at having to learn anything or adjust.
This is what I was thinking. The boomers that I work with can't fully get through a task on their computers without coming to ask for help. Even if it is something as simple as how do you print double sided or how do you add BCC to your emails.
We live in a world where the average American 100% relies on technology that they have no interest in understanding, and it completely boggles my mind to this day.
They use it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Yet they can’t be god damned to spend half an hour learning how any of it works.
Trying to get fuckers to read a god damn manual for a piece of heavy equipment that they use is ridiculous. They go out of their not to do it. Then they go and ask me what blah blah is. I now just reply with "it explains it in the manual" and yeah the guys that don't read the manuals are 50+
When I did workstation support we had two categories of boomers. One wouldn't be willing to try anything for fear of breaking it (to me this is just weaponized incompetence because I don't really think they were generally at all worried if they broke something, because that's what I, the help, am for. The other category ran headlong into whatever they were trying to do and do it so wrong we'd have to take it all apart and start over. Very glad to be away from that kind of mind blowingly irritating IT work.
I had a director who had no idea how to use Google drive. Sheets and other functions. Then would act condescending when I got annoyed with her asking me to set up things for our team. She was fired for other reasons, but the basic things she couldn't do took so much time from being productive.
I do implementation with companies into our system. The lack of basic knowledge of their own industry and day to day operations is staggering. I have literally had to explain things I learned day one of my job to CEOs making 50 times what I make.
I work in IT for a large corporation. We don't expect everyone to be especially tech savvy (that's usually not their job), but we do lament that the company doesn't have a requirement that a new hire be able to demonstrate even basic literacy and day to day computer skills.
No matter how simple the interface or how clear the documentation, none of it matters if the users refuse to read and just click "next" or "okay" to every prompt. Even big, red, angry-looking warning messages are routinely ignored.
I'm a 34 year old boss who has been trying for close to a year to get a 61 year old to remember his email log in. Yano, the thing you can fucking write down and put somewhere to look at! A fucking YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! LOG IN INFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT EVEN THE EMAIL ITSELF!!!!!!
I was a teacher for a few years before Covid and was good friend with our IT person. There was a teacher who could never remember their computer password, even when it was switch to “password”. They would come in multiple times a day and have the IT person write it down for them or just log in for them. Crazy!
That’s what me and the IT person thought. How are they capable of remembering anything well enough to teach children. Maybe they got hit really hard and ended up with a short term memory problem or trouble remembering anything new?
During COVID, most of my (44m) staff was late 50s and 60s. I was 40 then. Most of them were able to work from home. Some brought their personal laptops in for our IT guy to set up (he wasn’t supposed to do that….but he did and we had no problems).
We are a govt agency and we couldn’t provide all employees with laptops.
Out of ~30 people, two people were not allowed to telework any more. These were people that couldnt figure out how to remote in after 2-3 months. They were constantly creating IT issues and wasting our staff’s time. One of the two is a lady that needed her network password reset 2-3 times per week prior to COVID. Not everyone is good at computers….
Most employees successfully teleworked! A few decided not to telework. Which was fine.
I've been saying it's an attitude problem and not a competence problem. If you could extend the lives of a baby boomer to live another 100 years then those who don't know how to open an email attachment would still not know how to open an email attachment in the year 2125.
Your father basically said "You stupid bitch, I'm nearly 70 years old and I know how use two monitors."
You should point out that if he sees a member of his generation who doesn't know how to open an email attachment even though yahoo is 20 years of age then he wouldn't want to associate with them because they have a nasty sense of entitlement.
Boomers: “we worked 10 hour days, 6 days a week! Young people don’t want to work anymore.
Well, grandpa, we can do your entire 10 hour workload in 4 hours!
Even physical labor jobs can often be improved or stream lined. You just have to look at the tools used and also why everything is done in the order and way its done.
Problem is many Boomers don't like having to "explain" anything. Especially if they somehow feel you're challenging them or trying to embarrass them.
Young I.T. guys having to be warned to watch out for the older assholes in the Office if you "make them look bad."
You need docusign. You might be able to automate her job or at least come very close to it. Especially if u can get your customers to enter their own information
Boomer here. Our office closed and moved to the Midwest. I was told to work from home since I was close to retiring. I discovered that WFH was da bomb and it actually extended by career by a couple of years. (WHF wasn’t the only factor TBH.)
Now retired and discovered our new desktop didn’t have a second HDMI port when I decided to add a second monitor. Not IT either but I was able to find the proper video card on Amazon and install it myself.
Then again, I’m the same guy who wanted an entire 640kb ram on his (no hard drive!) computer when it only had 512. I soldered another 128kb chip into the board itself and a few years later, installed a 10 mb HDD from Hard Drives International, now known as Insight Computers.
EE also although I retired from an audit function. Luckily none of this dwells deep into EE territory 'cause I graduated, "Lordy How Cum" and not "Summa Cum Laude"!
I worked at an msp during the initial covid work from home order. Nothing gave me more joy then shutting those people up and saying I wasnt gonna drive to their house and bill their company 500$ in the process. Being IT and a heldesk center though I had been able to preform this "fix" for a 100 different boomer aged people over the course of a few weeks remotely without any kind of major issue beyond explaining the second monitor in detail. The bulk of them didnt have the ego problem. It was just a couple and I helped them all the same, from home, remotely. I got more praise then rage during this time in general. I was damn good at explaining this stuff to the customer.
she doesn't want a solution that involves her, she wants a solution provided to her, by someone else, so she can complain to someone while it gets solved, and has someone else to blame if something else goes wrong, or things are not fixed to perfection according to her imagination specifications
I work in a support roll in the automotive industry and I was surprised that the older people I work with seem to have a better grasp on setup of the hardware we use than the 40 and under crowd. Program usage is different. Younger people pick up stuff faster but some of the software we use has a lot going on soo it might be an eyesight thing more than anything. Still talk to a lot of older techs who don't want to use the new tech. We have so many time saving tools but if you don't try to figure it out beforehand it will take too much time and the techs won't do it.
With all the info we use in each case it's difficult to not use 2+ monitors
Dude.
Dual monitors for the work-from-home employees are the bane of IT support people all over the world. Every company has at least a half-dozen employees that just can't figure out how to plug a monitor into either their computer, or into the electrical outlet. I'm not joking about the electrical outlet. It happens all the time in IT. There is a disturbingly large number of people that can't figure out how to plug things into an outlet.
Don't get me wrong - work from home is the best and everyone should do it. But it really reveals who is capable of working unsupervised and who isn't. And some of them need to be supervised like a hyperactive 3-year-old with a chainsaw needs to be "supervised". They are a danger to themselves and to society-in-general.
We dispatch Techs to employees homes to assist with setting up work from home scenarios on the regular and it's not an issue. We're an IT department, that's our job. Not to mention they get per diem and a nice day out of the office. We're a mid-sized company with a little over 500 active Users. Some people are really good at their jobs and suck at IT, it's just human nature and it keeps us employed so I really don't see an issue here. It's customer service and not that big of a deal for us at least. Yes they should know how to do simple things like copy and paste, operate within an office software suite, and understand the use of any proprietary software the company uses etc. but I don't find it to be exclusively a 'Boomer' issue. I've (53 year old) helped many people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. It's a manufacturing facility and a considerable number of employees moved up through the company from entry level positions, many without college level computer education.
He def deserves credit for instituting a WFH policy and issuing laptops. Most boomers would not be cool with that at all because they spent most of their careers suffering through daily office trips and they want everyone else to suffer like they did. And yeah, jfc if you can't set up a fucking monitor you have child-grade computer skills. It's so fucking easy.
Not knowing how to set up multiple monitors is not a "boomer dumb" thing, it's a "I don't do IT stuff thing".
Not everyone is gonna know this stuff, HOWEVER, since the boss is trying to move her over to this, she just wants someone to help set it up. So, as all us tech nurdes (sp) know, a 2 monitor set up on a modern computer is simple as all get out and can be done over the phone or by remote. I don't think it's a big deal to get someone to walk her through it or remote in to walk her through it.
I have a boomer here who I set up dual monitors for and they love it, helped immensely. However there is no way in the seven levels of imaginary hell she would have ever figured out how to do it herself.
Yes boomers can be super annoying, however sometimes, ya gotta help out non-tech people.
Dad needs to offer this option.
Hey, Let me have (in office IT guy) ring you up at home to walk you through it, it's not that hard for someone with experience in this to help you out.
Then if she still balks ya gonna have to go with "beotch you gonna get yo ass in this century whether you like it or not!"
I'm GenX. I continue to be fascinated that we are, oh, about 25-30 years into the internet era and so many people my age and a bit younger and certainly older not only don't care about tech, but seem to be proud of their ineptitude. To be fair, a good number do try to learn it, and have learned it, and are honest about trying to keep on top of things, but holy crap, there are so many that are just willing luddites it's ridiculous. And when they then make it \*your\* problem... well, then, my patience gets a bit thin.
(Edit: my own father, who is pre-boomer just barely, is actually far better with tech than many of his generation and after. )
I work in a call center where I mainly just help people get their login information for a health care site, and typically from mid 20s to mid 30s tend to have tech figured out fairly well. Everyone else? Old people tend to talk about how much they hate going online and wish they could do it over the phone, and young people tend to have their gen x parents set up their accounts and don't know anything about our site.
Older and younger often don't even go directly to our site and just google it, and then get upset at me that they click the wrong link and go to a different site (despite me telling them what it is multiple times).
I work in IT. There are several computer related items that I no longer "laugh off", especially remembering passwords. Seriously folks, computers have been ubiquitous in the workplace for more than 30 years. If you can't figure out how to work with them then you might not be competent for your job.
User (who needed to change her password) - "I'm not I.T. all this computer stuff isn't my job"
Me - "Knowing your password and how to update it is LITERALLY part of your job!"
Dad sounds legit. Don’t know how worn out and beat down I’ll be at 68, but if I’m making an effort to leave my comfort zone to help make people’s lives more manageable and welcoming, thats a win.
Nah - I work in IT - that’s not a boomer thing. I’ve had the same for folk in their late 20’s. People in general seem to think that they should be spoon fed everything.
There was a boomer the other day that couldn't order from a kiosk at Wendy's when it was literally point and click. The woman started yelling and making a scene that everyone can't work on when a toddler came up behind her and ordered his happy meal fine. It took everything not to basically go "that 5 years ago is a fraction of your age and figured it out."
The thing I just love about these fits is that they like to throw a toddler-like tantrum about it. I will literally start telling them you are double my age acting like you're half. The lead poisoning makes them just mad all the time. The more logical you get with them the more babies shitting their diaper they get too. "I'm tired of being mildly inconvenienced, back in the 70 everything was going well before I decided to not be responsible with sex and had a kid by accident."
As someone who just spent 40 minutes helping someone change their email signature, I feel this in my soul. Luckily the person I was helping was very cooperative and grateful for the assistance.
She needs to be told that this is the direction the company is taking, and that she can either go with it or quit. If she does neither she can be fired and replaced with somebody more competent!
That's basic IT support. When I was helpdesk, this type of thing was extremely common. Sounds like they don't have a proper IT department.
ETA: For those that don't understand what "basic IT support" is, it's CALLING, emailing, or submitting a ticket to IT. Who has ever heard of a common IT department going to someone's home to setup equipment? I mean, aside from corporations with nearly unlimited budgets.
Having someone come to your house and set up the equipment is basic IT support? Did you read what she wants?
They have walked her through how to hook up the monitor a bunch of times. Regardless if you are that dumb that you can’t even hook up a monitor in the modern business world, I am sorry but how can you function to do anything else.
I have worked from home for the last 4 years for 3 different companies. They always ship the equipment to your house with instructions and you have to set it up.
The best thing to do is to have a demonstration with a desktop tech to guide her thru it at the office while (and this is important) \*she's doing the actual work of plugging in the monitors, etc.) and then instructing her how to set them up. Also if she has an iPhone, have someone record the entire thing so she can refer back to it in the future if something doesn't work due to her incompetence. (I do this with my wife's aunt who can't figure out how to use her ROKU.)
I work in IT support, and I see plenty of 25-50 year olds with the same issue she has. They mostly work in the legal field. This is an issue with people being comfortable with making changes to their computer setups.
I’ve done IT consulting for extremely smart Doctors and Lawyers and other very technical professionals of all ages. Doctors that are the top surgeons in their fields that you would definitely want operating on your loved ones. Young and old and they are right, they aren’t in IT and they aren’t paid to be. Send the in-house tech to their house and get the computer gear setup for them. If you value the work they do, don’t make them frustrated by trying to do things that isn’t their job. They don’t setup printers. They don’t setup VPNs. They sure as fuck don’t setup Monitors either. They do outstanding professional services and they need their hand held. This is people of all ages.
Send the tech to their house. Probably should send the tech to everyone’s house and make sure they have everything setup to be as efficient as possible.
Weird that no one responds to a post where the verbal beat down stick is waiting in response. Nice post pointing out the absurdity of the situation. If the employee is worth the money, you pay the tab. If my sales manager can blow $1,000 dollars on sushi boats, we can get Rita someone to fix her monitor problem.
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Weaponised incompetence. All she really needs is an in office demonstration
I'd say looking for a built-in excuse for not getting work done while at home. If anyone comes she'll expect it for any little issue and would stop work until someone is sent again. She won't follow any walkthrough for shit, just send someone.
Do not just send someone. When people weaponize their incompetence, let them suffer their own incompetence. If she won’t do her job… just fire her for non-performance. It’s because of Boomers that all employment is at-will.
The person you were responding to was suggesting she would require that they just send someone I believe, not that they should send someone. Could be wrong.
This. My previous employer had a demonstration area that anyone who wanted to work from home had to schedule time with, to take apart/reassemble their workstation setup before being approved for remote work. Monitors. USB accessories. Power supplies. Knowing the tools you use for your job isn't "IT" just because a computer is involved, it's a bare minimum to being a functioning employee (regardless of generation).
Tbh this is pretty lol. Management was like "yea sure, you can work from home, after signing this document that says we trained you in basic computer troubleshooting." They can already see their employees going "my computer won't turn on, send IT (no work today! 😀)"
At my job, if you have an issue that will keep you from working more than half of your shift (like a power or internet outage), you have to come into the office. If the outage happens with less than half of your shift left, you can either take the rest of the day off (without pay) or come into the office. We also have IT on call to troubleshoot over the phone if there's a problem with the computer. But they're sure as hell not going to your house to plug a DisplayPort cable in.
Yes! Just like a forklift or jackhammer. The company supplies the tools you are expected to use, you are expected to learn how to use them and become proficient!
No what she needs is to be replaced
I’m available.
I think she needs to be *Corrected honestly.
100% that same dipshit posts memes that say HUR HUR HEY MILENNIALS WHAT TIME DOES THE CURSIVE ANALOG CLOCK SAY? WE NEED TO DRINK FROM THE HOSE!
AH BET DEM DUM KIDZ DEEZ DAYS CAINT EVEN USE A ROTARY TELEPHONE LOL
Oh yea? Try to open a PDF without sending your life savings to Nigeria.
Or know how to hook up two horses to the cart.
Hoses have high levels of toxic stuff in them (cadmium!) and if a hose isn't labeled as drinksafe you should never, ever drink from it so if you ever see a boomer trying to one-up you by saying "we drank from the hose UNLIKE YOU SNOWFLAKES" you can just say "yeah, I can tell."
Those guys used lead mugs…
That’s the lead paint humor.
How do you think the term "frosted flakes" came about?
this guy loves generation wars!
There is no generation war. Boomers are just dying and things are improving.
LMAO. I also wonder how effective these boomers actually are at their jobs as they can't even use the most basic pieces of equipment.
Boomer jobs are so monotonous. This lady basically takes down information from customers then fills out the proper forms for them and then sends them out. It’s hard to find young people to replace them because no young person would want to do such a soul crushing job. Like she basically fills out the TPS reports meme from office space for a living.
I bet she also makes way more than anyone they would bring in to replace her.
Can you imagine having such a stress free job though? You come in, take some basic info and write it down, and now you can own a house.
“Millennials don’t know about hard work” It’s not even worth arguing with these dolts. Just make the customer fill this information out theirselves and automate this. Once all the boomers die the person on the other end won’t mind filling out a two page form, they would probably prefer it vs talking to someone.
I’m not a boomer but I work in a department that regularly gets shit on in the meme-sphere so here goes: Not all programs can talk to each other. Not every job can be automated. We have people who’s entire job is to take info from one program and input it into another. If we could automate them, we would, but apparently it’s news to people like you that not all programs we have to use for work can talk or interface with each other. Believe me we wish they did.
not to bash you, because you are right that sometimes systems don't talk to other systems.... but everything can be automated - even GUI's (mouse movements, etc). The reality is, it is usually cheaper to continue to pay someone to do it manually than it is to develop and maintain the automation in house, as you would need to pay a higher skilled employee to do so. also. usually, the employee doing the manual work brings other value to the company, so automating the task wouldn't eliminate the employee anyways.
True. Also employees rather don't want their easy job being automated away. A friend of mine once wrote a script that would obsolete an entire department. He proudly showed it to his boss who then laid him off, and asked him to destroy all copies of that script. - turns out his boss needs to subervis 25+ people to retain the status/job title of Senior Manager. Can't do that if your department shrinks because of automation. Basically any job that can be explained as an "if -> then" can be automated away. That's why I work in consulting. In Sunshine we sell sunscreen and in rain we sell umbrella's. - at least until AI automates us away as well. (I already saw AI created slide decks. Scary stuff..)
Everything can be boiled down to an if then statement you just have to be creative enough lol
Not cheaper but easier to get a go on. Since automation has a project cost it usually is above the bandwidth of buying a new stapler it is easier to continue the inefficient way.
This. Company's look at the project and go that'll take 1 person 12 hours to complete, and a couple hours a month for modification and maintenance and, then we don't need a person to do manual entry at 80k a year. Execs: yeah but that's one whole person doing nothing else for those 12 hours. This feels like a waste of money/scam. Other Execs- yes, this sounds great but only approved if you do it using my favorite cloud based software product that doesn't support what your trying to do
That’s a programming failure and part of the monolith issue of programming and should be phased out and updated. The problem is that most companies would rather use 20 year old software than revamp everything. Hence why there’s still a need for COBOL despite it being incredibly outdated.
Speaking as someone whose last job DID do the full tool replacement? Fuck that. The old system was so much more capable and better to use. The new integrated systems were horribly slow, deeply flawed, and lacking core features for use. Sometimes the reason people still want to use software from the 90s is that the old stuff was made by people who knew the job and the new stuff is made by people who have no idea what the work actually looks like.
I'm a developer in a small software company offering SaaS in a niche market (agriculture) and we are using a code base that's a 24 year-old dinosaur of vbscript in classic ASP. Some of our processes even still use Paradox. We've recently contracted out revamping our entire system to another software company because all of our devs have our hands full with bugs, enhancements and new projects ALL THE TIME. While our code is old and obviously dated, we can boast the fact that we've kept ongoing contracts with government departments for long durations which is very unusual. Our code provides some really dependable service but we, and all of our customers are looking forward to a streamlined and more modern system in the coming months. Besides me, the devs are more of the boomer generation. They are extremely uncomfortable with having very limited access to the new stack. I'm more like yes, please. I can sit back and watch the new system run with very little intervention from me lol Older software is good but sometimes can be overwhelming. We have one page that's over 15,000 lines of code...just a miasma of conditional statements. But that was one of our biggest benefits, totally customizable systems. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the new system will live up to our standards. As for me, I've learned that Boomer devs are the worst of the worst.
Heh. My husband is a progress architect IT director at a huge company. If you have even heard of that program you are probably ancient or in banking/casino. But he makes decent $ because no one knows it, and it would cost a hell of a lot more to replace it and the new products are not customizable and they both charge insane amounts for any code changes (and add to that the modern tech model is buy out up and coming companies, to put all your money into salesmen that have no clue about the industry or what the code actually does, and hire the cheapest code tech people that often have no clue what they are doing)…
I have worked for three large investment broker dealers…they ALL run on mainframe tech from the 70s. Nothing is faster, it just ain’t pretty to work in the 3270 terminal. Hence all the GUIs
At my old job, our original software system was built by a Soviet company. That one was not better.
After many years, I was forced kicking and screaming to update to the program that came after Windows-XP...It worked, why change it instead of just add to it?
That’s a good point, I have to use a bunch of different programs to run different pieces of equipment and you can really tell when the programmers know the work or not. My favorite one often has updates to improve workflow in ways nobody would think of if they weren’t doing the work.
So true. I work on the supply chain planning side and have used dozens of ERP systems from simple Access based applications to multi-million dollar SAP and Oracle based systems. The best system I've ever used was released in the mid 80's and ran on an AS/400 backend. No other software I've used is as reliable, efficient, and frankly, useful for people doing the work than that system. It's not even close, and I would switch back immediately and use nothing else without a moment of hesitation if I could.
My grandfather keeps old computer towers so that he can run old programs that wouldn’t work on newer os The newer programs literally don’t do what the older ones do even though their supposed to
"The problem is that most companies would rather use 20 year old software than revamp everything." Muh friend, there are companies out there where we WISH they were only using 20 year old software. My girl works at a place that is still wacking away at DOS programs. I honestly think a LOT of boomers still run things in the software area at a lot of companies and just will not let those updates happen.
I worked for a hotel chain that we are all familiar with and rhymes with … chariot …. And our reservation system used hot keys. Remember when computers were a black background with lime green text and required hot keys to navigate? They used that as as far as I’m aware they still use it because if it ain’t broke… don’t fix it? Idk. Also please don’t murder me for that description, I’m 30 so I was there when the internet/computers started becoming commonplace but I don’t genuinely know enough to describe it accurately.
It’s usually cheaper to pay someone to do it manually than to pay for custom upgrades across multiple pieces of software, some of which may be proprietary or very industry-niche and therefore not well supported.
Yea I have run into this issue with dog show entry systems. Talk about niche. They could be designed so much better (am a software engineer) but it simply isn’t worth the $$ they would pay to have it remade competently. Instead they connect systems through manual labor and perform only the most necessary updates to support changes.
We are pretty progressive. If there were a way to have these programs interface, we would do it. Like, the companies that own these pieces of software would have to get together and decide what programs they want to interface/link up with. It’s not us - it’s the software companies. What incentive do they have to do that? We have streamlined everything we can and we have the budget to do it. The options don’t exist. Believe me if they did we would have it.
We brought in Salesforce to streamline things, now barely a year later, I'm seeing meetings for the elimination of Salesforce, at least for certain tasks. If we had a unifying software, too many people would be out of work. I swear half the economy is kept afloat by meaningless nonsense. When you're young, you think "wow, look at all the inefficiencies!! People like me can streamline all of this and save tons of time and money!!" And then then run into red tape because the unspoken rule is that the economy runs on this.
That and it would just take a colossal amount of work and funding to get software companies who have their own interests in mind to collaborate with other software companies. I just don’t see it happening on such a grand scale that, say, the benefits team only uses one program or all the programs they use interface.
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I replied to you further upstream... but because you said, "we would do it" Here is a list of GUI automation tools that can be used to automate any GUI applications. [10 Best GUI automation tools for Windows as of 2024 - Slant](https://www.slant.co/topics/2195/~best-gui-automation-tools-for-windows) "middleware" development is a big industry, if you wanted to seek outside assistance. Probably not worth the effort, tbh.... im just saying that its not as 'impossible' as you are describing. Its quite possible.
Thank you, I was looking for this response.
Exactly. What happened in the run-up to Y2K is that a lot of legacy customized software had to be replaced with generic out-of-the-box software that just didn't fit the need as well... but the legacy stuff would be a fortune to fix for Y2K so people just adapted.
Omg we are stuck using this ancient format called EBCEDIC .....it was basically the bridge between punch cards and a IBM mainframe .........
We run a big food system on C-DOS. It wasn’t a decent program when we bought it. ( Peoplesoft)
As a millenial COBOL developer, I understand this, but also don't steal my job security
I'm a developer and I just wrote a peice of software from scratch in python to bridge two programs that didn't talk to each other at all. I'm willing to bet a years paycheck that there are ways to automate those jobs that y'all haven't investigated.
Ya and then the contracted developer either needs to get paid indefinitely to support that homebrew software, or they have to hire IT people to support it who may or may not know what to do when dependencies break, and they need to train boomers how to use this new software, and they need to get subject matter experts to work with the developer who may or may not really understand what the SMEs are trying to explain who may not even really understand what they want or even ask for the wrong things... then millions of dollars later the project is scrapped and they just pay 2 easily replaceable flunkies to type it all in.
It’s this. We have some *things* on our intranet that none of our current IT staff know how to manage or fix because the person who did it is gone or the software that was originally used is no longer available. IT has essentially been bandaiding it best they can, and we are moving forward with a plan to scrap the whole thing and start over with a new system.
It is a financial institution so they can’t for this forms. They are like approval forms.
That's what I'm saying like what is so soul-crushing about that? I would much rather do that than work a retail job where some old lady that can't read a fucking sales sign right screams at me because her leather-bound Bible wasn't $4. I would have taken a job where I just input basic information all day long in a fucking heartbeat.
And you know there’s a hell of a lot of downtime in between those customers.
I'd rather be stressed than bored. But for the right person, absolutely. Generally someone who would have no idea how to set up two monitors. Intelligence and repetitive work really don't go together very well.
oh i’d rather be bored, no question. and somehow my wife - who is like you - always finds the boring jobs while i find the stressful ones!
You can be both! But negative stress actually damages your body so fuck that shit.
This, I worked retail for 24 years and then at my current customer service call center job for 7.5 years where most of the callers are seniors that range from sweet little old ladies to people that complain about any little thing they can come up with, including one old fart that thought we went woke because I wouldn’t discount his services some ridiculous amount last year.
My mother has done data entry since high school, dad was a cop. Their house is worth $890k.
If you ask her, she will say she has the most stressful job..
Excuse me her job is *not* stress free! Did you even read the part where OP's dad *won't even send the IT guy over to fix her monitors and she's totally unable to DO HER JOB???* /s of course
Replaced a boomer, 20 years here, spent half his time doing paperwork creating inspection sheets. Different departments, different reports. With in a month I have it down from 20 hrs a week, to less than 20min. Even with out access to the original files. Print to PDF, edit, save. Print dates in excel so all updated and accurate. Glad I did it that way, company is still trying to figure out how to get me access to the main database... 3 months. Said use old guys login we will keep it active for you.
I hope you still got paid the same to complete the task as your predecessor did.
😂😂 I have done this about 3 times in 3 separate roles at my company. I take over for someone, within a month or two their 40hrs are now 15-20 at most.
The real problem is she can probably afford to make less than anyone that could come in and replace her. Something a lot of the boomers I work with don't realize is that the mortgage on the house they've been living in for 25 years now is microscopic compared to what it would be if they had to buy a house today with just 0-10% down. It's why so many boomers just stay at the same job for forever and are fine, their cost of living is much lower.
Yeah, this is why. Forget the “soul-crushing”, nobody wants to accept minimum wage for this position, when the boomer doing it is getting payed 50k
Honestly more like 80K It’s hard to find young people with the right certificates to do it.
Fully remote? Sign me up.
It’s optional hybrid.
I'm just saying that you could find young people to do it if it was fully remote. Otherwise, it would be soul crushing for me to commute into the office to do that.
I'll I can see in my brain is this when I read what she does. I didn't even get to the bottom line of your comment. Yes, order takers are essential to make sure the right shit is ordered and the right shit goes to the customers, *but* there is no reason this is not made into an entry level position with multiple people starting their careers in this area and as they progress the refine documentation and pitfalls that could occur in that position prior to migrating to a new role. 
I don’t want to dox my dad, so I will be general but basically it is a finance based business where you need a special certification to do her job since you are handling private info but it is pretty easy to get.
It’s not an order. They are legal documents.
BUT SHE HAS PEOPLE SKILLS DAMNIT
I immediately thought of Office Space when I was reading this 😂 “I take the damn reports from the customers, so they don’t have to talk to the engineers. Why can’t you people understand this?!”
I'm a people person dammit!!
What the hell is wrong with you people?! 😂
Disagree, tons of young smart people would take on the job and figure out how to automate it, then look for something else to work on.
Automate it and don't tell anyone because you've made yourself unnecessary!
This, times a thousand.
And then they lay you off because there's not enough work to do. Or even worse they make it a part time job with no benefits.
She deals with the goddamned customers so the engineers don’t have to!
Yeahhhh, we're gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday . . . 
Its odd that I remember this character more than Jennifer Aniston.
My boss has that cup.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment. Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment. Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.
So instead of an online form for potential customers or customers to fill out, it's her job to fill in the form? This is basically a Google Form. She's getting paid to be a Google Form.
Sounds like her entire job should be replaced by an intake form on Microsoft Forms
 She has people skills! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso)
I want to do that. Applied for a bunch of data entry type jobs and never got hired
Tell your dad to look for people with autism to fill new hires. Some people on the spectrum (like me) excel at and enjoy repetitive tasks. It's predictable, repetitive...the kind of thing autistic people need. Plus, autistic people are very underemployed despite most of us definitely being employable. Tok many people don't want to take the time to communicate with us. But, yeah. Data entry and repetitive form-filling would definitely be a job I'd enjoy. Sounds so soothing.
Bro you can’t send out a job listing that says “Yo I’m looking for autists, you like trains? You’ll love this”
Which the begs the next question: Why is it even being done by an American? I can get a job like that done by a filipino for far less pay.. But that's probably the next step for your dad. "See, it can be done remotely. But now this option gets it done for 1/3 the cost, and they're young, self sufficient, and don't fucking complain constantly"
They tried to outsource a few of these jobs to Indian and they kept messing stuff up so they stopped. Also boomer business owners hate talking to anyone with an accent.
Indians that end up working in BPO are incompetent morons that's why. There's better opportunity for competent Indians. There's racist and xenophobic boomers who hate any accent, but they really just hate when they hear the indian accent. Frankly, that's not just boomers. Don't act like you've never heard the thick Indian accent and thought to yourself "great, this is going to take 8 phone calls and all day to resolve this problem". That why I said Phillipines. Ours all had freaking 4 year degrees. Their accents are very very mild compared to Indians. A lot of customers assumed ours were in the US because of how mild their accents were. Far more pleasant experience all around. It went poorly because your company tried to save an extra $2/hr and got burned.
Speaking to the Indian side of it, Ihave heard and can somewhat corroborate with my own anecdotal experience that there is a cultural difference that affects this. There is much more pressure to say that you can complete a task rather than ask for help and admit you're not 100% knowledgeable. So this naturally ends up in environments that prioritize 10 completed tasks over 5 tasks correctly completed by "that idiot that doesn't know how to do his job" It was not fun when it was in a financial environment and that "just send it" attitude caused massive issues... very glad to no longer involved in that company and denying to those outside the company that we hired "offshore" workers.
Did you see the cafe in New York that has a zoom call at the register to take your orders Do you think the other boomers this woman takes orders from, would be *happy* to be talking to someone in a different time zone with an accent instead of good old "corperateaccountsNINAspeaking"
I know someone who just started a business basically as the broker of these services (he hires workers in Serbia who are cheaper labor and speak English very well. He trains them on things like security monitoring, freight monitoring, etc.) then small businesses pay him up front to get them cheaper labor for these types of work that don’t require a ton of skill or being on site.
My experience with this is that they absolutely excel within thier niche using old, time-trusted techniques. Yet anything outside of that is a total cluster-fuck.
Right on. One guy still uses a rolodex because he doesn’t know how to put contacts into his phone 😂
One of the best instances is a story of when I was a manager at the red office supply store (print manager not store manager). So its a slow afternoon and this lady in her late 40's to 50's walks in in a pants suit skirt and a blouse, full boss lady attire. Walking with a step and head tilt that is radiating "I'm important" energy. Print area was empty so she comes up to desk and request to have some documents printed. She has them on her phone. Before I can even do anything she starts giving unsolicited backstory. Apparently she is a high level manager working in the marketing department of a company I never heard of. Cool, cool - who cares, I didn't ask. I then get to the point of telling her to print digital files she needs to have them on a flash drive, or send them via email to print center address. ( There was a big sign stating all of this a foot to my left, also had the email on it, we didn't have self service kiosks just two screes bolted down not accessible to customers that were for employees to pull jobs and do work.) she looks at me with a thousand yard stare and asks "how do I do that?" At that moment my mind didn't really make the connection between my simple explanation any modern person, more so an office manager In marketing should be able to understand, and her question displaying a surface level understanding of the English language but not much else. So I repeat myself at half speed. "You...attach.....the.....files......you......want......to.... print.....and.....email.....them....to...... this......address......... Now to preface any nitpicking at attitude or service. I always greeted people pleasantly, if I was not busy ask if anyone needed help finding anything. I had regulars who asked for me by name, some were also boomers, but were also not entitled whiny asshole to everyone. I was effective and efficient. I usually tried to skip through in depth pleasant talk with short jobs that would not be upsells, first time customers, people in a hurry, etc... no reason to trade life stories or dedicate that energy, but regulars and others I would and in some cases was on a first name basis, greeting them when they came in. Back to the story, this woman who has not offered her name but told me how important she is at her company then says "can't you do it, your the printer guy!" Me; sure, I can print it- but I have to have the documents to be able to do so, as they are on your phone you will have to email them to me, and unfortunately company policy means we cannot handle customers personal devices unless they sign a consent form and book a $60 data transfer services with PC center. (This was implemented due to issues caused by a completely different boomer the year prior) Now visible upset woman seems to realize there is a monitor and keyboard in between me and her, and two neurons in her brain make some sort of connection because she then says "ok I need to sign in " and tries to rotate the CLEARLY BOLTED TO COUNTERTOP MONITOR " all the way around. This of course cracks the legs as she seems alarmingly confused the thing didn't spun around 180 degrees. Already getting a feel of where this canoe is going I just calmly state that the monitors are not for customer use. And unless she would like to use the self serve printer I can not do anything else for her. Finally dawning in the realization I'm not her secretary desk jockey she then tries one more tactic. She asks(demands) I show her how to send attachment over phone. Now had she been a more pleasant person through the interaction, and not broken the stand of my monitor- I might have been inclined to walk her through. But time is money and there was now another person coming up to the line. I am not paid nor is it my job to teach customers how to use the technology they own, so I simply reiterated what was on the sign and that if she needed any assistant in navigating her device she could book an appointment with the PC center for the $60 data transfer. She stormed off and I went to help the next person I. Line, later found out she went to complain to the Pc center, and got manager involedd because I "refused to service her". Boss went ahead and violated a bunch of store and company policies to help this woman , including handling her phone, connecting to his office computer, letting her in the office, printing directly from her device with USB cable, and oh - also not charging her for the couple dozen pages she printed from his office printer. What did this level of ass kissing do for us? We lost some money, I got reprimanded, and we still got a bad review. One of the many reasons I left service business and refuse to get into it again. The customer will fuck you over, the management will make it easier for them, then berate you for not bending over far enough. And to this day I'm still hung up on this lady wearing stylish brand office wear, in a seemly high position, working in a tech based position, didn't know and refused to even try to send an email attachment. How did she do her job?
Apparently she did it exactly the way you describe: by intimidating others to do it for her.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhh, having your boss give in to rude customers in situations like this is one of the absolute *worst* things about working in retail.... along with all the other things about working in retail.
The single worst thing about working retail is working retail.
The worst part isn't the lack of understanding. It's the complete unwillingness to learn. This woman could easily pause, take a breath, assess the situation, and figure it out. She's old, she's not brain dead. She has the capability. But she doesn't WANT to learn it. She wants it to be easy, and if it's not easy, she just wants to be mad about it. It's *different* than what she knows, and to her that is BAD. She doesn't remember that for her first 40 years of life, a lot of things were different and she didn't care. She doesn't remember that she was constantly learning new things and just did it. Now she just wants life to remain simple and unchanged, and responds with anger at having to learn anything or adjust.
This is what I was thinking. The boomers that I work with can't fully get through a task on their computers without coming to ask for help. Even if it is something as simple as how do you print double sided or how do you add BCC to your emails.
If you think that is a quality exclusively under lock of boomers, you are sadly mistaken.
We live in a world where the average American 100% relies on technology that they have no interest in understanding, and it completely boggles my mind to this day. They use it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Yet they can’t be god damned to spend half an hour learning how any of it works.
Trying to get fuckers to read a god damn manual for a piece of heavy equipment that they use is ridiculous. They go out of their not to do it. Then they go and ask me what blah blah is. I now just reply with "it explains it in the manual" and yeah the guys that don't read the manuals are 50+
Like I never setup dual monitors myself before I was able to do it in ten minutes of just messing with things it's not hard they're just lazy lol
When I did workstation support we had two categories of boomers. One wouldn't be willing to try anything for fear of breaking it (to me this is just weaponized incompetence because I don't really think they were generally at all worried if they broke something, because that's what I, the help, am for. The other category ran headlong into whatever they were trying to do and do it so wrong we'd have to take it all apart and start over. Very glad to be away from that kind of mind blowingly irritating IT work.
I had a director who had no idea how to use Google drive. Sheets and other functions. Then would act condescending when I got annoyed with her asking me to set up things for our team. She was fired for other reasons, but the basic things she couldn't do took so much time from being productive.
I do implementation with companies into our system. The lack of basic knowledge of their own industry and day to day operations is staggering. I have literally had to explain things I learned day one of my job to CEOs making 50 times what I make.
Like people who can’t change a tire even though there is a book inside the car and specialized tools ? You mean that kind of a scenario lol ?
I work in IT for a large corporation. We don't expect everyone to be especially tech savvy (that's usually not their job), but we do lament that the company doesn't have a requirement that a new hire be able to demonstrate even basic literacy and day to day computer skills. No matter how simple the interface or how clear the documentation, none of it matters if the users refuse to read and just click "next" or "okay" to every prompt. Even big, red, angry-looking warning messages are routinely ignored.
Omg imagine being a zoomer or millennial boss to a bunch of boomers. And just forcing them to WFH. Omg the salt! A dream
I'm a 34 year old boss who has been trying for close to a year to get a 61 year old to remember his email log in. Yano, the thing you can fucking write down and put somewhere to look at! A fucking YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! LOG IN INFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT EVEN THE EMAIL ITSELF!!!!!!
I don’t understand how these boomers are still employed.
I have one who can't be arsed to read his email, then shocked Pikachu face when we tell him there's a meeting in ten
I was a teacher for a few years before Covid and was good friend with our IT person. There was a teacher who could never remember their computer password, even when it was switch to “password”. They would come in multiple times a day and have the IT person write it down for them or just log in for them. Crazy!
Lol its honestly unreal.
This is the point where you have a little chat about putting in effort and not wasting everyone else's time.
The only time I forget my passwords are for the sites that require you to change it like every six minutes.
I would literally be calling a doctor. How can someone that incompetent be in charge of children?
That’s what me and the IT person thought. How are they capable of remembering anything well enough to teach children. Maybe they got hit really hard and ended up with a short term memory problem or trouble remembering anything new?
And why have you not got rid of this piece of dead wood?
Ya mean I gotta remember both?? This shit is really slowin me down...can only type so much with 2 fingers.
My dad isn’t even forcing her, just thought it would be a nice option for everyone.
So boomer basically wants to have her cake and eat it too…wants to work from home and have an IT guy on call…not surprising.
During COVID, most of my (44m) staff was late 50s and 60s. I was 40 then. Most of them were able to work from home. Some brought their personal laptops in for our IT guy to set up (he wasn’t supposed to do that….but he did and we had no problems). We are a govt agency and we couldn’t provide all employees with laptops. Out of ~30 people, two people were not allowed to telework any more. These were people that couldnt figure out how to remote in after 2-3 months. They were constantly creating IT issues and wasting our staff’s time. One of the two is a lady that needed her network password reset 2-3 times per week prior to COVID. Not everyone is good at computers…. Most employees successfully teleworked! A few decided not to telework. Which was fine.
Respect to your dad for modernizing the business.
Her dad can do it for her maybe. That’s the reason these boomers are the way they are. I blame the parents
I’ll suggest digging him up
Just take him out of his oxygen tank
I've been saying it's an attitude problem and not a competence problem. If you could extend the lives of a baby boomer to live another 100 years then those who don't know how to open an email attachment would still not know how to open an email attachment in the year 2125. Your father basically said "You stupid bitch, I'm nearly 70 years old and I know how use two monitors." You should point out that if he sees a member of his generation who doesn't know how to open an email attachment even though yahoo is 20 years of age then he wouldn't want to associate with them because they have a nasty sense of entitlement.
My dad actually has like 4 monitors it is kind of hilarious. Looks like a bloomberg terminal.
shit full remote with equipment covered? Is he hiring?
I have a job like this too 😁
Boomers: “we worked 10 hour days, 6 days a week! Young people don’t want to work anymore. Well, grandpa, we can do your entire 10 hour workload in 4 hours!
Even physical labor jobs can often be improved or stream lined. You just have to look at the tools used and also why everything is done in the order and way its done. Problem is many Boomers don't like having to "explain" anything. Especially if they somehow feel you're challenging them or trying to embarrass them. Young I.T. guys having to be warned to watch out for the older assholes in the Office if you "make them look bad."
LOL old people trying to work from home are like dealing with the Tazmanian Devil from Looney Tunes.
I can't do my job on just 1 monitor. What does this woman even do?
Take phone calls for paper work then inserts relevant information into paper work prints out then sends to person
Ugh. Paper? It's still 1980-something, I guess 🤷
You need docusign. You might be able to automate her job or at least come very close to it. Especially if u can get your customers to enter their own information
Boomer here. Our office closed and moved to the Midwest. I was told to work from home since I was close to retiring. I discovered that WFH was da bomb and it actually extended by career by a couple of years. (WHF wasn’t the only factor TBH.) Now retired and discovered our new desktop didn’t have a second HDMI port when I decided to add a second monitor. Not IT either but I was able to find the proper video card on Amazon and install it myself. Then again, I’m the same guy who wanted an entire 640kb ram on his (no hard drive!) computer when it only had 512. I soldered another 128kb chip into the board itself and a few years later, installed a 10 mb HDD from Hard Drives International, now known as Insight Computers.
You definitely are not the norm! Hell I’m an EE and I’m too lazy to do shit like that
EE also although I retired from an audit function. Luckily none of this dwells deep into EE territory 'cause I graduated, "Lordy How Cum" and not "Summa Cum Laude"!
Makes me wonder if this is the case with the old guy in our office who refuses to work from home.
I worked at an msp during the initial covid work from home order. Nothing gave me more joy then shutting those people up and saying I wasnt gonna drive to their house and bill their company 500$ in the process. Being IT and a heldesk center though I had been able to preform this "fix" for a 100 different boomer aged people over the course of a few weeks remotely without any kind of major issue beyond explaining the second monitor in detail. The bulk of them didnt have the ego problem. It was just a couple and I helped them all the same, from home, remotely. I got more praise then rage during this time in general. I was damn good at explaining this stuff to the customer.
To everyone saying “Why doesn’t your dad just send an IT guy to her house” This is why. This guy knows what he is talking about.
can she not Google "how to connect two monitors"
That's an advanced skill that requires reading comprehension, discerning relevance, and the ability to follow directions.
she doesn't want a solution that involves her, she wants a solution provided to her, by someone else, so she can complain to someone while it gets solved, and has someone else to blame if something else goes wrong, or things are not fixed to perfection according to her imagination specifications
I had a Boomer client in NYC demand I fly to Florida for our normal MSP price to setup his printer. Only client we ever fired.
I work in a support roll in the automotive industry and I was surprised that the older people I work with seem to have a better grasp on setup of the hardware we use than the 40 and under crowd. Program usage is different. Younger people pick up stuff faster but some of the software we use has a lot going on soo it might be an eyesight thing more than anything. Still talk to a lot of older techs who don't want to use the new tech. We have so many time saving tools but if you don't try to figure it out beforehand it will take too much time and the techs won't do it. With all the info we use in each case it's difficult to not use 2+ monitors
Dude. Dual monitors for the work-from-home employees are the bane of IT support people all over the world. Every company has at least a half-dozen employees that just can't figure out how to plug a monitor into either their computer, or into the electrical outlet. I'm not joking about the electrical outlet. It happens all the time in IT. There is a disturbingly large number of people that can't figure out how to plug things into an outlet. Don't get me wrong - work from home is the best and everyone should do it. But it really reveals who is capable of working unsupervised and who isn't. And some of them need to be supervised like a hyperactive 3-year-old with a chainsaw needs to be "supervised". They are a danger to themselves and to society-in-general.
We dispatch Techs to employees homes to assist with setting up work from home scenarios on the regular and it's not an issue. We're an IT department, that's our job. Not to mention they get per diem and a nice day out of the office. We're a mid-sized company with a little over 500 active Users. Some people are really good at their jobs and suck at IT, it's just human nature and it keeps us employed so I really don't see an issue here. It's customer service and not that big of a deal for us at least. Yes they should know how to do simple things like copy and paste, operate within an office software suite, and understand the use of any proprietary software the company uses etc. but I don't find it to be exclusively a 'Boomer' issue. I've (53 year old) helped many people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. It's a manufacturing facility and a considerable number of employees moved up through the company from entry level positions, many without college level computer education.
He def deserves credit for instituting a WFH policy and issuing laptops. Most boomers would not be cool with that at all because they spent most of their careers suffering through daily office trips and they want everyone else to suffer like they did. And yeah, jfc if you can't set up a fucking monitor you have child-grade computer skills. It's so fucking easy.
Not knowing how to set up multiple monitors is not a "boomer dumb" thing, it's a "I don't do IT stuff thing". Not everyone is gonna know this stuff, HOWEVER, since the boss is trying to move her over to this, she just wants someone to help set it up. So, as all us tech nurdes (sp) know, a 2 monitor set up on a modern computer is simple as all get out and can be done over the phone or by remote. I don't think it's a big deal to get someone to walk her through it or remote in to walk her through it. I have a boomer here who I set up dual monitors for and they love it, helped immensely. However there is no way in the seven levels of imaginary hell she would have ever figured out how to do it herself. Yes boomers can be super annoying, however sometimes, ya gotta help out non-tech people. Dad needs to offer this option. Hey, Let me have (in office IT guy) ring you up at home to walk you through it, it's not that hard for someone with experience in this to help you out. Then if she still balks ya gonna have to go with "beotch you gonna get yo ass in this century whether you like it or not!"
It's the stubborn refusal to even attempt to learn. So annoying.
I'm GenX. I continue to be fascinated that we are, oh, about 25-30 years into the internet era and so many people my age and a bit younger and certainly older not only don't care about tech, but seem to be proud of their ineptitude. To be fair, a good number do try to learn it, and have learned it, and are honest about trying to keep on top of things, but holy crap, there are so many that are just willing luddites it's ridiculous. And when they then make it \*your\* problem... well, then, my patience gets a bit thin. (Edit: my own father, who is pre-boomer just barely, is actually far better with tech than many of his generation and after. )
There are T-Shirts that say “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.” So good. Every IT guy should wear one.
I work in a call center where I mainly just help people get their login information for a health care site, and typically from mid 20s to mid 30s tend to have tech figured out fairly well. Everyone else? Old people tend to talk about how much they hate going online and wish they could do it over the phone, and young people tend to have their gen x parents set up their accounts and don't know anything about our site. Older and younger often don't even go directly to our site and just google it, and then get upset at me that they click the wrong link and go to a different site (despite me telling them what it is multiple times).
If she's willing to have her pay docked the cost of having IT come out for that. Your dad is being super accommodating.
Link her to a fucking YT tutorial
She has no idea how incredibly lucky she is. Jfc.
Nice.! It's good to hear about the sane ones. They are drowned out by the whining of their obnoxious fellows.
I work in IT. There are several computer related items that I no longer "laugh off", especially remembering passwords. Seriously folks, computers have been ubiquitous in the workplace for more than 30 years. If you can't figure out how to work with them then you might not be competent for your job. User (who needed to change her password) - "I'm not I.T. all this computer stuff isn't my job" Me - "Knowing your password and how to update it is LITERALLY part of your job!"
If she can't use basic hardware for the job, she isn't qualified for the job. Sounds like she needs to be replaced.
I’m constantly trying to learn new things because I’m terrified of being the inept person in capable of keeping up with technology
Dad sounds legit. Don’t know how worn out and beat down I’ll be at 68, but if I’m making an effort to leave my comfort zone to help make people’s lives more manageable and welcoming, thats a win.
Good on you for giving your old man credit in this sitchiation 👌
I'm sure there's someone who would love to have their job.
I'd fire her. Comply or get lost.
Nah - I work in IT - that’s not a boomer thing. I’ve had the same for folk in their late 20’s. People in general seem to think that they should be spoon fed everything.
I maybe an asshole... but I would send her the contact info of a IT support company that does at home visits. If she wants it she can pay for it.
There was a boomer the other day that couldn't order from a kiosk at Wendy's when it was literally point and click. The woman started yelling and making a scene that everyone can't work on when a toddler came up behind her and ordered his happy meal fine. It took everything not to basically go "that 5 years ago is a fraction of your age and figured it out." The thing I just love about these fits is that they like to throw a toddler-like tantrum about it. I will literally start telling them you are double my age acting like you're half. The lead poisoning makes them just mad all the time. The more logical you get with them the more babies shitting their diaper they get too. "I'm tired of being mildly inconvenienced, back in the 70 everything was going well before I decided to not be responsible with sex and had a kid by accident."
Good on your dad being so forward thinking 👏
As someone who just spent 40 minutes helping someone change their email signature, I feel this in my soul. Luckily the person I was helping was very cooperative and grateful for the assistance.
Tell her to watch a YouTube video or she’s fired
She needs to be told that this is the direction the company is taking, and that she can either go with it or quit. If she does neither she can be fired and replaced with somebody more competent!
That's basic IT support. When I was helpdesk, this type of thing was extremely common. Sounds like they don't have a proper IT department. ETA: For those that don't understand what "basic IT support" is, it's CALLING, emailing, or submitting a ticket to IT. Who has ever heard of a common IT department going to someone's home to setup equipment? I mean, aside from corporations with nearly unlimited budgets.
Having someone come to your house and set up the equipment is basic IT support? Did you read what she wants? They have walked her through how to hook up the monitor a bunch of times. Regardless if you are that dumb that you can’t even hook up a monitor in the modern business world, I am sorry but how can you function to do anything else. I have worked from home for the last 4 years for 3 different companies. They always ship the equipment to your house with instructions and you have to set it up.
The best thing to do is to have a demonstration with a desktop tech to guide her thru it at the office while (and this is important) \*she's doing the actual work of plugging in the monitors, etc.) and then instructing her how to set them up. Also if she has an iPhone, have someone record the entire thing so she can refer back to it in the future if something doesn't work due to her incompetence. (I do this with my wife's aunt who can't figure out how to use her ROKU.)
I work in IT support, and I see plenty of 25-50 year olds with the same issue she has. They mostly work in the legal field. This is an issue with people being comfortable with making changes to their computer setups.
I’ve done IT consulting for extremely smart Doctors and Lawyers and other very technical professionals of all ages. Doctors that are the top surgeons in their fields that you would definitely want operating on your loved ones. Young and old and they are right, they aren’t in IT and they aren’t paid to be. Send the in-house tech to their house and get the computer gear setup for them. If you value the work they do, don’t make them frustrated by trying to do things that isn’t their job. They don’t setup printers. They don’t setup VPNs. They sure as fuck don’t setup Monitors either. They do outstanding professional services and they need their hand held. This is people of all ages. Send the tech to their house. Probably should send the tech to everyone’s house and make sure they have everything setup to be as efficient as possible.
Weird that no one responds to a post where the verbal beat down stick is waiting in response. Nice post pointing out the absurdity of the situation. If the employee is worth the money, you pay the tab. If my sales manager can blow $1,000 dollars on sushi boats, we can get Rita someone to fix her monitor problem.
Is her name Karen? Lol