My technologically-challenged father-in-law just left...

[NewWaveChick1981]

...Seems he got new cell phones for himself and my mother-in-law. He'll be 80 in August. The problem with my FIL and technology is that he wants all this great stuff and won't learn how to use it. :eyes: He prides himself on never having read a manual for anything, yet he uses stuff "just fine". :rofl: Yeah, right! He brought the cell phones over to us for us to show them how to use them. The manuals were still sealed in shrinkwrap, and he was trying to turn the phone on by pressing the earpiece. I OPENED THE MANUAL and showed him the diagram. The on/off button is on the side. Also, he was trying to hold the phone upside down. Now, you say, "Give him a break---he's nearly 80!" Well, maybe so...if he didn't do this to us constantly! :grr: He's been doing this all of my husband's life. He's had other cell phones and did exactly the same thing then. He's done it with VCRs, home telephones, toaster ovens, etc. In fact, he just got DirecTV installed, and when he accidentally changed the tv channel to something other than 3, he freaked out, and we had to drive 30 minutes over there to change the channel back to 3. :eyes: I've never been mean to him or anything when he asks for help, but it's annoying as hell...

One good thing is that he doesn't have a microwave (my MIL is all tinfoil-hat about microwaves), and he doesn't have a computer. They have a Brother word processor that he bought when it came out in the late 1980s and is still in its original box, unopened. :eyes: Yeah, that's useful...

Pardon my griping. Just had to get it off my chest.... :D

[ThomCat]

1. I support executives who do this all the time.

I, unfortunately, work in Telecommunications Management. Executives have no concept of what we do, so they think we are all here just to hold their hands and wipe their asses.

At least you're related to your FiL and hopefully have some affection for him. That's got to make it easier to handle. :)

[KitchenWitch]

2. One of my girlfriends used to be an executive assistant to a math prof.

Who was totally technologically deficient. He did not even know how to use the phone system.

[ThomCat]

4. "How to I put someone one hold?"

:banghead:

[NewWaveChick1981]

5. That's almost as good as the US Zip Code for France!

:rofl:

[KitchenWitch]

6. Exactly

He was so addled that she had to come into his office and dial the phone for him.

I think executives who choose not to learn this shit frankly do it as a control mechanism.

[ThomCat]

7. I agree.

A big part of having power is forcing others to do things and know things for you. Being dependent can be a big power trip if you can force people to support you.

We have several executives here who operate this way. I'm sure a lot of DUers work for people with a similar management style.

[NewWaveChick1981]

3. True... I like my FIL otherwise...

It would be even worse if it was just some schmuck I worked for and he did it every single day... :eyes: I feel your pain!

[KitchenWitch]

8. I get phone calls from my dad

"I am having this computer problem." Most of the time it is stuff I can handle, but sometimes it is a problem with a piece of software I am not familiar with. The last one I got was about all of these bounced emails he was getting, to people he was not sending stuff to. I asked him if he had run antivirus and antispyware scans lately. He said he had. I said in that case it was probably someone spoofing his account, and that he should notify his ISP, and send them copies of all the bounced emails with all the headers, so they could handle it.

[Runcible Spoon]

9. oooooooooo my dad does that!

I seriously spend at least 2 hours helping him with any computer related question, regardless of its complexity or learning curve. He asks these impossible philosophical questions I can't possibly answer ("now, Farce, why do you think it is that the Windows interface was designed so counter-intuitively? I mean, you can't possibly ask me to believe that these programmers had any sense of what the basic user (meaning HIM of course) would want in an operating system") . And then we'll deal with the technical issues...for example the 3 hours I spent teaching him to drag and drop MP3s into different folders and rename the files...BUT BUT BUT he asks me why can't he rename the files once they are written to CD? Me: "Dad, because once you write them to disk they're sorta frozen on there". "But Farce, you can play the songs in any order you want, and stop them, and play them again". "But Dad, that's the software that allows for the files to be interpreted in that way." "Well, why can't the software allow me to customize them?" "BECAUSE IT DOESN'T FUNDAMENTALLY REWRITE THE EXISTING FILES!"..."Now slow up, slow up Farce..." (oooo I hate it when he says slow up!". "NO DAD! IT WAS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO LABEL AND ARRANGE THE FILES THE WAY YOU WANTED THEM BEFORE YOU WRITE THEM TO CD!!!!"

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :rant:
Believe it or not this man possesses an MA from an Ivy LEague institution....:shrug: