It's the website's fault...

[Sarcastro]

Sure Mr.Customer it was the website's fault. It's always the website's fault. I mean, sure it only records the numbers you put in yourself and shoots you a confirmation page to ensure that you really really entered the correct bank account information, but who can be bothered with trivial BS like making sure the bank account number is correct. I mean don't we live in the digital age where computers are supposed to correct our every mistake and do your shopping and raise your kids and give you a bit static-y hug and tell you in it's robotic Steven Hawking voice that everything's going to be alright? I mean it couldn't have been an operator error. You're not some knuckle dragging troglodyte that decided to enter his account information into a computer by repeatedly smacking the keyboard with a rotting beaver carcass, no sir, not you. And I know the website is coded by idiots that automatically assume you entered your account number incorrect and they have the nerve, they have the F*#king nerve to give you a confirmation page that takes all of 20 seconds to read to make sure that the info is correct. That's 20 seconds of your life that you could spend watching tv. The nerve of those asshole IT professionals. You have my complete assurances, Mr.Customer, that everything will be done to ensure that the website ignores the keystrokes you enter and determines what you MEANT to enter. Our customers... somewhere Carl Sagan's ghost is vomiting in pure jealous rage at the intelligence exhibited by our customers. Rant over.

[surreal20]

*applauds* I come from a family of computer engineers/computer geeks. Dad, and my 2 brothers. I've heard about everything there is when it comes to ppl and their "computer errors." But i believe this is my first for this situation.

You deserve a cookie, some milk and a pat on the back for not literally killing the guy with his own phone cord.

[MoonCat]

Ah, so true.

We have people place ads through our online system. Amazing how many people can't even spell their own name; the name of their street or the town they live in; the make of their own car; or type in 23000K miles, ignoring the K that's already there (which means the system is asking for multiples of a thousand, for ex., 23K), so their ad comes up reading 2,300,000 miles because they had to enter all the zeroes.

Oh, and the ones that click "place your online-only ad" instead of "place your print and online ad" and then complain when their ad doesn't show up in print.

[chainedbarista]

i admit to having memory lapses with some information (especially after a long day) but even someone who is as tech-challenged as i am can operate most sites.

yay, i'm one step above a knuckle dragging, beaver swinging troglodyte!

i'm thinking that the highest tech these people should ever have access to are crayons (as someone here said) and scratch paper.

[Merriweather]

Sure Mr.Customer it was the website's fault. It's always the website's fault. I mean, sure it only records the numbers you put in yourself and shoots you a confirmation page to ensure that you really really entered the correct bank account information, but who can be bothered with trivial BS like making sure the bank account number is correct. I mean don't we live in the digital age where computers are supposed to correct our every mistake and do your shopping and raise your kids and give you a bit static-y hug and tell you in it's robotic Steven Hawking voice that everything's going to be alright? I mean it couldn't have been an operator error. You're not some knuckle dragging troglodyte that decided to enter his account information into a computer by repeatedly smacking the keyboard with a rotting beaver carcass, no sir, not you. And I know the website is coded by idiots that automatically assume you entered your account number incorrect and they have the nerve, they have the F*#king nerve to give you a confirmation page that takes all of 20 seconds to read to make sure that the info is correct. That's 20 seconds of your life that you could spend watching tv. The nerve of those asshole IT professionals. You have my complete assurances, Mr.Customer, that everything will be done to ensure that the website ignores the keystrokes you enter and determines what you MEANT to enter. Our customers... somewhere Carl Sagan's ghost is vomiting in pure jealous rage at the intelligence exhibited by our customers. Rant over.

And the bad news is - it ain't gonna change

I got my degree and began as a computer programmer 30 years ago. At that point, very few people had computers at home, so I attributed the ignorance and sheer denseness to it being so "new" to those who worked with them. I was naive. Millions more people use computers everyday than they did back then, but most of them still don't have a clue (or bother to get a clue) as to how their "magic boxes" work.

They think computers don't make mistakes (no matter how many mistakes they make in the data they type in) and that the computer "knows" somehow what they mean no matter what they do.

I wrote a ledger system for one company, which was actually six companies in one. Basic program was on their computer, they put in a different set of floppies (yeah, it was that long ago - it was even the big floppies) for each company. Somehow, info for one company ended up on another company's disks. You wouldn't (well, yeah, you guys probably would ) believe what it took to convince them that the data could not somehow transfer itself from one disk to another while sitting on a shelf I think finally they were half convinced that yes, someone put in the wrong set of disks when entering the data (only half were convinced - I think the other half were still holding out on a theory involving ghosts in the office.....).

[Syriilord]

i'm thinking that the highest tech these people should ever have access to are crayons (as someone here said) and scratch paper.

Dear lord, are you actually crazy enough to give these "people" access to crayons? You'll destroy us all with your insane ramblings.

[MoonCat]

I have a theory (OK, a possibly half-assed idea) that the reason computers are so hard for people to understand is that there is simply nothing intuitive about them. If you don't know how something works, there is no way to guess; instinct doesn't work with this kind of technology.

Of course, logic doesn't work for a lot of people, either, so that right there guarantees a lot of dumb.

[EricKei]

I wrote a ledger system for one company,

I...I'm sorry. I deal with people having problems with *modern*, commercial ledger systems/accounting software on a daily basis, and some of them still manage to get data inputted into the wrong files...Again, purely PEBKAC...and then they don't understand when I tell them that no, data cannot be magically moved from the incorrect data file (WAY too common: "file? huh? I thought it was a Company") into the active one without either (a) buying a data mover add-on from another company or just (b) sucking in your gut and re-typing that data where it should have been in the first place.

[TheRabbi]

I have a theory (OK, a possibly half-assed idea) that the reason computers are so hard for people to understand is that there is simply nothing intuitive about them. If you don't know how something works, there is no way to guess; instinct doesn't work with this kind of technology.

There might not be instinct, but there are intuitions. People are (or have been, or should have been) getting used to a number of conventions in the computer world - things like the busy cursor, or the desktop icon, or the toolbar - and in the web world - like round thingies meaning radio buttons and square thingies being checkboxes and clicking on the logo at the top of the page bringing you to the home page.

But even if you have never used a computer before, or especially if you are bad at them (or you think they are bad at you*), that's no excuse not to read the damn screen. Especially today, when there's so much help right on the screen itself (on most well-designed websites and in most major OSs).

* Citizens of Soviet Russia notwithstanding.