Comments by "Javier Flores" (@JJFlores197) on "1995 Flashback: First-time PC user can’t work computer" video.

  1. And nowadays, it is a bit "easier" since there is remote support. But even then that can be incredibly frustrating. I've worked in IT support for 5 and a half years. I very quickly learned that doing tech support over the phone was horrible. Nothing like telling the same person for the 10th time that the "Out of paper" light on the printer means that they have to put paper in the paper tray. Or telling people that they need to push the power button in order for the monitor to turn on....
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  2. I concur. I work in school IT support. Its amazing how many teachers "absolutely need" a printer in their classroom. Our district has a contract with a company that provides at least 2 large Canon copiers at each site. Yet teachers still "need" one for their classroom. Its absurd. What is even more absurd are HP printers. Our "brilliant" food services department thought it would be a great idea to upgrade all of the cafeteria manager printers to HP MFP's. They spent at least $500 per device across 13 or so sites. When we go to install them, we found out that HP forces you to setup an online HP account and to use their crap HP Smart app. You can install the print driver and Windows will recognize the printer and show its status as "ready", but it will refuse to print if you haven't registered the printer with your online account through the HP Smart app. Its incredibly stupid.
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  3. When my aunt was in college in Mexico in the 90s, she had a professor who had a similar train of thought. But it was regarding the internet. He thought it would just be a fad. lol
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  4. I agree. I haven't worked a strictly help desk job, but I did perform help desk duties during school closures. It was absolutely horrible. I don't mind helping people with tech problems, but over the phone? The level of incompetence, laziness, arrogance, and cluelesness was simultaneously astonishing and infuriating. I had staff and students alike who instead of straight up telling me they needed a password reset, would go on for 10 minutes saying their computer doesn't work or that their program (whatever mystery program) didn't work and everything was fine yesterday. After wasting 10 minutes doing some troubleshooting, they finally would tell me "Oh yeah, my computer does work, but I just forgot my password."
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  5.  @Artimes.  In 2018, I got an IT tech internship at a local dried fruit company. It wasn't specifically remote support. It was for an IT tech role, but we had to support the dryer locations throughout the state as well as an out of state branch. Most of my job was going around at the HQ and production plant proving tech support. Things like installing printers, helping users with software issues, replacing computers, etc.
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  6. Yep. There's still a lot of tech illiteracy. There's a huge difference between being social media savvy and tech savvy.
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  7. I believe it. I work in K-12 IT. It is astonishing how many of our staff members think that the monitor is the computer. Or some staff members so bewildered by the fact that you can connect a keyboard and mouse to a laptop. Or some staff members can't figure out that the blinking orange light on their printer that says "Out of paper" means that the printer is out of paper and they need to add more paper into the paper tray...
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  8. I agree. I'm 26 and work in school IT support. I work with a wide range of people from about my age to people in their 70s. I've noticed a fair amount of people my age don't know much about technology either. They're so used to their iPads and Macs that they don't know how to work Windows laptops very well.
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  9. Customer: "Hi yeah my new computer doesn't work" Tech: "Ok. What exactly do you need help with? What doesn't work on your computer?" Customer: "I don't know. It just doesn't work. I just bought it yesterday and it doesn't work" Tech: "Ok. lets try some basic troubleshooting steps. Please make sure the power cable is connected correctly at both ends: wall outlet and back of your computer" Very frustrated customer: the guy at the store assured me it runs on Wi-Fi!!! He said I wouldn't need any cables!! Why is this [fill in your favorite expletive] stuff so [fill in your favorite expletive] complicated?!?! Tech: 🤦🤦🤦🤦
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  10. Or at the very least, make them not be terrible from a hardware and software perspective. I don't know how long HP has been doing this, but they more or less require you to setup an HP account for their stupid HP Smart Crap before the thing can even print! Its insane! I work in school IT support. Our brilliant food services dept. thought it would be a smart idea to waste thousands of dollars on printers for every cafeteria manager across our schools. They didn't consult with us so they bought some expensive and crap HP printers. When we go to set them up, we noticed that they don't print, not even a network configuration page from the printer itself unless you setup an HP account with their HP smart software. And even if you install the print driver (be it HP generic or printer-specific) AND the printer's status appears as "ready" on your PC, it will refuse to print until you do the initial setup.
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  11. Seriously... I work in K-12 IT. I am very glad our district has a contract with a 3rd party company that installs and services site copiers. We just provide them with a network connection. But man, I can only imagine how frustrating it is to work on those beasts. We have some teachers that feel the need to have a printer in every classroom which I just find absurd. Luckily, our admin staff is mostly on-board to eliminate as many printers as possible.
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  12. I'm an IT tech for a school district. I still have to do that from time to time. I've had many tech issues where the teacher was complaining that they couldn't hear anything from the speakers. Usually it turned out that the speakers were turned off, volume turned all the way down, or were not plugged into power. And these are usually the people who swear "I checked everything" when in fact, they checked nothing at all. Its maddening at times. I think to myself, "Do you really need to put in an IT ticket just to have a tech go to your classroom to turn on the speakers???"
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  13. Nah. Its both. There are still many people who struggle with technology. That's why IT support is still a thing. I still have to help some people on occasion understand that the "out of paper" light on their printer means that they need to put paper in the tray.
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  14. It has been my observation that some people instantly get confused with cables. I work in tech support in a school district. We have a lot of staff members not understand how to plug in USB devices or even power cables. I think what happens is that people see a ton of cables all jumbled together and they get very frustrated with the mess of cables and have some sort of mental block. A lot of people just want to "set it and forget it" especially with cabling.
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  15. Its not just boomers. Its all age groups. Granted, the younger generations have adapter to technology better than most older people, BUT there are still a lot of people who are not tech savvy. I'm 26 and work in school IT support. I work with a wide range of staff members from around my age to people in their 60s-70s. There are many younger teachers and staff that struggle using Windows computers. A lot of them are so used to their Mac or iPad that using a Windows laptop is a foreign and complex thing. A lot of kids also exclusively use Chromebooks in school so they have no idea how to work a Windows device. Even when I was in school in 2011-2014 a lot of my peers had no idea how to copy files from a flash drive to their school computer and vice versa.
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  16. I agree, but working in IT support, you would be very surprised at the number of people who don't understand how to plug in cables. Some people don't seem to comprehend that they need to plug in their laptop's charger to the wall outlet in order for it to charge. I'm exaggerating a bit, but its not too far from reality.
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  17. lol. Its not just boomers that still have issues. Plenty of younger people have 0 clue about how to use a computer. A lot of kids and teens and young adults only use tablets and phones and are completely lost on typical PCs.
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  18. Yep. I've never worked in a call center, but I did do a bit of phone tech support at my first IT job at a dried fruit company. I very quickly realized it was very frustrating. A lot of the people we supported remotely rarely use PCs. Some of them may check their email a few times every few months. With a lot of them, you had to walk them step-by-step of how to turn on the computer, reset their password (since their last login was 6+ months ago), tell them to click on the email shortcut, etc. It is very time consuming and requires a lot of patience. In my second IT job at a school, it felt even worse. During distance learning, we had to quickly setup a help desk and help teachers, parents, students, and staff members remotely. It was very unpleasant.
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  19. I work in K-12 IT and we still use fax. However, it is digital fax which is ironic. We have a digital fax system where you literally send an email to the number you want to fax. It is sent to our fax provider's email system and then sent as a regular fax to the recipient. When someone sends a fax to our school's fax number, the people at the office receive an email attachment containing the faxed document. 😆😆 It doesn't make sense in my opinion, but that is what the people in charge want....
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  20. I fully agree. I completely understand that people inevitably need tech support every now and then and that's fine. But sometimes you wonder how that person made it that far in life. I'm exaggerating a bit, but it does feel at times that when someone calls the help desk complaining they can't print, you check the printer status remotely only to see that it is out of paper. You tell the caller that and they get upset because they claim they "checked everything". You then physically look at the printer only to find that in fact there is no paper in the paper tray.... Or they call the help desk angry because they can't print a very important document for a very important presentation that they need to attend in 10 minutes. You walk over to their work area only to find that the printer is powered off...
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  21. My grandparents grew up in extreme poverty in rural Mexico in the 40s and 50s. They had limited access to electricity growing up and never learned about technology past basic phones and B&W TVs. That is the most technology they use nowadays. My grandma still has a CRT TV from the early 2000s. My aunt has been wanting to get a new TV for years, but she knows my grandparents wouldn't be able to figure out how to use it. My grandfather would just get agitated and curse at the TV.
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  22. Yep. It doesn't help that HP requires a stupid HP Smart app in order to even setup the printer. At work, our food services dept. spent thousands of dollars on crappy HP printers. We were asked to install them at our school sites. We quickly discovered that even if you install the correct print driver and Windows can "see" your printer, it will refuse to print until you setup the HP Smart crap.
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  23. They're not much better now. I think its going to get worse as we have a lot of younger people entering or will enter the workforce without computer skills. A lot of them only use iPads and Chromebooks.
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  24. Yep... I work in school IT support. one of the strangest and sad things I heard one day was when I was working in a first grade class on a teacher's computer. She was telling a 1st grade student to put his phone away...
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  25. I agree, but even to this day, we still have people who struggle with technology, no matter how simplified or user friendly it is. And I get it. I have no problem helping people who aren't tech savvy using their technology. But it gets to a point where you ask yourself, "Where do we draw the line?". I have just under 3.5 years of IT experience working in tech support. I've had to instruct professionals in their field that the blinking light on their printer that says "Out of paper" means that they need to put paper in the paper tray or that their laptop's battery needs to be recharged when the "low battery" warning appears.
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  26. My aunt was in college in Mexico around this time. She had a professor who thought the internet would just be a fad... lol
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  27. lol. Its not that deep. The "For Dummies" series of books has been out for decades. They're not intended to be derogatory. They're meant to be more light hearted and friendly for newcomers.
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  28. I plug the what cable into the what port?!?!
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  29. I'd say PCs have become far simpler and more stable to use than in the 90s. What hasn't really changed is user error.
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  30. Yep. And I've found that when people call the help desk angry or frustrated saying their computer or printer doesn't work, what they really mean is that: they forgot their password; they didn't push the power button; they left their work laptop at home; they didn't charge it; they want IT to put paper in the tray; or some other bizarre thing that they want to be extremely secretive about for some reason.
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  31. Yep. Even to this day, 2023, I still see people struggling with the concept of a power button. I've had numerous teachers over the years not understand that a blinking light that reads "Out of paper" means that they have to put paper in the paper try in order for it to print. That's too hard to understand for some people apparently and they put in a tech ticket saying "My printer doesn't work".
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  32. In that same concept, I've had many people not understand how to plug in their laptop charger to the wall outlet or power strip... It seems like a foreign concept to some people.... I've also had people be extremely confused between a computer monitor and a desktop computer. I've had people be bewildered by the fact that you can plug in a mouse and keyboard to a laptop and also connect it to a monitor.
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  33. Where and when did you go to school? I graduated school in 2014 and we never really had any computing courses; the most I recall was just keyboarding in 6th grade and freshman year.
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  34. I can guarantee you that even with extremely simple instructions with pictures and arrows pointing exactly where to click or what to plug in there will be people who will find a way to mess it up badly.
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  35. Oh you would be surprised. No matter how simple and easy you make a manual, there will still be people who will not be able to understand it. I work in school IT support. During distance learning, I compiled a list of the most common issues I've worked on with my teachers and stuff during their online classes. Most of them were audio related issues. What I did was to create a simple guide with the most common issues teacher faced, and how to solve them. I even included screen shots with arrows pointing to exactly where they need to click on. I still had many teachers not understand how to change the audio output from their laptop to their speakers even with a visual guide on how to do it.
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  36. My first IT job was at a dried fruit company. There was this guy, who I'm sure is good at his job as a regional manager. However, he had his assistant call me over because he couldn't print.... Neither of them could figure out that he couldn't print because the printer's power cable was disconnected from the wall outlet.....
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  37. You've never worked in tech support, have you?
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  38. Can confirm. I do IT support for a school district. It was horrible during distance learning. Trying to explain to a certain parents how to get their kid logged into the device was an extreme exercise in patience and understanding....
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  39. I concur. I work in school IT support. Its still the same thing. Its job security. That's one way of looking at it, but it does get incredibly frustrating from time to time. I've had to help some people understand that when the printer's "Out of paper" light turns on, it means they need to put paper in the tray. It's infuriating at times.
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  40. lol. Really??
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  41. Missed the joke my dude...... @johnmarkbondad6009 
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  42. eh kkind of. I work in K-12 IT support. It is astonishing how many kids nowadays have zero understanding of how to use Windows computers. Mostly everyone now uses iPads or tablets and phones and don't interact with a regular computer. A lot of kids don't know how to save their files to a flash drive or to their computer since they just use the cloud. All their work just saves on Google Drive. Sure, there are kids who are more tech savvy than others, but from what I've seen, most kids only care about their phones and social media. There's a big difference between being social media savvy and tech savvy.
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  43. lol. Apple has some pain and confusion as well. Things like Apple preventing from repairing your own stuff. You know. Can't change the trackpad of a MBP because its "married" to the logic board.
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  44. Its not much better nowadays.
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  45. I agree. And I don't mind helping people with their tech issues. What is infuriating to me is when they don't accurately tell you what they're having trouble with. I get that they're not tech savvy, but its not hard to tell me "Hey, I'm having trouble getting into my email. I get this error message. Can you help?" Instead, its usually 10-15 minutes of them telling me that their computer doesn't work or their program (and they never say what it is) doesn't work.
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  46. I agree, but at the same time I think both parties need to do their due diligence. I work in IT support for a K-12 district. I don't know about you, but you have to tell the same person multiple times that they need to make sure their printer is powered on in order for it to print, it does get incredibly frustrating. Or when the "Out of paper" light turns on, they need to put paper in the paper tray. I'm exaggerating a bit, but it does feel like that at times.
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  47. I think they're regressing, especially HP. Its stupid that you need to setup most of their printers with an HP account and with the HP Smart program.
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  48. Or when the printer's "Out of Paper" light comes on, they need to put in paper into the tray....
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  49. I concur. I have worked in IT support for nearly 6 years. I'm still baffled how even to this day, there are still people who cannot fathom the idea that they need to plug in the power strip in order for their computer and monitor to power on. Or when the orange "Out of paper" light is blinking, it means that they need to put paper in the printer's paper tray.... I get that not everyone is tech savvy, but do you really need to call IT support for that?
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  50. lmfao. Mac has its own share of problems, like planned obsolescence and difficult to repair.
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  51. In my nearly 5 years working in IT support, I've found that some people, especially when they're frustrated don't always think rationally. I mean I had a teacher (I work in K-12 IT) jam the USB-C cable that connects her laptop to the dock into the ethernet port. And she was flustered because she had to teach class in 10 minutes and her projector wasn't displaying her laptop screen.
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  52. Yep. Its a bit "easier" nowadays since there are remote control software utilities you can use. However, it is still painful doing tech support over the phone. A lot of the times, the difficult part is not the tech problem, but rather working with the person. That's painful. Sometimes they have no idea how to tell you what the problem they're facing is. They usually just tell you "My program doesn't come up" and that's it. No other details. You ask for clarification, and they start getting annoyed... I get that you're having trouble, but how can you not know what program you're having trouble with? And sometimes the problem ends up being that they need a password reset, but for some inexplicable reason, they cannot seem to understand how to formulate the question "Can you please reset my password?" Instead they have us do a guessing game and waste time trying to figure out what they need.
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  53. We all have different skills and abilities. I find building and working on PCs easy. I did not find it easy at all helping my dad replace the torque converter on my 2005 Ford taurus last year.
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  54. Working in IT support, I can guarantee you that there will still be people who will absolutely find a way to mess it up. Incompetence knows no bounds with some people. You can write the most straight to the point guide with diagrams showing exactly what to plug in where and exactly what buttons to press and someone will do the opposite.
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  55. And to be fair, printers haven't really improved that much. In a lot of ways, they've gone backwards. With a lot of HP printers, you have to register for an account and register that printer to your account before the printer can even print anything. Simply installing the print driver isn't enough. And they also want you to subscribe to their printing subscription where you pay a certain amount every month and they send you cartridges . But if you cancel, they lock out the cartridge even if it still has ink left. What a bunch of nonsense.
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  56. You've never worked in IT support, have you?
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  57. From my experiene working in IT support, most non-tech savvy people don't like reading manuals. They find them too complicated or just too much work.
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  58. And to be fair, user manuals aren't always well written. Some assume people know basic computer terminology. Its incredibly difficult to make a balanced user guide.
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  59. Yeah I close the lid every day....
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  60.  @Lucy_595  Yep. I've been to Mexico for family trips over the past 6 years and a lot of the towns we've visited still have a few cyber cafes whereas those have largely disappear in the US.
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  61. ah yes.. arrogance. Just because you were able to understand it an early age, you think that makes you superior...
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  62.  @jackkraken3888  Yep. Its already a thing. A lot of public schools more or less use Chromebooks for students. Of course, there are kids who are more savvy than others. But in my observations, a lot of kids have their own phones and ipads or other tablets. A lot of them don't have or regularly use a Windows computer anymore so they really only "know" iPads, iPhones/Androids and their school Chromebook.
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  63. Pretty much. I think it gets worse as a lot of printers from HP require an app to even setup. Its not enough to install he printer driver. You need a program from HP, and create an account to even get your printer to print.
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  64.  @compmanio36  I work in tech support for a school district. I had a teacher jam the USB-C cable into the ethernet port and she was freaking out that her laptop video wasn't displaying on the projector. I have staff members who confuse a computer monitor with a computer. I also have some people be baffled at the idea that you can plug in a USB mouse and keyboard to a laptop or even hookup a laptop to a monitor.
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  65. I work in K-12 IT and I see this rather often. I get tickets from teachers and staff members saying their printer doesn't work or their monitor doesn't turn on only to find that it isn't plugged into the power outlet... In one instance, a staff member's document scanner was not working. It turns out she didn't correctly plug in the power cable; the left prong on the cable was plugged into the right prong on the power strip...... And these are the people who always claim that they've checked all the cables.....
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  66. And HP printers need that stupid HP Smart app to even print. Its infuriating.
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  67. For me, I don't mind helping people with their IT problems. What is hell for me is when they cannot directly tell me what they need help with. I performed help desk duties during distance learning at a school district. It was absolutely horrendous. Again, I don't mind helping people with tech problems. But it is exhausting dealing with people who for some reason, cannot say "Hey, I forgot my password. Can you please reset it?". Instead, it was 10-15 minutes of back and forth trying different troubleshooting steps only for them to tell me after almost 20 minutes, "Oh yeah. My computer does turn on, but I forgot my password". Why was it so hard for people to directly tell me that? I have no idea.
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  68. US-based tech support costs too much money. That's why a lot of companies off shore customer tech support.
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  69. I think printers have taken many steps back with their lockout chips and forced account creation. I work in school IT. We found out (after the brilliant food services dept. thought it was a great idea to spend thousands of dollars on new HP LaserJet printers for cafeteria managers) that HP pretty much forces you to setup an online HP account and to register your HP printer with your account otherwise the printer will refuse to print. You can install the print driver and Windows will see your printer and show its status as "ready". However, if you haven't setup the printer with the HP Smart software, it will refuse to print.
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  70. Have you ever worked in tech support? You have no idea the level of stupidity some people have.
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  71. We call that user error...
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  72. You've never worked in in IT support have you? I see that regularly working in K-12 IT. I had a teacher once forcefully plug in a USB cable into the ethernet port of her laptop and was getting flustered that her projector wasn't working correctly...
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  73. Yep. I work in K-12 and I think the issue will get worse over time. Where I work, students are provided Chromebooks. Everything is saved to the Google Cloud. Students don't need to manually save anything as any changes they make to their document automatically get saved.
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  74. You'd be surprised... I've worked in school IT tech support for almost 3.5 years. It is astonishing, sad, and infuriating how some people cannot grasp the concept of plugging in a power strip to a power outlet. Or that when the printer's "Out of paper" light turns on that they need to put paper in the paper tray. Yes, those are real support tickets I've had to work on...
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  75. Yeah that does sound like hell. I haven't worked strictly a help desk job. My first IT job was almost 6 years ago at a dried fruit company. I very quickly realized that doing support over the phone was incredibly tedious especially working with certain people. I completely understand that people need tech support. That's fine by me, but holy hell some people are just very difficult to work with OR need a lot of hand holding (or virtual hand holding).
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  76. I don't think even you understand what you're talking about.......
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  77. Completely agree. I work in tech support for a school district and see this all the time. I understand that people aren't tech savvy, but a lot of them, a lot being 'professionals' in their field, don't even know basic computer skills. Some of them are the type of people who have 10 untitled documents scattered throughout their desktop and don't seem to understand the concept of a documents folder.
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