Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Vent Thread

You can never fail to be surprised by just how dumb some people are. I remember when I worked in the local library, we often had to take trolley loads of books just in to the main public area to check through the card catalogue while processing them.

These books couldn't be taken out by readers until they were processed, labelled, catalogued, etc, so we'd always stick a huge notice on the sides of the trolley to say so. The notices covered the shelves of books.

It was always a source of amazement how often you'd turn around to find some reader lifting up the notice to get to the books underneath and then trying to make off with them.

Never failed.

And then, classic, they'd either say, "Oh, didn't realise." or, my favourite, "Oh, I didn't notice the sign." You just lifted it up to get underneath it, you moron! How could you not see it?

LabRat

1. Users who don't read the instructions on the screen. Doesn't matter how big you make the notice, or how non-technical and succinct you make it, they still won't read it. They prefer to click, get stuck, and then phone for help.

2. Users who ask for instructions to be specially written and made easily available, and then don't read them.

3. Users who don't read the informative or instructional emails I send them.

4. Users who think disk storage is infinite.

5. Users who think low disk storage is an IT problem and definitely not, under any circumstances whatsoever, their problem.

6. Users who think that a few scraps of knowledge about their home computer equates to being an expert on professional, business-level computing, causing them to make suggestions and requests which are so preposterous that you just don't know where to start telling them how wrong or stupid they are.

7. And just for a change of pace, staff who lose the information I email them and need me to re-locate and resend it.

8. Staff who never put anything away and then turn to me for a solution when the installation CD they need has mysteriously got lost.

There. That was fun. I feel so much better now.

Yvonne

I did that.

Was getting some HTML software off the web. Downloaded, installed. Didn't work. Updated. Didn't work. Uninstalled. Uninstalling triggered an auto-form asking if I wanted to tell the company why I'd gotten rid of the software.

So, I decided to fill it out. Said I couldn't get it work on my system.

Half an hour later, I got an email from the developers explaining that the latest Windows security update interfered with the software's function, and that there was a patch available.

Downloaded and installed the patch, and *poof*, it worked!

I emailed them back, thanking them for their help and suggesting that they put up a notice on the download page that you need the patch.

Quick reply: There is one.

Went to check. Didn't see it. Decided to take a more careful look.

And there, at the top of the page, in giant red "this is hugely important; read it now or you're an idiot" letters, was a notice about the problem and the patch.

The reason I didn't see it? I'm so used to that sort of thing being used to sell virtual snake oil that I automatically block it out. The content was recognized and disregarded before it ever made it to the conscious level. I had to stop, realize there was a part of the page I hadn't actually looked at, scroll back up, and consciously force myself to override the mental filters before I could actually read the text.

Oops.

Paul