Old people need to learn to Trust the young

[DSLWill]

I am an Employee in a department store with many different departments.
I work in Electronics.
Some days i wonder why old people dont trust the younger Associates.

In My case i have a story that for the life of me... i still cant understand.

This elderly lady is enquiering about purchusing a cordless phone much like the one she had for 16 years before it burned out.

Customer: Excuse me sir, can i ask you some questions about your cordless phones?

Me: Sure what phone can i intrest you in today?

Customer: well... i had a GE corless phone that i got for christmas in 1992 and it stopped working last week. i bought a battery for it and that didnt work so i think i need a new phone, but i want it to be alot like my old phone. i am too old to learn these new bells and dodads.

*picking up the cheapest, lowest quallity GE phone i can find. With assurance i say...

Me: i think this is exactly what you need.

Customer: ummm no, my last phone didnt have a display also, i dont think it was quite this small. I could pull the antenna out with my last one, i cant with this one, do you think it will get good reception.

*ok people, the phones now all have a display, you dont need to use them. also, you CANT buy a phone that is less then 2.5GHZ reception.

Me: you dont need to look at the display if you dont want to. and these phones have such great reception with the new technology.

Customer: well it isnt quite what i am looking for, i think i will shop around and if i cant find anything i might come back.

*after a couple of hours she came back with a disapointed look on her face.

Me: welcome back mam, can i still intrest you in that GE corless phone.

Customer: i guess i have to... did you know you cant get a corless phone with out a display?

Customer: also you dont need to pull out the antenna, they have such good reception that they dont need a antenna. just thought you should know.

Customer: I guess i can live with a small phone, im just afraid i may loose it.

* The whole time i am trying to fight the urge to strangle her...

Me: these phones have a page button so if you do loose it, just page it and it beeps so you can find it again.

Customer: well isnt that smart, isnt it amazing what they can do now a days.

* I sold the $24 phone to my customer and still to this day i cant figure out how she got through this world telling people what people just told them not 2 hours ago...

Old people should learn to trust the younger people and not teach them what they already know.

Ignerance

[HALFHUMANHALFZOMBIE]

Customer: ummm no, my last phone didnt have a display also, i dont think it was quite this small. I could pull the antenna out with my last one, i cant with this one, do you think it will get good reception.

Holy crap she's concerned about reception??

it sounds like she'd rather fiddle with the antenna than convieniently finding out who calles her (like anyone would hyuk hyuk!) old people can't grasp anymodern technology past the 1980's

[Retail Associate]

Us old folks are set in our ways. We don't adapt easily to change. But once we do take the plunge and try something new, we find out it ain't so bad afterall.

I'd love to get myself a lot of new gadgets...wish I could afford them all (especially one of those new-fangled 47 inch HDTVs and a laptop with wireless internet and an iPod and...).

.

[Nakajo]

My great-grandmother, bless her, has never even been on a computer until this year. My great-grandfather won't even let her get an answering machine, he is so stubborn when it comes to electronics. God forbid when they move in later this year with my grandfather, he has a TV! (gasp) Poor Grandma. I've been dying to mail her a portable DVD player and some DVDs (including home videos) for our birthday (on the same day, she's 95 this year, I'm 21!).

Reason being here, she knows only about the electronics she does have and doesn't quite understand how powerful it is nowadays. We take these things for granted, I guess. (I swear, when I visit, I'm hauling a TV and my Wii there, she'd love it.)

[marasbaras]

A bit frustrating. Still, remember how much of a change some of these folks have gone through ... born in the 20's or 30's ... wow, the world was totally different.

[PepperElf]

reminds me of my parents.

mom doesn't want to have to memorize a giant wad of information just for a new gadget. heh, for her cell phone she's still on the same one she had like 6 years ago. (tho the cordless ones got updated)

[Boozy]

Customer: i guess i have to... did you know you cant get a corless phone with out a display?

That's news to me. I bought one new just last month. Am looking at it right now.

I understand where that customer is coming from. I lost my cell phone last week, and even though I was eligible for an upgrade, I asked the CSR to send me the exact same phone. Because it takes me a very long time to learn how to use a new piece of equipment.

He said they no longer make that phone, but he would find one for me as similar as possible. He was pretty understanding about it.

I just turned 30, so I'm not even old.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

When it comes to reception, I can agree with her. I had a pull out antenna that I used to use to talk on the phone while across the street at the IGA. Now this phone back in 1993 would pick up my base unit through my house and it's steel siding, the yard next door to us, across a two lane road, across a small parking lot, and through the structural iron-work of a small grocery store. At a distance of .06 miles.

Even with the 2.4GHz phones, I'm lucky to get a clear signal from the base unit to the upstairs.

M

[protege]

Reminds me of my great-grandmother...who died in 1995 at the age of 103 She never had a driver's license, nor did she learn how to drive. At the time, there wasn't a need. In those days, the woman's place was still at home, and it wasn't common for families to have more than one car. If she did have to go somewhere, she took the streetcar, or bus.

[tollbaby]

My cordless phone doesn't have a display either....

I really find this generalization of older people to be quite humorous.... Our best tech support guru here at the office is in his sixties. Granted, my father-in-law can't use his computer for much other than e-mail (he's 80) but then, he's never wanted to, so why waste his time learning a skill he'll never use?

My brother (who is about to turn 28) keeps telling my parents these stupid "tips" for improving their computer's functioning, improving their speed, streamlining their scheduled tasks, etc and keeps telling them to install this or delete that.... I keep telling them to just continue doing what they're doing and they'll be fine.

My brother's total for viruses in the last five years: 35 (at least, that's how many I've helped him fix)
My mom's: 5 (all of which she got after implementing my brother's "improvements")
Mine: 1 (which came attached to an e-mail my brother sent me).

Yes, some older people shouldn't be allowed to touch the new-fangled gadgets, but a lot of younger people shouldn't be allowed to touch them either

[It shouldn't]

My grandmother, who lives with my parents, will to this day refuse to use the dishwasher or the microwave (dang new fangled gadgets). She will however use the chainsaw, arc welder and power drill.

[Becks]

Next time, have that customer contact me.

I have two cordless phones without a display. I don't use them.

I only use the landline for my dialup so I can check out this wonderful site.

[DSLWill]

thank you for your relpys

i read all your replys and enjoyed every one of them, thank you

The point i was trying to illistrate was that the older generation should just learn to trust the younger generation beacuse...

how else are they going to learn about these things that i feel are simple and i admit take for granted.

Trust in thoes who know. i trust in them for there life exsperiences

[theredbaron47]

My experience has been that yes, the elderly are usually very fearful of technology.

But as someone pointed out earlier, can you blame them? Having been born in the 1920's and 30's, holy hell think about how much times have changed since then, and everything they have seen since then.

Within the past month, my parents bought a new Sony 32" wall-mounted HD TV. My father and I installed it, and they ordered HD service through Comcast. I'll be damned if it isn't a pain in the ass to use that service, when I've grown up all 21 years of my life with a TV with a simple remote, a VCR, and (actually just within the past 5 years or so), a DVD player. My mother actually had a separate (non-HD) line ran to the VCR itself, for the sole purpose of being able to watch the TV while the VCR is recording (who knew such a simple task wouldn't be accessible with Comcast HDTV?).

Just looking at the big honkin' remote Comcast gave us with the HD set-top box makes me want to .

So yes, I can completely understand where the majority of them are coming from. Damned if my grandparents, God rest their souls, didn't stop after purchasing a TV and cable for said TV.

But yeah, OP, I would definitely have been mad in your shoes too. I mean, why even ask someone for help if you won't trust them?

[blas]

This may make me sound like an asshole. but the whole principle of the matter is what would piss me off the most. Having been a "victim" of people refusing to believe me and hunting others down to ask the same question, I would just be irate. It wouldn't matter if it were about phones, if the customer were elderly or young....people who do that are just RUDE and disgusting, hopping around from employee to employee.