Stop it! It's not a virus!

[Dips]

I caught Mr. Dips trying to convince my mother-in-law (God love her) to get a computer.

I nearly broke his shin bone kicking him under the table to get him to shut up already. She's a technophobe AND very trusting. Guess who's going to get a million phone calls every time she gets stuck or messes something up? Hint: Not Mr. Dips.

Seriously, dude. She's perfectly content not having a computer. I'M perfectly content with her not a having a computer. Let's just leave well enough alone, please.

[mattm04]

I see someone who needs to be restricted to a barebones guest-level user account, no admin access at all.

Thank goodness everyone in my family (as far as I can tell) is techy enough that they can manage daily life on a computer without freaking out or killing their machine.

I wash we could have done guest access for my user, however the app they needed to use required a regular user account. Even with that, I spent many hours re-imaging that PC.

[42_42_42]

I just explained to my sister this past weekend that the Y2K scare was over, and that, no, all of the computers on the planet are NOT in danger of syncronized spontaneous combustion (which is what she thought the Y2K thing was). She's been living in constant fear of the "Y2K computer explosion" since 1999.

[Kogarashi]

I see someone who needs to be restricted to a barebones guest-level user account, no admin access at all.

Thank goodness everyone in my family (as far as I can tell) is techy enough that they can manage daily life on a computer without freaking out or killing their machine.

[DeltaSierra]

My Mother, the walking techbane that she is, used to be like this. She'd call me over for every little pop-up message for reassurance that it was normal.

She's gotten better about it, though.

My Mom still does this. Almost weekly I get a phone call witih "Java/flash/windows wants to update. What do I DO???????????????"

[Squeaksmyalias]

Mattm04 you know my pain. She does acknowledge that she goes online and it's a must for work, but she refuses to go anywhere else but the required sites, which I'm kinda glad since who knows what she would find and scare her. Of course if she wants to find something online she finds me and asks me to google it for her. She means well, and now she is scared into not deleting things, and offered to pay for the repairs when tech boss called to tell her she did bad. I think tomorrow might mean I spend the morning reminding everyone not to delete files they did not make themselves without checking with us first. I think this woman would be in more trouble if she wasn't otherwise damn good at her job. I mean she is GOOD, but I swear part of her fear of computer viruses is the same as her need to make sure we have tons of antibacterial stuff around the office....maybe it is, hmm.

[Jay 2K Winger]

My Mother, the walking techbane that she is, used to be like this. She'd call me over for every little pop-up message for reassurance that it was normal.

She's gotten better about it, though.

[Flying Grype]

You know, I'm not usually a fan of kicking people to the curb without giving them a chance to upgrade their skills. But holy hell, not knowing how to use a computer is curable. Being AFRAID of everything your computer does is pretty damned hopeless. There needs to be someone in that spot who can use a computer, period.

[mattm04]

Good Luck to him. Of all the user types I've trained over the years, the Scared-of-Technology one is one of the worst. The only one that tops it is the Know-Nothing-Know-It-All.

I supported a small office before and most of them were good at reporting issues to us that needed to be addressed in a normal, sane and timely manner.

One of the biggest issues was one user, who shared a PC with several others. Their job was 99.9% data entry and running some reports, mostly in a special app and the rest in Excel. They hated our anti-virus (McAfee SaaS) and regular Windows updates. They said it was not needed because you can only get viruses online, they never went on line (except to check their web mail, but that didn't count to them)

When it would boot up the McAfee window would pop up for few seconds, which they thought was a virus and would shut the damn thing down, try again and repeat. The worst was any Win Updates that installed at shut down. They were either scared or to impatient and on more than one occasion pulled the power cod, when the "do not shut down" message was visible.

They also demanded we tell them when any AUTOMATIC updates were going to be installed or any AV updates. Guess what, we don't know. They will install when they are released.

[Squeaksmyalias]

Good Luck to him. Of all the user types I've trained over the years, the Scared-of-Technology one is one of the worst.

Sadly it's pretty much office wide, but the woman at the front desk is by far the worst. The others will just ask me to do it, or make sure it's ok before doing something, but this woman and the one who seems to think any tech who enters the building is at her beck and call, are the worst to deal with. Seriously, we had the phone company's tech in a few weeks back and she walked over to him and handed him her new camera and demanded that he set it up. We had to have a talk that while I will set up personal devices like cell phones, laptops and computers and all that, any tech who enters the building are not going to be doing that for her and is there for a specific job. Now I'm being asked to hang around as a bodyguard for anyone there to work, just so no one gets the idea he or she is there to be asked general questions.

Anyway I got an email from tech boss saying there is a bottle of vodka and some paper work to bring along with me to drop off the computer waiting in his office. From the sounds of it the computer still lives, but just barely, so it might just be showing that it has the will to live. He signed the email with "What have I done to offend the computer gods and why have they forsaken me?!" Good news is it's unlikely we lost anything of importance and things appeared to be backed up. Which is good, its also good is I have a old tower I need to remove a hard drive from so I figure I will leave that in his office with a hammer and let him go to town on it. Yes, I know I don't need to actually beat the tower up to get it out, but where is the fun in that? Also it insulted my Mother and I want revenge, not to mention my friend is at Pennsic and isn't around to shoot it for me so a hammer will have to do. Btw (don't try this home, use a trained professional, Etc.) did you know a laptop will go boom and start on fire if it is shot? I learn the best things from former Airforce computer guys.

[Geek King]

Good Luck to him. Of all the user types I've trained over the years, the Scared-of-Technology one is one of the worst. The only one that tops it is the Know-Nothing-Know-It-All.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I do some minor tech work for my Mom's office, the only other person there able to do it is one of the bosses (there are three) who I will call tech boss, even if it's not really his job. They don't have a tech, one because it's a small company and not really needed, two they are afraid that if they had a tech he would blow his own brains out at some point and that is a sad and messy thing to deal with. So when ever they get new office computers in or need to do a lot of work on them or just sit on the phone with tech support I get called in to do it, I'm not really great with computers, but I follow directions really well and I work for cheap so it works out for all.
It's a small office and just about every person but that one boss is completely and utterly confused by computers. To the point of I make up their passwords for them, reset them for everything and then go to the next person, because otherwise it turns into an argument, hours of explaining, badgering and excessive drinking on my part. Frankly the company can't afford the amount of alcohol needed after trying to get them to do it, so I do it.

Anyway, the two biggest challenges lately are email, yes you can check your work email at home, yes you can check your home email here, really, I promise, look I'm doing it right now, no the world won't end, yes you can do it when I'm not here...so far my Mother seems to get it, and the bosses. The other big challenge is to get the woman at the front desk to allow her computer to update itself. She is CONVINCED it is a virus, so anytime it starts up it is promptly stopped by her, if it tries to update as it shuts down she panics and tries to stop it, even the virus scan, she tried to take it off the computer more then once. I finally got her to stop that, but anytime there is an update she calls me or the tech boss to tell us to come look at fix it. She also refuses to use search engines, or go beyond the sites she needs for work. Today's issue? The front desk secretary was out, and tech boss went and sat at her computer to look up info and it was bad. I've no idea what she did, but he sounded like he was holding back sobs or laughter, or he finally cracked from the insanity around him, tomorrow I'm going in replacing her computer with another one we have in back then dropping off the broken computer at the shop. He won't tell me what happened but from the sounds of things she deleted some important things and he mentioned wanting to use shock treatment to keep her from deleting anything from now on.