A few days ago I purchased extra storage space for one of my Gmail accounts. Somehow I maxed-out the huge 7.5 gigabytes Google gives you for free, and needed to do something. I was at 98% of capacity, and hard-charging on 110%.
I considered going back through the old messages and deleting the ones with large attachments, or dumping everything from 2007 and 2008, or something along those lines. But I like having an archive — a searchable archive. It’s surprisingly helpful. I find myself referring back to old emails on a semi-regular basis.
So, I clicked on the link that read BUY EXTRA STORAGE SPACE! and saw that I could quadruple my capacity for just five bucks per year. And that’s what I did. Now I’m at 26% and can allow myself to exhale again.
But the episode made me recall a guy I used to work with, at one of my previous jobs. He was an older dude, and got stuck in time somewhere around 1978. All his cultural references were from that era or before, his clothes and hairstyle had a very pronounced 1978 influence, and he even drove a car that was ancient; the thing was the quintessential land barge.
He was all the time talking about Joni Mitchell, the original Saturday Night Live cast, and how much fun he used to have on Quaaludes. And anything more current was instinctively dismissed as ridiculous boolshit.
Yeah, and this guy was also aggressively anti-technology. He used email as nothing more than a fancy-pants document delivery system. Whenever a new message appeared in his inbox, he’d open it, hit the print button, then DELETE.
He didn’t realize you could reply to the messages themselves. Whenever he needed to answer a question or follow-up on something, he’d create a new email and spend the first few sentences explaining (in all caps) the reason for his note. It drove me nuts, but there was no talking to this guy.
Plus, the printer was right behind my desk and was an ancient 300 lb behemoth, with one of those twirling ball o’ letters racing back and forth across the paper. The paper was the kind with perforated holes on two edges, and the clacking of that goddamn ball never stopped. Right behind my head… all day long.
He never threw anything away, either. So we had great banks of filing cabinets lining the walls. People used to come in our office and say, “What do you guys keep in all those cabinets?” And he’d say, “Oh, that’s my email.”
Oh, it would make him completely nuts to have three or four years worth of messages saved in a Gmail account. He’d probably start grinding his teeth, and pawing at his clothes. He always wanted to have his inbox totally empty, and was maniacal about it. If he saw my 8 gigabyte cluster-fornication, he’d probably have a nervous breakdown.
Have you ever worked with a person like this? Someone who refused to embrace technology, and was pretty much hostile toward it? Or, I suppose, somebody who is afraid of technology? If so, please tell us about it in the comments.
I’ve also worked with people who didn’t know you could send an email to more than one person at a time. So, they’d type the same message over and over again. Copy and paste, needless to say, was beyond them, so they’d literally sit there and tap out identical emails to a whole list of people. Heh.
Have you encountered anybody like this, during your travels? Also, do you know anyone who got stuck during a certain era, and never really left it? Yeah, we’ll need to hear about them, as well.
And I’m going to go to work now. Last night’s 10 hour shift felt like it lasted for 17 hours. Not 18 or 16, but 17. And I can’t have that. I’m hoping tonight won’t be so… testicle flattening.
But either way, I’ll be back here tomorrow.
See ya then!
Well ain’t that some shit.
Lots o’shit!
TURD!
I know some people who print out emails – three copies. And then file them.
My grandmother thought cell phones could only call other cell phones but she’s in her 80’s so that’s understandable.
What about someone 20 years younger? If my mom (age 62) calls my house and gets no answer, she finds her cellphone (usually almost dead for lack of charging) and calls my cellphone.
My mom is 67 and turns her cell phone OFF when she doesnt need to call someone.
How the hell is someone supposed to call YOU, mom?
long pause.
Oh. I never thought of that.
Happy Wednesday, Surfers!
Yeah my mom only has her cell phone turned on to actually call someone; otherwise it’s turned off so it doesn’t get “wasted”.
I am stuck in August 2010 and before. I just cannot get my brain around this new Reply feature. We never need that boolshit when I was growing up.
That’s my cool new avatar you’re dissin’ there, Unc. And angry bright blue krunchberries with bright red nuts should not be dissed.
Oh yes. We had to get email a few years ago, and the Tusker amongst us refused to use it, preferring the phone and the fax. Fine, his choice. Then for some reason we had to go find something in his email files. There were 4,000? 40,000? 400,000 emails collected in there. The system had long since locked him out from sending any emails, because his account was over limit (which was fine with him because he didn’t WANT to send any emails), but it just kept accepting those incoming emails, packaging them into bundles of 100 or so, each of which we had to comb through during this particular search.
I’d almost forgotten what a late night job felt like, till last night reminded me. I picked up a couple of freelance IT jobs replacing pc’s at a large electronics retailer. Why they couldn’t have their highly advertised squad of trained “agents” do the replacing is beyond me, but hey, more money in my pocket..
Last night I started at 8 and was told i’d be out by midnight, replace 3 pc’s and set up 1 new one, real simple. Of course that really was of small comfort while i’m rooting around in thier server room at 1.30 trying to find the long-departed wiring tech’s “oops”.
Then up and at the day job at 8, grrr.
But the real ball masher is gonna be tonight, with 26 pc’s to juggle or otherwise fold, spindle or mutilate.
Wonder if i’ll be home before sunrise or not?
So, as of and for tomorrow at least I will be one of those aforementioned luddites.
I just ate my lunch banana like it was a corn on the cob. I was very odd.
Like a few others above, my mom will only turn her call phone on if she is making a call. My dad doesn’t even own a cell phone. He’s always said “I don’t like to talk on the regular phone, why would I give people one more option to call me”?
I at least got him using the Internet about five years ago. My mom still thinks if she walks too close to the computer a hand is going to come out and steal her credit card from her purse. They still pay ALL of their bills with a check, envelope and stamp. If they want to order anything online, they will ask me to do it then write me a check. I gave my mom a digital camera for Christmas a few years ago and took about 30 minutes explaining how to use it and get the photos on the computer. About six months later I noticed that she was using a Kodak throwaway camera…she had filled up the memory card and instead of calling or reading the manual on how to transfer the pics and wipe the card, she just put it away in the closet.
And then there is my wife, who isn’t afraid of technology but whose answer to every electronic problem is to just start mashing buttons. We do the same dance every time. I buy her some new gadget, she says she doesn’t want it because she doesn’t want to put a few days into learning how to use it and then when she does, it is then the greatest thing ever invented.
I still pay all my bills with a check and a stamp, and I just turned 55. f course i also work at the post office. So it’s kind of job security for me. And if I want to order something online, usually I’ll call the 800 number and place the order instead of putting my CC online. But that comes from years of running my computer wide open, no firewall, nothing. Just reload software when bad shit happens.
Being a tech for 20+ years I have seen just about everything. From people that keep every email (including spam) until their email client just refuses to take anymore. I’ve also had customers who insisted on keeping everything on the desktop. Finally Windows would just throw up its hands and refuse to do anything. The concept of folders was totally foreign to them. I would try to explain it to them and their eyes would glaze over and they would hug themselves, start to hum and rock in place like a mental patient. I might have been speaking Urdu for all they knew.
However, I had a client that was just the opposite. He wanted his office totally paperless. He would scan every receipt, contract, letter, whatever and then destroy the original. And of course no backups for 3 or so years.
When his Windows took a massive dump he went into full tilt mode. To make it even worse he had purchased a computer with an evil piece of software installed called GoBack. It literally took over the hard drive and when Windows shit itself you couldn’t access anything on the drive until you removed GoBack.
Many hours and a few hundred dollars later I retrieved most of his data . I never heard if he went back to normal office procedures. I’m guessing the paperless fiasco scared him into buying a couple filing cabinets.
I swore I’d never be one of those “old people” who didn’t keep up with current trends, technology etc.
Well, here I am at age 46 & my pop culture point of reference ends somewhere around 1989. I work with a couple of 20-somethings and we can barely communicate.
I’m old.
My mother used to think that cordless phones were cell phones because you could walk around the house with the thing.
My mother in law used to have a place in Florida and then a summer place in Indiana. Every time she moved between the two she would feel the need to change her email address since her physical address changed.
Why are so many old people so stupid?
Perfect.
I was going to mention that in my post, but I just can’t knock the 2 old ladies.
Oh fuck it, yes I can- they’re STUPID. Dumber than a pile of rocks!
I am quite happily stuck in the 80s.
I have been involved with technology since I saw my first handheld calculator and I was performing all my calculations on a slide rule. Bet most of you don’t even know what a slide rule is or saw one in a museum and asked “How the hell did they perform calculus with that thing?” Let me tell you sumptin’! It twasn’t easy. But I digress. My latest blunder in technology was the complete failure of my portable hard drive after I stored and all my music, photos and pertanent data archives. Of course, this happened after I deleted everything off my computer hard drive.
Two slide rules in this house, though I doubt I could find either one. Yes, I know how to use one; engineering school in the 70s will do that to you.
I went to Purdue for Electrical Engineering in the 70’s but I got rid of my slide rules.
I hate change. So when the internet came about and every address and phone number was followed by a .com I just rolled my eyes and thought it would never last. Now, just like faxing, cell phones, and ATM…I can’t imagine life without it.
I’ve worked with the a couple of guys who printed everything. Drove me a little nuts.
But now that I’m working in healthcare you should see the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes on regarding technology. People freak out over a new piece of equipment that’s replacing something that’s so old it’s practically hand-cranked.
And finding a physician under the age of 40 or so who is willing to use a computer is almost a rarity. They love them some pens and carbon paper. Seriously.
I have never found an industry so far behind the technology curve. I’d be delighted if we could just bring everyone up to say, the mid-1990’s.
I work in the last unit in our hospital to use paper charting, and there will be much teeth gnashing when we are forced into computer charting, and I’ll probably be the loudest. I love computers. My husband is an IT guy, my house is full of the damn things. But the people that design programs for use in health care have apparently never been on a unit, followed a nurse for a day, or read a chart. Or at least that’s how it seems to the grunts in the trenches. I wish maiming and death on the designers of Meditech on a daily basis. Obviously, in their minds, I have limitless time to click boxes and fill in codes. I mean, what the hell else would I have to do? Patient care? WTF is that? Much more important to use a mouse and keyboard on minutiae.
At home I’m an absolute technophile, but at work I”m a diehard Luddite.
m: I totally agree with you. The office/hospital I work in has not graduated to paperless either and I dread the day we do. Everyone’s time is valuable. For a physicial to have to drag a laptop with him into every exam room and double click and check his way though a patient consultation is absolutely ridiculous. The last time I saw my primary care doctor, it took him more time to log my answers, exam, etc into the laptop than it did the actual time he spent with me. Office hours will be tedious, twice as long and standing room only in waiting rooms…worse than now.
The powers that be don’t give a shit about patient care. And those who design the programs have no clue of what goes on “behind the scenes” of a hospital unit or medical office.
physicial = physician….. ugh
I worked as a technician on the last Apollo mission and it took me quite a while to be able to cut and paste
I concur.
Also: why are so many young people so stupid?
Thats because they know everything.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters….
The owner of my dealership, who I’ve dubbed the “Big Boss” is old school business. He hates the internet, even though we generate a lot of leads & sales through our website.
He also detests computers even we all have to use them on a daily basis, especially me. I use a piece of shit Gateway that is at least 7 years old and is slower than the fat kid on the short bus.
Any time I’m in the middle of a job or app and the computer bogs down or outright freezes / crashes, the Big Boss blames it on a “virus”. It’s his standard explanation for any tech related problem.
When I first started working in the Core-prit world way back in 1980, they’d just started using computers (or The Tube as they’d say) My mentor, Dick, (I’d often mutter under my breath “You Dick”) tried in vain to teach me to save everything and “screen print” everything the computer did. and file it.
of course, because he had a vast filing system with reams of paper, he could put his hands on anything in 20 seconds, where it would take me almost a minute with the computer.
Every time he’d produce something that I was still looking on the computer for, he’d grin like a corpse and I’d be forced to say “Thanks. Dick”
Two year later, with my own screaming 64Kb PC and Visacalc, I blew his filing system and processes out of the water and he barely spoke to me again.
Dick.
Just this morning the boss declared he was ready to ditch all the computers and go back to typewriters because the new MS Word was slightly different than the old one.
When he got his iphone a few months ago I actually had to teach him how to slide the little bar with his finger to unlock it.
Two year later? I’m sounding like my dry cleaner! Typo
I likes me some internets just fine, but I don’t understand why Paris Hilton keeps on ignoring my tweets.
Do they have an app yet on those Iphones that will make pickles?
Also, I am still having trouble sending typed out email messages from my IBM Selectric typewriter
I had an old-school boss who didn’t use a computer. He would do everything on columnar accounting paper. He’d pull out a huge tablet of accounting paper, a pencil, and a ruler and just go to town. The size of the paper varied directly with the number of hours one would spend in his office.
My God man, we may work ( have worked ) for the same guy. Big Boss is the exact same way, pencil and all.
~ Jersey Don…
My God man, we may work ( have worked ) for the same guy. Big Boss is the exact same way, pencil and all.
I just got an email from the local library director stating he is giving a seminar on how to use an MP3 player to listen to audio books. Oh to be a fly on the wall.
Irony
Uh-huh.. see what I did there?
we see but were too polite to mention it.
A buddy of mine apparently works for a guy who makes him print out all of his digital pictures, then he’ll mark them up, then he’ll scan them.
The people I work with can’t format a document to save their lives. There is no insert page break, it’s just return return return until the next page shows up. Which means if the document changes you are constantly chasing parts of the document.
My dad is stuck at about 1995. He fights cell phone use with a passion. What’s weird is he used to be the guy who had to have the newest and coolest computer out there (TI-99/4A, Tandy, etc).
We had windows 95 well into the 2000’s (because the new Windows has too many bugs). Problem there is that new software won’t work on the old stuff.
And anytime something is wrong with the computer he would blame me or my brothers for downloading stuff.
Also at work they print out the messages we get from Boeing, even though they are also saved in individual files on the computer. I don’t print shit unless I have to.
Same company but different location didn’t print anything and had a very compact filing system (some things require paper copies).
The paperless office is a good idea, but will never be a reality. But I do think there could be a better middle ground.
Old people trying to work technology is so amusing to me. My grandpa was over one day and had recently purchased one of those pay-as-you go phones from the dollar store, fresh out of the plastic wrap. He was tickled pink when I showed him how to change the ringtone to ‘flight of the bumblebee’, but couldn’t figure out how to answer it. My boyfriend’s grandma (bless her heart) would always frequently pick up the cordless phone and try to talk in it upsidedown. After a long war of trying to figure out why she couldn’t hear whoever it was, she would finally just set the phone down without actually turning it off because she’d forget. My boyfriend’s mom finally put stickers on the phone to indicate how to turn off the phone.
I admit I am a laggard when it comes to technology. I eventually get there but it takes some time. I have yet to invest in a flat screen or High def TV. I reluctantly got a cell phone in 2005 but only turned it on to make calls. I eventually gave it to my Daughter. I now have a Blackberry and enjoy it but clearly do not use it’s full capability.
Too be honest I find most technology to be intrusive, bothersome and a chore. Every day I think the Amish are more and more right when it comes to living.
I once worked with and person at a company who advised new employees to reply to emails in alphabetical order — I was toward the end of the alphabet at the time, which explains why I never got any replies from her.
i work with a guy that is resonably intelligent, but stick a computer in front of him and he goes TILT like a pinball machine. Oh Crap, i just gave away my age. I mean he might as well try to send e-mail with an
Etch-A-Sketch. And i know a bunch of really old guys that have embraced e-mail if not sowtware suites. But then i know a buch that won’t get a cell phone cause they can’t get one with a dial. (See Oh Crap above.)
I used to work with a guy who was supposed to be some hotshot business expert – he came from AT+T and was going to generate tons of business, and do great things for our little company. But he was a technophobe; had a computer on his desk, but almost never touched it; would have been an email printer if he did. If he needed to *send* an email, he’d call in the receptionist and make her type it for him, like some kind of 1940s “steno girl”. Oh yeah, he was out the door within a year.
I think technophobia is a matter of temperament or personality, not so much age. My dad is 85 and is an emailing fool, very much the computer user. And he’s never been any kind of techie (taught French literature, not science or math). There are plenty of “young” people who are actually technophobes, but since they grew up with computers they don’t consider a desktop computer to be “technology”, any more than TV or running water. But ask them to set an IP address, let alone try to explain the Maillard reaction, and their eyes glaze right over. To people like these, it’s all just magic; just some magic is familiar and some is not.
I think I’ve about broken myself of saying “excuuuuse ME!”
.
A nod to chill on the Maillard reaction reference – did you know that Maillard was a French physician? And he’s famous for the reaction that gives us the flavor of toasted bread, roasted coffee, malted beer, browned meat, and on and on? Bet he never figures on that type of fame…
figured….arrrrgghhhh,
Mallard reaction? Did he study ducks or something?
The Mallard Reaction – the process of ducks hitting the intakes of 767 jet engines.
Mallards are delicious.
Some french fuck is taking credit for toast? Pompous fucking bastards!
The owner of one of the companies I worked for was and forever will be a beginner computer user. He’s been using a computer since the mid-1980s, but in the early 2000s he pulled a really great one.
He had clicked print and realized that wasn’t what he wanted. Instead of clicking cancel on the computer or pressing the cancel button on the printer, he RIPPED the paper out of the inkjet printer backwards as it was trying to feed. It was reported that the sound, sounded like every little plastic gear stripping! Needless to say it wouldn’t print once he finally figured out what he had intended to print in the first place. We came to discover that the motion of the paper had acted like sandpaper and clogged all the print nozzles. After about 4-6 deep cleanings, it worked like a charm!
Uh Chill? I think there’s a big difference between accepting the use of technology and growing with the times and knowing the ins and outs of how the product you are using works.
Most people don’t know shit about how a cars’ engine works but they can operate them like champs.
I guess what I was trying to say is that some people are more comfortable with change than others, and that it’s a personality trait rather than a function of age.
BTW, nobody operates a car engine anymore; the computer does it for you. 100 years ago, you *had* to know the ins and outs of how it worked, because you were doing everything manually (spark advance, choke, etc.) and the car wouldn’t run if you did it wrong.
.
I’ve worked for men who print out all their e-mails, who call me into their office to send e-mail, because God forbid it should come from me. Stupid men, making obscene amounts of money for their ignorance while throwing me a bone. Anyway, as an older person, let me explain the loss of technology in our crowd. Purely my perspective. My music collection has gone from vinyl, to 8-track, to cassettes, to CD’s. And now I have to get an Ipod? Fuck it. I quit. I’m going to stay with my CD’s. It’s easy to make fun of old people, but someday, if you’re lucky, you’ll be old too. Are you going to get the cochlear implants for your music? LOL. I’m sticking with my CD’s.
Agree 100% girl !
Thank you.
I don’t understant the whole plumbing thing. Flushing stuff away to go somewhere for someone else to deal with is just rude. I poop outside.
Mom was watching me use the touch-pad on my laptop. She said “Ray? Where’s your rat?”
I had a 58 year old employee afraid she was going to get a computer virus. She was serious and nearly in tears.
crap…ignore that “Ray” thing… she meant “hot fuzz”
Maybe we should go back to smoke signals. It was good enough for native Americans.
‘Send more meat to the fort.’
‘Our squaws are sick in the wickiups!’
See, it can work.
Good Morning Surf Reporters….
My friend’s sister has never – and I’m serious, never – been on the internet. She also tight rolls her jeans, wears her sneakers with the laces undone, and has bangs that she curls under on her forehead. Yep. Stuck in ’82.
My in-laws don’t understand digital voice mail, they think everyone still has an answering machine. We get voicemails from them that are along these lines “HELLO!! PICK UP!! ARE YOU THERE? IT’S YOUR MOM!! PICK UP THE PHONE””
Where the hell are my goddamn box scores!
(I am such an insider)
@Miss Q,
Around here the guys in their late teens, and some in their early twenties, still wear those shorts that come halfway down to their ankles and knee length wife beaters and the ball cap sideways and no roll on the bill. They look like such hoopies. I don’t think that style lasted very long except here in Appalachia.
How could you expect anyone to take you seriously when you look like a vacationing rodeo clown?
Plus, the printer was right behind my desk and was an ancient 300 lb behemoth, with one of those twirling ball o’ letters racing back and forth across the paper. The paper was the kind with perforated holes on two edges, and the clacking of that goddamn ball never stopped. Right behind my head… all day long.
Ever heard of unplugging it?
I would’ve told his boss.
BTW, is there anyone else that thinks TEXTING is BACKWARDS technology? Here’s the theory….if Texting had been invented before the advent of being able to TALK on a cell phone, all would have hailed Calling someone with VOICE as, “Hey, we don’t have to TYPE anymore!!! Now we can TALK!” So why would anyone want to TYPE when they can talk?? WHich is easier?
Teens are stupid.