Some people seem to have a big stumbling block when it comes to computers, that you can train them to do certain things, and you'd think they could apply those skills to getting familiar with how the system works, but they can't step out of their comfort zone even when the solution to their problem is right on the screen in front of them in plain English.

At a previous retail job I conducted my own unscientific psych experiments on the other staff with one of our PCs. I'd change the font on the desktop icons or change the window colors or reorganize icons so they were alphabetized, just small things, and some people would freak right the hell out about it, start screaming that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED WHO DID THIS. They could not function until I restored the previous settings.

I think it's related to that weird thing some people have where they are articulate enough and clear enough when speaking, but for whatever reason can't communicate basic ideas when writing them down (every corporate office has at least one, often in management). I can't explain the phenomenon, but I find it fascinating.

I think it's related to that weird thing some people have where they are articulate enough and clear enough when speaking, but for whatever reason can't communicate basic ideas when writing them down (every corporate office has at least one, often in management). I can't explain the phenomenon, but I find it fascinating.

They say that it has something to do with different parts of the brain being responsible for spoken and written communication. In some people, one is better/more developed than the other.

Even worse is when such a person works in IT. When I worked for the feds, our region got an allocation for an IT manager. The person they hired had a degree in IT management from a community college and knew the things that should be done, like backups and such, but no earthly clue how to actually perform those tasks.

HQ sent someone to train this person, however no one had bothered to secure the network management applications, and they could be accessed directly from any PC on the network. I constantly changed the ordering or wording of menus -- 'Print Document' to 'Send Doc To Print' -- and icons and this person would be hopelessly lost.

Every PC had internet access too -- this was 1992 -- but when I left in Jan 96, I doubt few if anyone else knew it or even knew what the internet was. Half the place had not even mastered email yet, and the secretaries were still transferring files by walking diskettes back and forth.

On Monday our internet access here at the office went out, but our intranet was still up so we could access network storage and use email. So we could still work. I felt like I had been transported back to 1998. It was soooo boring.

middleclasstool, if you alphabetize my icons I'll hurt you, OK?

I knew a guy who had arranged all his application and document icons into precise concentric circles that defined a wheel of life and described the structure of both the human mind and the the alchemy of nature. Then someone booted his PC in safe mode, and all that knowledge was lost forever.

They say that it has something to do with different parts of the brain being responsible for spoken and written communication. In some people, one is better/more developed than the other.

Well, that's even weirder. You'd think the language center would be the language center. Not that it means a damn thing medically, of course, but to me writing feels exactly the same as speaking. Usually I can even hear my voice in my head saying what I'm writing.

middleclasstool, if you alphabetize my icons I'll hurt you, OK?

Oh, never rub another man's rhubarb, no. That's an occasional point of tension in my marriage -- my wife sometimes doesn't get that I HAVE MY USER PROFILE AND YOU HAVE YOURS. But office PCs are fair game for mischief, IMO.

middleclasstool - you know what completely blows my mind? I read in one of Richard Feinman's books that some people count in their head by seeing an image of the numbers, rather than hearing the numbers counted out. It was the moment I decided I didn't have the mental wiring to be a physicist.

I think it's related to that weird thing some people have where they are articulate enough and clear enough when speaking, but for whatever reason can't communicate basic ideas when writing them down (every corporate office has at least one, often in management). I can't explain the phenomenon, but I find it fascinating.

They say that it has something to do with different parts of the brain being responsible for spoken and written communication. In some people, one is better/more developed than the other.

It's funny, I have the opposite problem as these retailers. I can sit down at any computer and get it to do what I want (in college in the late 80s, I helped the staff figure out their new IBM XTs). I'm known here at work for the "clarity of my emails". But I would rather sit on a tack than try to talk on the phone in some complicated situation, and the only time I ever lose my temper is when I try to verbally communicate something and it's not working. I can completely relate to those teens who sit next to each other and send text messages.

I don't think you understand how this Darwin Award thing works.

I understand the people freaking out because of their icons being changed etc.

Not because it takes that long to fix or because I'm a tech-idiot, but because my screen is kind of more my office than my office. It's all I really look at all day, and if it were different, I would be as weirded out as if someone (like my ex-roommate) rearranged all my books in my living room.
It's disconcerting.

I have different layouts for my home and work computers (toolbars on different sides) and different desktop wallpapers to help delineate the "space" I am working from.
I think your virtual environment can be as real as your actual one in terms of how it impacts you.

Just watch the endless lines of cars doing their pre-programmed commute. No matter what happens on that route they keep to it. They cannot imagine a different way to get home. If they took any other road they would be instantly lost.

I'm glad for those people. It makes my back roads re-routing around congestion that much better.

I think it's just that college students get jobs where they ideally don't have to think. Ka-ching! Here's your change. Ka-ching! Here's your change.

I read in one of Richard Feinman's books that some people count in their head by seeing an image of the numbers, rather than hearing the numbers counted out

Isn't this how everyone does math?

I thought that (the phenomenon Feynman mentions) was a facet of synaesthesia - at least, I know a synaesthetic mother and daughter who both do this. They also see the days of the week as shapes.

Isn't this how everyone does math?

Nope. I hear the numbers in my head.

Isn't this how everyone does math?

No, just you and Eideteker.