Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes
Edsger W. Dijkstra
And when your radio is broken, you don’t ask a composer
no uncle steve, that’s commuter science, I know ALL ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
I was legally contracted to say yes.
At least it was satisfying to answer NO when the question involved their personal (not a company one) acer cheap mall laptop filled with mcafee, bloatware and socuh combined with the slowest low capacity hdd in existence.
Hell NO
Alright I’m probably the outlier here but… I like helping people with their IT needs, and I’ve always found the problem solving and praise kinda nice. Maybe it’s just a me thing tho
imo - you are not the outlier, you just haven’t yet progressed to the mostly inevitable stage where people take advantage of your help, or their spyware ridden dumpster fire of a laptop breaks and they blame you because you “touched it last” - never mind that was 6 months ago and the only thing you did was change the screensaver timeout.
I actually like helping people a lot, too.
I don’t think IT folks are naturally misanthropic or antisocial, but I personally got beat down so much by wanting to help and realizing they didn’t care to listen, or weren’t willing to learn anything. At all. Even though they came to me with the problem, it seemed they mostly just wanted me to fix it for them with zero understanding required, or to “be emotional at someone” or were lonely.
I also got so tired of being friendly and enthusiastically educational with advising my relatives or friends, only to then watch them completely disregard 100% of my advice they came to me for.
In the former job I’m still putting myself back together from, most of the public peoples who visited me would have been better served by visiting a psychologist / therapist first, but I was cheaper (free). :(
Often when it’s something I do specialize in and I get all excited, that’s when they choose to gloss over and I can tell they just want me to stop talking.
I hate having biases against people, but there very much are definitely “normies” who are threatened by the prospect of having to activate their neurons for the first time since they stumbled out of their highest level of education, and only learned to think when it was forced upon them.
Makes a guy feel pretty crappy. So I’m not as forthcoming with my skillset as I used to be in casual company. Lol
I think what you are describing is teaching not helping. Helping someone is just doing the thing they need help with and thats it. Its not a prerequisite that someone learn something if your goal is just to help them but it is if your goal is to teach them something.
It is nice when people share your interests and want to learn but everyone’s got their own stuff going on and sometimes can’t make room for something new like that.
Except in a minority of scenerios, helping someone do something ≠ doing that thing yourself. It could mean less, or, at times, even more than that.
Take the familiar example of helping a blind man cross street. While you do cross the street with him, the fella ALSO WALKS with you and crosses the street on his legs, not yours.
Are you implying you would be teaching that man how to walk?
When you help someone on a computer, they come along with you too, just like the blind guy. And just like the blind guy, them coming along with you does not mean they will be able to do it themselves next time, or that they want to do it alone next time.
This sounds a lot like “only my perspective is correct” type stuff.
I like helping people, but not with what I do for my day job. Ask me to shovel your driveway or help you move or proofread your emails or anything but more of what I’ve already spent all day doing.
I’m with you but there’s definitely a line that gets crossed fairly often when you help people out with these things.
I used to work in IT, and both then when I was on my personal time, and now, I do not love helping people, but all it takes is someone else doing it poorly would annoy me enough I would end up helping someone
My answer is usually “I don’t use computers the same way you do, so I probably won’t know what you’re talking about.”
ughhhhh yes this is so annoying (randompcb and me have become the classroom’s tech support ugh)
Pro tip: whenever a relative asks you to fix their computer, wipe everything and set up Linux for them. That’ll teach em.
“You use Arch, now, btw”
“Make sure to write that down, because you’re legally required to bring it up at every possible opportunity.”
Did that for my sister but nowadays I just use the excuse: “Sorry I can’t help you, I don’t use Windows anymore”.
The real problem is when a relative know that I’m computer guy and ask me to fix the TV/air conditioner or like my father once did: setup an antenna
I just tell them that I only deal with Linux and that is usually enough to dissuade.
,oh how glad, my ubuntu is broken since update"
Then it’s fun lol
Exactly.
Looks like we’re setting up an improvised KVM device! :D
Honestly no problem, if they’re tech literate enough to have gotten that far it’ll probably be okay
Legit haven’t touched windows in 5 years, I don’t know my way around it
I haven’t used Windows personally in about 15 years and professionally in about 10. I’m pretty useless on anything newer than XP. I even got my wife to switch over to a Mac Mini because at least that has a Unix-like OS and she can still do her audio work on it (in fact, better than a Windows system because their patch QA is light-years ahead of the MS “fuck it, it’ll break some systems but we’ll get that next patch Tuesday” approach).
That’s not to say that I like Apple. I just dislike their OS less than Windows.
You have experienced the pinnacle of Windows (we could probably also add Windows 7 to this). Do yourself a favor and never touch a Windows 10 and especially Windows 11 machine. It’s unimaginable how Microsoft managed to break everything that was working and how clever they are in terms of marketing to sell you stuff you don’t need.
They made me finally switch to Linux because my paid 365 subscription offered me to try the new outlook because Windows Mail was to be discontinued in future. I activated the test and the fun began: Only one of seven accounts was imported into outlook. Of course it was the only Microsoft account (Outlook). All other Accounts were ignored. I thought „Ok migration didn’t work, I’ll do it later manually“ I had a new email. I clicked on it. Edge opened although Firefox was my standard browser. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was clickbaited into opening an advertisement by one of the biggest companies on this planet.
This made me immediately stop my work and install Linux Mint. I’m not going back any time soon.
For job related reasons I have to use a lot of VMs. Unfortunately most of them are Windows 10. I created a naked installation years ago and basically use this as the base for individual development VMs. One of these annoyed me for days to make an update. All I could click was „remind me in one hour“ or update immediately. So I chose the one hour a lot of times. I finally let it update. Now my (Windows default!) task bar is transparent and also the whole windows menu. A colleague using the same VM with the latest updates (without changes to installed software) has no issues.
Did that, kind of. The system’s been running flawlessly for like a decade now. I’m not sure if they even understand the difference.
Or even better, install Emacs and run away laughing wildly! Bwahahahaha!
Especially this time of year when people are panicking for whatever reason, people are travelling, people are coming and going, people are buying laptops, devices and phones and the majority of them don’t know how digital files or folders even work (or where they are in a digital system).
If you know anything about computers … just pretend you don’t know anything like everyone else. It will save you so much work and headaches this time of year.
And don’t get soft either … cute girl asking for help? NO … old grandma has a new laptop? NO … your dying relative has a new phone? NO! … your two year old niece has a new tablet? NO! … your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!
your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!
nuh uh, if i’m getting paid (getting paid in reduced debt is still paid cuz it’s money i was gonna give him anyway) i’ll do whatever
Yep that’s a contract and I work for those
Every year at Christmas my grandparent in law asks me to fix her iPhone. Something with iCloud account. The answer is always the same: Apple store.
Using Apple requires a PhD in computer science.
i don’t really mind, but i also don’t do anything for free, either. at least feed and beer me.
Relative: You know about computers, right?
Me: I’m not sure. Who knows about computers, really? In the words of W.S. McCulloch, “What is a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he may know a number?” (if you’ll pardon the gendered language) Now if you extend this to computation…
Relative: All right, STFU, I just wanted to know how to update my Amazon account…
What is a number, that a man may know it?
Lets start with natural numbers and define the integers, rational, real and complex numbers as solutions to certain equations.
and a man, that he may know a number?
Now you asked for to much.
“You know about computers, right? Can you he-”
“No.”
What’s a Cimproter?
No matter the degree or seniority, the answer is always NO.
Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.
Most programmers I’ve known would be garbage at support and most support staff might be able to do some scripting but sure as hell aren’t coders.
Okay but someone that works in IT will have the same answer.
Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.
That also holds for computer science and programming :)
