Re: My recent Epiphany about operating systems

On Wednesday 20 December 2006 16:52, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
Guess what...that's the price you pay for freedom and flexibility.
You have to learn to use it. Don't want to do that? Pay someone to
configure an interface with big shiny buttons marked "INTERNET
BROWSER", "EMAIL", "WRITE LETTERS". Isn't that what users want,
someone to do the work for them?

That's the real epiphany. After years of tech support, I realized I
was totally wrong. I thought users wanted to learn how to use that
expensive piece of equipment. I thought they had the curiosity I
had, the fascination that something looking so simple was capable of
making movies, writing stories, finding information...so much
potential. All they needed was the knowledge to see how the puzzle
fit together. I was totally wrong! What they wanted was for someone
to come and DO the work for them. They wanted just an end task, and
the computer was what someone pointed them to in order to do it. Set
up a printer? How many times do I need to explain the same damned
procedure to the same user? Oooh....you don't mean it when you ask
how to do it. You want me to come over and DO it for you! Every
time you screw it up, I get to do that same thing over again.

They don't care about OS's, licenses, legalities, IP, owners
rights...they just want to make a brochure or look at porn or
whatever else this magic black box can do. They don't care how it
works or why it works. They can't even be bothered to craft emails
anymore, just top post whatever crap blurps into their mind at that
specific moment. Email is little more than retarded IM. Get a
bounce message? Internet must be down. Fifteenth time I had to
explain that before I just started telling them to forward the bounce
to me and then I would magically solve the mystery by reading the
bounce error right to them (how did you know that name doesn't have
an email box at xyz.net?? WOW!)

In the end just quit your bitching about how hard it is to learn or
how people are out to rip you off by offering services when you're
not willing or able to learn to do it yourself. This obviously isn't
a secret cabal out to get you. You're so "results oriented", then
continue to focus on non-computer use results and just accept that
you will need to pay someone to do what you don't want to do or can't
do. I accept that if I were to dedicate my life to banking, I'd
probably get more value in my investments and I'd understand much
more about credit and tricks of the trade while not being able to
know every last detail behind building a house. If I become a master
craftsman for home building, I could build my own mansion but
probably won't know necessarily what money market fund is best in the
long run. Or, I can learn fairly easily to change my own oil...but
it's worth fifteen bucks to me to have someone else do it faster and
dispose of the oil for me.

Deal with it. Life sucks.

Don't like the interfaces available on "free" software? Don't use
them. No one is forcing you to.


I think no one has never, ever, put into words (to me at least) something so
perfectly like Bart did above.

Anyone who has worked with tech support for at least a week, can recognize the
truth in those lines.

I think I'll have them framed ( translated to portuguese so users won't have
to ask someone to do it for them) and hang it on my office door !

Thanks Bart !!

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mario.lobo@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.ipad.com.br
(FreeBSD since 2.2.8 - 100% Rwindows-free)
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