Teats on a Bull

20ish years ago (1990 to be approximate)… OMG! I just did the math HOLY CRAP … it WAS over 20 years ago. I’m getting old. But I digress… 20ish years ago, I worked as a job and I used Microsoft Word for DOS. It was a little firm that sold Platinum Accounting Software by IBM (a little unknown foreshadowing?) and it’s where I got my first taste of Microsoft. I was there for a short period of time and I was laid off. Shortly afterwards, I was hired by a small computer firm as the Office Manager and got my hands dirty with Microsoft Windows 3.0. And I knew it inside and out. I still remember the heady days when we upgraded to a 286 and Windows 3.1.

And this is where I learned Word and Excel as well. As Office Manager my duties were as follows: Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Shipping/Receiving, Purchasing, and the all inclusive – whatever else needed to be done. I learn how to build a PC (long since forgotten), how to install chips without letting the smoke out, how to set up and program Windows, how to use various Microsoft programs, and last but not least – how to use Microsoft without a mouse. I learned keyboard short cuts, and I learned how to teach someone something that I myself was learning as I was teaching. I still kind of miss the Blue Screen of Death … and yes, that is the official IBM name for it.

Fast foreward to the present: what amazes me is the level of funcutionality of my coworkers with a computer. Why I am suprised by this… I’m not sure. Microsoft Word and Excel are two powerful programs. Most people can survive with just those 2 programs. Don’t get me wrong… I don’t mind helping my co-workers with the more “complicated” tasks. I put complicated in quotes because they are easy for me.

I can do most things quite easily. Pivot tables give me headaches, but then again how many basic users even know what a pivot table is? (A pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets. Among other functions, pivot-table tools can automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table or spreadsheet and create a second table (called a “pivot table”) displaying the summarized data.)

But what amazes me about some of my co-workers is their inablity to retain, beyond the basics of a simple letter or basic spreadsheet, the knowledge that I show them. And I mean BASIC – open the program, type, print and that’s really the end. Tab sets, indents, summing, formulas, sorting, etc. etc. elude them. It gets to the point where, after showing them, again, and agaiI get annoyed and tell them to move over – I’m driving. And I know my instance on showing formatting marks annoys them too. I don’t know how anyone can edit a Word document with the formatting marks turned off. Which is the one reason the one lady in my office asks me over and over and over why her document is 2 pages. Formatting characters… she’s hit enter a dozen times at the end of the document creating an extra page. If her formatting characters were visible she’d know the answer. Maybe.

And I don’t know why this continues to amaze/annoy me. Now granted it’s not all of my co-workers. Most of them take very detailed notes and I only show them things once … maybe with a little refresher if it’s been a while. And the funny thing is, if you ask these people “do you know Word?” they automatically answer “yes.”. NO! You don’t. I guess it’s just one of those things that will always annoy me.