TDD: Thinking Deficit Disorder…
Arriving on-site to apply mouth-to-mouse resuscitation to a computer reported to be running ver-r-r-r-y slow (lot of that going around these days) I donned my bio-chem hazard suit, checked the oxygen level in my tanks, and went at it mano a mano. The first thing I noted was that the antivirus software license had expired two months ago. The program was merrily chugging along, scanning incoming email realtime and the entire drive every night just the way I taught it to, but with virus definitions that were two months old. Not good. I got the user’s attention and pointed to a warning box that had just popped up above the clock. The dialog went approximately like this…
ME: Have you noticed this little warning box before?
HER: Oh, yeah, all the time. That thing has been driving me nuts for weeks.
ME: What have you done when it popped up?
HER: Oh, I just click it off. But it keeps coming back. Do you think it is the problem?
ME: Did you ever read the message?
HER: Yeah, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I just clicked it off.
ME: Come over here and let’s read it together. It says…
WARNING! Your antivirus license has expired. You are no longer protected… Please click here to renew.
That was all in a bold, bright red font in a box that drew one’s attention very quickly. I looked at her questioningly…
HER: (nervously) What does that mean?
ME: It means exactly what it says. And your computer’s slowdown may be due to a virus infection. (What I thought: It means you are too fucking stupid to use a computer. Now get the hell out of here and go get a job flippin’ burgers.)
HER: Can you fix it or do I need a new computer?
ME: You may need a new PC, but not because of this. It can be fixed — I just need a little time.
Two hours later I had found and removed hundreds of items of spyware and two viral infections, loaded new anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall software, cleaned up the hard drive, tuned the startup sequence, and performed basic system diagnostics. The system was running like a champ, better than anytime since it was new. The user had given up and left early, hopefully to turn in applications at a few fast food joints around the area. I hope she got someone to help her read and understand the application forms.
Please don’t get me wrong on this. I don’t expect people to be technicians or understand what a giga-bite is or how a virus works. But, my god, is it too much to expect that they can read a short simple clear message with understanding? And if they truly don’t understand, then at least ask a supervisor or co-worker. I expect everyone to take at least a modicum of responsibility for their own life, their job, their own well being. At least PAY ATTENTION!
I have a high respect for teachers. Most of them sincerely want to teach young people and help prepare them for life. They are underpaid, overworked, can’t get supplies except by buying out of their own pocket, and must figure out how to survive in a system designed and funded by politicians who don’t have a clue, and managed (I use the term loosely) by egocentric school boards who are more interested in padding their own futures than those of the students. I see the results of this system daily while out and about performing my duties as a systems and network support technician. Sure, it gives me job security, but I cringe. I fear and I cry for our future.
14 Comments so far
As I type this, I am just about to head out to my college’s commencement exercises.
I will try to keep a happy thought as I watch.
It’s funny you should post this now Winston. I just got one of those little windows yesterday saying my anti-virus protection will run out in June. I renewed it, non-tech savvy as I am. Even I know there are some things that need to be addressed. I hope the woman you helped truly appreciated all that you did to whip her computer back into shape; but if she’s too busy to pay attention to those little windows, then it’s most likely she has no idea or appreciation of what you did for her. Job security…yes, but it is more than a little frigtening. As far as all the students who float through our school systems unable to read…or even speak properly…well, that’s another depressing story all together.
YES, Winston!
One of my favourite rants (I do them regularly) is on
the declining standards of education. It’s not just in the US, it’s in the UK too. And to a lesser extent in Germany.
Now I’ll cool off for a week or two before I do the next one
Question : Is Bush a typical product of the US education system or is he just naturally stupid?
My name is Mick, and I’m a macoholic. I was doing pretty well lately, staying on the path, remaining true to my G5, but I began to develop this habit of sneaking off to the desert with my hot little pc laptop (truth be told, my wife is even aware of this problem).
As a macoholic, I therefore had little knowledge of the digitally-transferred diseases you mentioned, and paid little heed to that very same warning message which kept appearing whenever I grew weak and gave in to my basest urges. Now, alas, I’m afraid I may have not only ruined my own life, but that of this poor innocent little laptop that I’ve used and abused so thoughtlessly.
What are your hourly rates, Winston, and do you do house calls in Santa Barbara? Or is it too late for someone like me?
For you, Mick, my rate is zero. Provided of course, that you pay round trip travel expenses, lodging, and meals. Might work out to be a nice vacation in SB. It’s never too late for a Machead to be healed. Well, almost never too late. Depends on how emotionally you are attached to your Birkenstocks.
John B., I do hope you will come back and drop a thought or three on this subject, you being an educator and all.
Stu, my take is that it comes naturally to him. But even inborn stupidity can be strengthened by a poor educational system.
Joy, you may not be a techie, but you ain’t no dummy either. Of course you noticed and of course you took care of it. I’m proud of you…
In my job I am the technology coordinator for a school. It is often stunning that people will simply ignore a big warning right in front of them. I don’t expect them to correct the problem…just call me so I can correct it. Please!
We also see people with master’s degrees who can’t write a coherent sentence. A former employer of mine fell apart when their secretary retired because they can’t find anyone younger with the skill to edit the work of all of the professionals who can’t write.
I am keeping quiet here because I have been known to ignore the odd message.
I have a friend who doesn’t have a book in her house, and her son never wants to be read to. Very sad.
The phrase that sticks out in Winston’s post is “PAY ATTENTION!” It just so happens that during this past Finals Week I had occasion to write that on several students’ papers–but not first versions of these papers. These were revisions of earlier papers, ones (the revisions) that left unchanged obvious errors (word choice problems, apostrophe problems–that sort of thing) from the first versions that I had pointed out to them and written out the correction for. What else to say to a student who writes “poppies” as the plural for “poppy” and then, literally one line of text later, writes out that same needed plural form as “poppy’s”? Or to the student who asked, during our first night’s discussion of Othello what a Moor was and, when someone told her, asked, “How are we supposed to know that?” In not just that class but last fall’s discussion of Othello as well, I had a student in each who was incredulous that Othello is black. It apparently was not helpful to either student that our text has pictures of both James Earl Jones and Laurence Fishburne in the title role.
General inattentiveness, a lack of curiosity, a tenuous grasp of how to think abstractly, a poor command of figurative language, and a rather apathetic attitude toward detail seemed the order of the day among my students this past semester. I’m sure such people have always existed, and in greater numbers than those of us who, like, read and ask questions and stuff. But once upon a time most of them didn’t go to college. Now that having a bachelor’s is seen as crucial to ensuring they don’t end up in a service-industry job, I see more and more of these mental mouth-breathers. I do what I can, I assure you, to get them to notice when they’re drooling, and some learn, figuratively, to wipe up after themselves. But those that think just showing up is enough, well, they’ll flunk or earn a D in my class and then try with someone else till they earn their C, then on down the road Winston will get to clean up their drool.
Yah like cool dude I mean ya know Professor John B is like awesome cool and like hes already lined up another dude to clean up after us so like we can do like some more iPod downloads and you know like tune out dude.
Yes, John, as long as people will keep on paying me a C-note per hour to mop up after the kiddys and empty their droolbuckets, I’ll be their poppy. I may bitch and moan about it occasionally, but it’s not a bad gig. At least it’s better than flippin’ burgers. Most days.
Thanks for the educators perspective on this. I believe you hit the right note with PAY ATTENTION. Whether you’re teaching them, they’re on a job, or I’m pulling latrine duty, the first key to survival is paying attention. Until we learn to do that, little else really matters.
We ran into an interesting ’slow-down- problem on our computers. We called the server, have up-to-date virus checkers etc. Then called the server again and found out that HughesNet, satellite access provider, instigated a new policy the middle of April. FAP– fair access policy and it puts you into slow down when you go over the limit– which they also provide you a page to check on how much you are using. We were in shock to see some spectacularly large figures off and on. Was our virus protection failing? was someone accessing our wireless? The latter seemed unlikely given how far we live from where they could and the former better not be considering how much we pay for protection. Finally after trying this and that, we found the culprit. Yahoo messenger on my machine. Since I only used it to talk to one friend, it was deleted except it would not go gently into the night and took a lot to remove it. I am assuming it had become corrupted someone, gotten onto a power trip and thought it ruled the world. So far the usage is at a normal rate and HughesNet and we are pleased– although not the one friend I was only able to talk to there. That slow down was very disturbing– not to mention making me feel like I was a criminal and my computer was running amok!
Winston…can you come to Midland and fix my mom-in-law’s computer? It has Norton AV on it and we can’t get it to work, even after numerous dialogues with Symantec.
Last night, I thought…heck. I’ll go buy her a new one. This just is not worth the hassle.
I can’t kill it, “because Live Update is running.”
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I too cringe at the state of US education = wasting our greatest resource - our children and their future.
Maya’s Granny:
What I have observed is that people aren’t willing to pay for that service in the way that they would for other scarce services. There are plenty of middle-aged or semi-middle-aged people who can do the job to which you refer, but they tend not to be as cheap as young ‘uns right out of college or even people in their early 30s, and they tend not to be “secretarial” in orientation. This is not at all intended as a rap at the traditional secretarial role, but rather a realistic assessment of how it is today as opposed to even 20 years ago.