Computer Training 101

So you’re sitting at you desk and you receive an email that you need to log in to have an e-meeting with someone who works within your office (a different branch) and that you should be expecting a conference call in roughly half an hour. So you wait in anticipation for the training that you will receive over the telephone and Internet. You ponder the many things they could teach you about the software your new office uses that you have never used before.

The phone call arrives. You answer anxiously. Log in to the Internet program as instructed. And then the training begins.

The instructor says: “Now to begin your lesson we’re going to talk about how to turn on, log in, log off, and turn off your computer.”

You: OK (to self: SERIOUSLY? As the guy continues to ramble you begin to think. In order to get to the session you had to be on the Internet. To be on the Internet means that (at this office at least) you HAVE to be logged in using your user name and password. To be logged in means that you had to turn on your computer. Thus, couldn’t half of this lesson be deemed completely useless?

Next Lesson: Microsoft Outlook

Instructor: “Now to read the email that you have received . . .”

You: (to self: oh come on . . . you sent me an email which prompted me to be logged in to the program, wait for a phone call, and be in my office at a designated time. Is this a joke?)

Lesson on Microsoft outlook continues with more useful information that is specific to your office.

From the opening lessons taught to me by this instructor I learned the following . . .

There must actually be people out there who have the ability to read their email with no knowledge of Microsoft Outlook or how to even turn the computer on. Darn . . . those people are talented . . . perhaps they should have my job! (more seriously . . . I suppose there are people out there who could have had someone else get everything set up for them and then the instructor would actually be teaching something.)