The Irate Ignoramus
I feel a bit guilty about using the term "ignoramus" here. One can be ignorant of a subject without being a complete idiot. Many people know a wide range of things I do not, and their ignorance in one field hardly means they deserve disrepect.
However, my twinge of guilt is assuaged when ignorance is masked by an air of belligerence and compounded by poor communication. This is especially so when the individual in question feels the need to breathe down my neck while exuding an aura of frustrated contempt while I do something they don't know how to do, and they nonetheless treat me as if I am trying to avoid doing what they want.
The subject of this story is not a regular visitor at my library. He was well beyond middle age, and in fact more toward retiree. He came in a few days ago asking for my help in looking up some information online. When I offered a guest pass for the computer, he declined and adamantly stated he had no interest in using a computer himself.
OK, then. I can be a reference librarian and employ my google-fu on someone else's behalf if need be.
After some minor difficulty in getting him to tell me what exactly he needed, it turned out that he wanted an accident report from the state police. OK. They have a website. And I was able to find the accident report request form.
He doesn't have an e-mail address to receive the PDF report. Of course.
What he did have is a case number. No luck searching for that. I didn't think it would work, but I gave it every effort anyway, because government websites are a strange system that has all sorts of interesting stuff. He also had an e-mail address written down from someone (who?) with a yahoo.com e-mail address, and he wanted me to search for that. Of course, I couldn't look up an e-mail address as if it is a website, but that had to be explained. And it had to be explained to someone who didn't want to understand.
The best solution would be to call the phone number for the local office. He didn't want that answer. The alternative after that was to drive about 30 miles to that office. He really didn't want that.
In the end, they guy left entirely unsatisfied because I am not telepathic, and technology he doesn't understand doesn't work the way he expects, and while we librarians are capable of amny tings, we can't make computers work Hollywood magic.
Oh, well. Such is life.
Note to future elderly self: If I am ignorant of how modern technology and communication protocols work, I will allow the younger person to educate me, and not take it as a personal insult if they cannot do what I expect.
Previous library life posts:
Scary Library Visitor Lady
The Frazzled Parents
Rancid Crabtree's Relations
The Girl Who Knocks
Monster Boy and Horror Girl
The Mountain Man
The Deaf Ashtray
Library Urchins
An Odoriferous Library Intrusion and the sequel
From the Old side, often the younger people will say things in modern speak, this is totally over the head of the doddery old person they are talking to.
When you see the shutters clang down, stop, think' how would I explain this to my Grandfather'.
A different word, or explanation, and suddenly the shutters lift again and he can now have an idea what you are talking about.
Your subject had probably been watching too many CI shows where a few keystrokes the whizzkid can solve all the problems of the world.
I get that. But this guy was trying to tell me how to use a computer while simultaneously saying he didn't know how to use a computer.
Yeah, but on TV they hit this button, then that button and the whole wall lights up with more info than you could read in a week.
it is that button there, and the other one over there, "Don't you know what you are doing"????
[Definitely too many CI shows, and super FBI shows.]
Ugh. TV producers should be sued for gross negligence and intentional deception whenever they portray technology, medical procedures, firearms, police investigations, etc. in an absurdly unrealistic way in a show set in the present day.
As a person approaching the category of elderly, I suggest you should write down that note to your future elderly self and always keep it handy, just in case your F.E.S. loses his memory. Heh heh.
I already know how that works.
Step 1: write note
Step 2: put note somewhere safe
Step 3: forget where that safe spot was
Hmm.. I feel as if I have trodden this very path with people of similar "mind-closedness" levels. You have my sympathy, and this is a personal mental goal of mind as well:
Very inspiring post @jacobtothe! nice to meet you my hopefully we can share ...