Decay On Net

I always wonder how an office in the past operates without a computer. I came to the working world when computer can be found in almost every office. In fact, I spend almost my time at office in front of a computer. I cannot imagine how to get things done in an office without a computer. Well, ok, perhaps it’s because I’m in the IT line. But even if you are in other industries, you would most likely be facing a computer most of the time in office. Can you imagine a day in office without computer?

We spend so much time in front of the computer each day, using it to help us to do our work more efficiently. Yet many people don’t bother to learn more about computers. I’m not talking about those advance stuff like networking or programming. I’m talking about basic computer knowledge. Like how to use Microsoft Office or basic computer operation.

My ex-director is well known for asking for help when comes to preparing power point slide and excel spreadsheet for presentations. I’ve lost count of the number of times he asked into his office to teach him simple stuff like how to attached a word document into an power point slide to how to plot a graph. I still remember once he asked me something about excel.

“What does the ‘=$A$1’ means in excel formula? Why got $ sign?”

I always tried my best to explain to him without making him feel like he is a fool. But when the questions are these simple, it’s rather hard. And this guy is actually earning 3 or 4 times more salary than me! I’m glad that he was transferred to another department and I don’t need to go teach him the basic office fundamentals.

But then, this is not a unique case. There are really tons of people who have no basic computer skills. As the part time LAN admin in the office, I get to encounter many of such people.

Recently, one of my colleagues emailed me for help saying her Windows is behaving strangely and been rather laggy. So I went over to check what went wrong. After some checking, I suspect it was cause by one of the in-house software that she is using. So I asked her how she installed that program.

Her reply shocked me. “I didn’t install it. I ask someone to help me install one. I don’t know how to install lah. Every time ask people help me install this and that, then I use lor.”

Mind you, we are working in a IT department. And you don’t know how to install a program by yourself? I’m actually alright if you are working in other industries like accounting or business or even engineering. But this is the IT industries leh.

For goodness sake, go to the nearest community club, check out their latest computer fundamental course and learn some basic computer skills. You are working in the IT line.

Posted by DK on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 3:28 PM