"I know nothing about computers"
And she was right!
About 5 years ago, I registered with a business womens' network for computer services as part of a business I wanted to start. Things happened and I ended up getting full time work, so I forgot all about the networking register. I got a phone call today - a referral from that register!
"I need to get the internet on my computer, can you help me?" "What operating system are you using?" "Windows 98." Ok, I groan to myself, shouldn't be too difficult, sounds like easy money, why not. I got her address, said it'd cost $60 (first figure that popped into my head), and told her I'd be there at 6.30pm.
She lives in one of the better suburbs, so my expectations of her and her house were high. I should have known by the Minnie Mouse voice that that wasn't to be the case. It's been a long time though, since I've seen a house as dishevelled as its owner. She told me her husband had moved out a month ago. I didn't ask why. But apparently the husband had cable internet and worked on a laptop a lot. I didn't ask what he did. But I snooped. My immediate thought was that he'd found himself a woman on line (aren't I quick to judge huh?), but I looked in a drawer and there were business cards; he organises home loans, so that explains the net thing mostly.
Getting back to the house. I don't recall seeing any cupboards. Most of what they owned (she and, from what I could count, 4 kids), was on the floor in piles - in every room. There were huge paintings on the walls that the kids had done, with dates and names. They were the type of painting that's just big brush strokes on paper, but framed. The entire place looked like nobody had cleaned in months and, as I was to discover, nobody knew where anything was either. (Keep in mind, I'd rushed home from work, showered, changed and tried to look as respectable as possible - because I didn't foresee myself crawling around on her floor!)
I wish I had taken my digital camera, because I really can't explain well enough the whole computer situation she had going on. I've seen cable 'spaghetti' before, but this was nuts! I spent the first 10 minutes sorting out cords and working out what was plugged in and what wasn't. The lot was covered in dust. The keyboard on the pc was about as old as I'd seen and the monitor was on an angle. Not just the monitor itself, but the screen image as well.
Once I worked out where everything went, I booted up the pc and 20 minutes later the scan disk finished and I finally got to the desktop. For those who care, she's got a PII with no guts, hardly any ram, the hard drive is almost full, she's running Win98 and Office 97 and I had to pull a key out of the keypad on the keyboard because it was forcing down the 0 and 'enter' keys. LOL
Then she came out of another room with an Epson 440 printer and asked if I could connect it too. One thing at a time, lady! Bear in mind, between the woman and her kids, none of them could find the printer cables anyway. At one stage, she picked up a mouse and said, "is this it?".
While I was waiting for the scan disk to finish, I decided to look at the printer. I opened the lid and cringed. I could see a 'substance' on the bottom of it. I felt like a CSI investigator. I reached out and touched it, only to discover red ink all over my hand. So now I looked like I was part of the crime scene. Where does one wipe their hand in this instance? Anywhere! Nobody would have noticed, so I found the closest bit of paper and got rid of the evidence.
I told her that the pc she wanted to use wouldn't do what she needed it to. She told me she had another one. I think it was even older than the first! But I pulled the keyboard from it and figured I'd swap it with the one I had to rip the key out of. In the end, I didn't bother.
It seems as though the husband disconnected the phone line he was using when he left, because she had her sister's laptop (an IBM T30 ugh!) there so I thought I could at least see if I could dial in on that, but there was no dial tone. Hubby and wife obviously did not communicate! She had no idea what he did or how. Unfortunately, she figured out he had cable, but thought it was too expensive, so had already called to get it disconnected tomorrow. Since she knew nothing about what their contract was, or how much it cost, I didn't want to tell her to cancel the disconnection, in case she couldn't afford it.
I spent forever trying to explain the differences between dial up and cable and I think she finally got it. She asked what to do with the computer. I told her to dump it on the footpath. Seriously!
I feel for the woman. I think getting her onto the net (and letting 4 kids loose on it) is just going to drive her into further confusion. But I said I'd work out some figures for her tomorrow about the cost of getting a new desktop pc and a dial up connection that might suit her. I have a pc here at home that I don't use anymore, so I said if Stew doesn't want it for his mum, I'd look at selling it to her.
Just for the fact that I tidied up her desk and sorted out all the cabling, I reckon I earned my $60! But it's gonna end up costing her a lot more than that - just to get on the net.
I told her to go to the library.
About 5 years ago, I registered with a business womens' network for computer services as part of a business I wanted to start. Things happened and I ended up getting full time work, so I forgot all about the networking register. I got a phone call today - a referral from that register!
"I need to get the internet on my computer, can you help me?" "What operating system are you using?" "Windows 98." Ok, I groan to myself, shouldn't be too difficult, sounds like easy money, why not. I got her address, said it'd cost $60 (first figure that popped into my head), and told her I'd be there at 6.30pm.
She lives in one of the better suburbs, so my expectations of her and her house were high. I should have known by the Minnie Mouse voice that that wasn't to be the case. It's been a long time though, since I've seen a house as dishevelled as its owner. She told me her husband had moved out a month ago. I didn't ask why. But apparently the husband had cable internet and worked on a laptop a lot. I didn't ask what he did. But I snooped. My immediate thought was that he'd found himself a woman on line (aren't I quick to judge huh?), but I looked in a drawer and there were business cards; he organises home loans, so that explains the net thing mostly.
Getting back to the house. I don't recall seeing any cupboards. Most of what they owned (she and, from what I could count, 4 kids), was on the floor in piles - in every room. There were huge paintings on the walls that the kids had done, with dates and names. They were the type of painting that's just big brush strokes on paper, but framed. The entire place looked like nobody had cleaned in months and, as I was to discover, nobody knew where anything was either. (Keep in mind, I'd rushed home from work, showered, changed and tried to look as respectable as possible - because I didn't foresee myself crawling around on her floor!)
I wish I had taken my digital camera, because I really can't explain well enough the whole computer situation she had going on. I've seen cable 'spaghetti' before, but this was nuts! I spent the first 10 minutes sorting out cords and working out what was plugged in and what wasn't. The lot was covered in dust. The keyboard on the pc was about as old as I'd seen and the monitor was on an angle. Not just the monitor itself, but the screen image as well.
Once I worked out where everything went, I booted up the pc and 20 minutes later the scan disk finished and I finally got to the desktop. For those who care, she's got a PII with no guts, hardly any ram, the hard drive is almost full, she's running Win98 and Office 97 and I had to pull a key out of the keypad on the keyboard because it was forcing down the 0 and 'enter' keys. LOL
Then she came out of another room with an Epson 440 printer and asked if I could connect it too. One thing at a time, lady! Bear in mind, between the woman and her kids, none of them could find the printer cables anyway. At one stage, she picked up a mouse and said, "is this it?".
While I was waiting for the scan disk to finish, I decided to look at the printer. I opened the lid and cringed. I could see a 'substance' on the bottom of it. I felt like a CSI investigator. I reached out and touched it, only to discover red ink all over my hand. So now I looked like I was part of the crime scene. Where does one wipe their hand in this instance? Anywhere! Nobody would have noticed, so I found the closest bit of paper and got rid of the evidence.
I told her that the pc she wanted to use wouldn't do what she needed it to. She told me she had another one. I think it was even older than the first! But I pulled the keyboard from it and figured I'd swap it with the one I had to rip the key out of. In the end, I didn't bother.
It seems as though the husband disconnected the phone line he was using when he left, because she had her sister's laptop (an IBM T30 ugh!) there so I thought I could at least see if I could dial in on that, but there was no dial tone. Hubby and wife obviously did not communicate! She had no idea what he did or how. Unfortunately, she figured out he had cable, but thought it was too expensive, so had already called to get it disconnected tomorrow. Since she knew nothing about what their contract was, or how much it cost, I didn't want to tell her to cancel the disconnection, in case she couldn't afford it.
I spent forever trying to explain the differences between dial up and cable and I think she finally got it. She asked what to do with the computer. I told her to dump it on the footpath. Seriously!
I feel for the woman. I think getting her onto the net (and letting 4 kids loose on it) is just going to drive her into further confusion. But I said I'd work out some figures for her tomorrow about the cost of getting a new desktop pc and a dial up connection that might suit her. I have a pc here at home that I don't use anymore, so I said if Stew doesn't want it for his mum, I'd look at selling it to her.
Just for the fact that I tidied up her desk and sorted out all the cabling, I reckon I earned my $60! But it's gonna end up costing her a lot more than that - just to get on the net.
I told her to go to the library.
posted by E in Oz at 8:15 pm
these thoughts escaped my brain at 8:15 pm
1 Comments:
Wow. Hard to believe anyone is that uninformed about computers in this day-in-age. I don't know alot about computers, the hardware of them that is but I do know what the parts are but I'm not willing to start shifting drives out and memory cards out and the likes. Be glad you didn't tell her she had a mouse in her hand, she might have jumped, thrown it at you and run away.
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