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The Bad Daughter
by lizard at 05:58 PM on August 21, 2001
I love my parents. They are in Oregon, I am in California, we miss each other. I was up there for three weeks, earlier this year, to help out while my Dad had attempted cancer surgery. Since I left, I both anticipate and dread their phone calls, because I want news but don't want it to be bad. Some has been bad, some good, some just more information than I wanted... for instance, when my Dad told me about the side effects of the chemo, which apparently left him bald, well, everywhere. Didn't need to know that, Dad. Excuse me while I go put out my mind's eye.
So, they call. My Dad calls, because my Mom is deaf as a post and had a stroke years ago that impeded her speech, so nobody understands anything in those conversations. My Dad, technically my stepfather but really the only father I know, is a great guy, salt of the earth and other related clichés, but sadly not the sharpest tack in the package. The latter part of last year, he got sold a computer. I would like to say, bought a computer, but since he got so much more than he needed, I would have to say that it was an act of (questionably ethical) salesmanship rather than consumerism. So he has this fancy laptop loaded up with tons of software he has no clue how to use, and he continues to install more things, whether or not he has any idea what the things are or how they work.
The conversation went well, the chemo is over and the radiation is beginning, a 60% chance is mentioned which to me is a sock in the gut but he's taking it well, and I believe he'll beat this, and then things got bad. “I have a problem”, he says. Oh no. He's installed Zone Alarm and now he can't sign on to anything on the internet. Hey, I have Zone Alarm! There's hope I can help - the most important part of providing parental tech support is the ability to look at something similar to what he's looking at, otherwise his descriptions make no sense. I try to explain to him how to find the ‘programs’ screen, so that he can unblock some of the things he needs. From his description of the install process, he pretty much told the firewall software to block everything, probably thinking this was necessary. However, the screen he's describing is nothing like mine - his is the pro version, with many, many more features. I try to tell him how to get to the ZoneLabs website to get some tech support, and he keeps telling me something about ‘program files’... ahh, you're still in your own computer, I tell him. You have to get on the internet. Anyway after a number of attempts to spell out zonelabs.com (let me tell you, this was no easy task), finally I told him to take it back to Best Buy. He told me he hasn't had the comptuer back there since I was up there (and explained to him that computers aren't *expected* to work all the time). Up to that point they saw it as another appliance, and if your new washer kept crashing, why, you'd take it back, wouldn't you? So he took that puppy back about every other day at first. He theorized that perhaps the service guys had forgotten him by now (unlikely) but anyway...
This conversation lasted over one hour. The medical part took less than ten minutes, the rest of the time was spent trying and failing to explain one or two relatively simple computer tasks. In the course of this conversation, I had to resist the urge to bash my phone repeatedly against the nearest available hard surface, my head for instance, because i am a bad daughter. I should have more patience, but sadly, I don't. I should call them more often, but it's difficult. I should call them back right now, and try to be more helpful. But I won't. I once spent twenty-five minutes trying to describe to them over the phone how to click the drop down menu in a Save dialog box to get a listing of different folders in which to save a file - without success. I want to be a good daughter, really I do, I just... I can't.
comments (8)
Hehe I have been there. We bought Denise's mom a computer a couple of years ago. She was (and to some extent still is) cluesless about it. She was SO impressed when she learned that you can actually click on hyperlinks. For about the first year, she had been only typing in a url and reading the front page of any web site. We bought her a CD that is VERY easy to understand. You put it in the CD drive and controls come up that look just like a VCR: play, stop, etc. This was great - it covered such basic stuff as double-clicking and how to bookmark a web page, and also how to work with Windows. That has helped quite a bit. You can't really explain computers to people, they have to try it . . .
I am amazed your Dad was able to: 1. find out about ZoneAlarm, 2. download and purchase the pro version, 3. install it on his system.
by Charles at August 21, 2001 9:32 PM
Yeah, that is pretty impressive come to think of it.
by kd at August 21, 2001 11:13 PM
Boy I can so relate. I hate parental tech support. My dad was a computer programmer but my mother is as close to a technological idiot as I ever hope to meet. My best(?) story about this comes from when I was visiting her a few months ago. I had unplugged her modem line from the back of the answering machine to plug my laptop in (both items were in "my" room and I check my email about 20 times more often than she does). She went up to check hers so I just told her to unplug my phone cord and plug hers in where it had been. You see, after a while, I get tired of explaining the same thing over and over. I know the only way she'll ever learn is by doing it herself, so I was determined to stay downstairs. Well, she goes up and a minute later calls down, "It's not working." I repeat the instructions adding, "It's a phone cord; treat it like a phone, you can plug one of those in." Another minute goes by. "It's still not working." I get up and go upstairs. She has taken the phone line coming out of her modem and plugged it into the bottom of the princess phone that's sitting in the middle of the floor! The phone isn't connected to anything except the handset. "What did you think this was? A cell phone?!?" So I just did it for her.
by Muad'Dib at August 21, 2001 11:47 PM
my attempt at parental tech-support yesterday was talking my Dad through sending a file by email using right-click and send-to. It took at least half-an-hour including sorting out the fact that he has at some point changed his default email client to one he doesn't use. I'm not actually sure whether it's sunk in and the result is that it's probably not going to save him any time in the end, because he just has another thing to have to remember how to do.
I have to keep reminding myself, when my patience gets a little frayed, that at least his mind is open to it all and he really wants to know and do it right. So many people are just negative about technology and refuse to even try.
by suey at August 22, 2001 5:36 AM
Even though my parents are both clueless about computers, my dad likes to think he knows everything about, well, everything. I remember once when I was in about 7th grade when our Mac crashed and I wanted to show him that it had crashed. What do you do when something crashes? Jiggle the mouse, of course. What does he say? He gets mad at me because I'm moving the mouse too fast.
Sure dad. Whatever.
Then try explaining to your parents that their modem got zapped by lightning and that they are very, very, very lucky because not only did it not short the entire box, but only slightly fussed with their modem so they can still dial out but it won't hang up on its own. "Just unplug it from the wall when you're done." "What?" "The phone cord." "How do I do that?" "Like a phone cord." "Oh."
by snaggle at August 22, 2001 10:13 AM
Oh I just had an idea! I need to start a "Parental tech support story" section on my blog.
by Charles at August 22, 2001 11:18 PM
That's a great idea, Charles! There are so many great stories out there that should be collected. Funny stuff.
by kd at August 23, 2001 1:18 PM
Here is a whole bunch of those stupid computer support stories: http://rinkworks.com/stupid/
* I once had a woman call and ask if we also taught "Don'ts" in the "Dos" class, and she was dead serious.
by Josh at August 24, 2001 1:37 PM