Editor’s Note: Another classic piece worthy of repeating. This one originally appeared on PSW in 2010.
I was reading an article a while back about normal people who use computers and the power users (AKA IT guys) that support them.
The article talked about the routine problems normal people had using computers and how challenging it was for IT guys to help them.
Not because the IT guys couldn’t solve the problem, but because the IT guys couldn’t understand how the normal people ran into that problem in the first place.
For example, let’s say your browser is acting up. Most tech-oriented people know that you should try flushing your cache. Normal people, however, think cache is what you get from an ATM machine.
Or if a peripheral is acting up the IT guys might suggest updating a driver. To a normal person, a driver is someone behind the wheel of an automobile. Can you see the disconnect?
I’m about to tell you something you already know, but perhaps haven’t thought about this way before. What we do is highly specialized, takes years of training to master and requires a certain personality to fully comprehend.
You know that; but perhaps what you haven’t thought about is that the vast majority (and I mean 99%) doesn’t even begin to understand what we do.
To them, it’s all magic. This poses all number of challenges for the TD and volunteer techie alike.
Let’s say you get called into the women’s Bible study to help them figure out why they are having trouble with audio. You might look at the console and in 3 seconds determine that their gain structure is wrong, they’re not using a comp on the speaker’s mic and the EQ is adjusted improperly.
Now, if I told you that, you would immediately understand what I was saying and make the necessary changes. The poor gal sitting behind the console, however, is still stuck at gain what?
That’s what we’re faced with. And let’s not forget that the people we interact with are not stupid. They simply don’t work with the technology we do every day and because of that, we may as well be speaking a different language.
