Adventures in Octogenarian Land

It was a slow day at the shop. Aside from a few customers coming to the shop in search of various computer parts, there was peace in computer land. The hours passed by quickly from opening time to one o’clock in the afternoon, a common side effect of a tranquil work environment which allows for nearly continuous work on computers without interruption. Then, a quarter after one, a pair of unlikely computer users in the form of octogenarians came. They came like most old people come. Smiling, walking approximately two feet apart from each other, as most old couples I see do, and walking rather slowly. The old man held the laptop case in his hand. I knew from the way the old lady’s eyes latched onto mine that this was a visit being made after considerable effort had been put in to resolving whatever issue was at hand. Those visits are NEVER fun. Never. Never, that’s important to know. Never fun. Not once. Ever.

“Hi there! What can I do for you today?” I greeted, successfully hiding my true feelings from view.

“Well,” the old lady started. “We can’t figure out what the password is on this new computer that you guys put on. We’ve been trying it for days ever since we picked it up.”

“So, this is a new laptop you bought from us? And you aren’t sure what the password is to get on?”

Now, we never put passwords on user accounts in Windows unless the customer asks us to. I figured that it was possible that they asked us to set up a password for them, and we had mistakenly mistyped it, explaining their current predicament.

“Let’s take a look at it here and see if we can’t get things squared away.” I offered. I’ve discovered that old people respond well to the phrase “get things squared away.”

I took the laptop and set it on the counter and turned it on. After a few seconds Windows had booted up and was waiting at the logon screen, but it was the logon screen that has you type the username in one line and the password in another line. I noticed that their laptop has a biometric scanning device (aka a fingerprint scanner), which uses software that causes Windows to only logon in this manner.
Now, since I have been dealing with computer problems for a long time, I know that most of the time problems people have are either non-existent of very easily resolvable (remember my first blog entry ever?). To that end, I hit enter without entering a password in. Not surprisingly, there was no password. Windows let me in without a fuss, just by pressing the enter key.

“Looks like there was no password. You just have to keep it blank and it will let you right in.” I stated, looking into the eyes of one seriously bothered octogenarian woman. Her stare almost gave me the willies. Almost.

“My goodness!” She responded, “All that time I spent trying to figure out the password and there never was one?”

“Yup. We have a strict policy of only putting passwords on computers if requested.” I tried to sound professional, hiding the ever slight tone of mocking in my voice. I really do try to be nice.

She looked at me for a few more seconds, then at the computer, then back to me. After repeating this for the third or so time, she looked up. I thought we were done. Congratulations, I thought to myself. That was entirely not as unpleasant as it could have been!

For a moment, I was happy.

Then.

“Wait, while we’re here.” She started.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed inside my head.

“While we’re here, can you show my husband how to do that? This is his computer, and I want him to be able to do that when we get home.”

“Sure thing.” I responded, supposing that maybe something as easy as pressing one button really did merit extra practice.

So, I logged out of the account, and told the old man, who was now standing at my side, to press the enter button. He did. It worked. I wanted him to throw his hands in the air and shout “Yatta!” Like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes when he accomplishes something great.

“Ok,” the woman added, “now can you show him again how to access his Naturally Speaking program?”

“… Sure…”

With the man in front of the laptop, looking straight at his desktop, I started guiding him towards his goal.

“Ok, now you need to move the cursor to where that green icon is at the left side of the screen.”

A few seconds passed.

“There’s the cursor, right there.” I said, pointing with my finger to the cursor on his screen, which rested near the upper right hand corner. I suddenly knew that the cursor was about to embark on an epic journey across the monitor. I was soooooo right.

“And where do I need to put the cursor?” The old man inquired.

“Right here,” I encouraged as I pointed to the green icon for the SECOND time.

He then put his fingers on the touchpad and started to move them. The cursor didn’t know what to think. Try using three fingers on a touchpad to move the cursor accurately. It can be done, but it doesn’t make things easy. Three minutes passed while he tried to get the cursor over the little green icon, all the while ignoring my advice that one finger on the touchpad might suffice. Three whole minutes!

Finally, he got the cursor where he wanted it. “Now what?” He asked. “Now, you click this button twice as fast as you can.” I replied, praying with everything I had that he would be able to do this without bumping the cursor off its target. Apparently, I had enough faith, because he successfully opened his program.

“Now,” his wife, not waiting two seconds, started again to my extreme horrification. “Let’s have him do it all from the beginning, so he can do it when we get home.”

I died a little on the inside.

Another ten minutes were spent directing him from logging into Windows to opening his Naturally Speaking software. When he opened up the program for the second time, I thought perhaps we were done. I should have known better. His wife, who all this time had been on the opposite side of the counter, decided to come to our side so that she could better see the screen. When she arrived, seeing his program opened, she started asking even more stupid questions.

“Why does it say that the microphone is turned off?” She started off with.

“Because no microphone is plugged in.” I answered as bluntly as I knew how.

“What does he do now with the program?” She continued, not missing a beat.

“Whatever he wants to do.” I answered honestly. Geez, why did you people buy the program in the first place? Surely there was an objective. Why not try accomplishing that? Oh wait, I think I know the answer to that one…

“Ok, can you tell me all of that again, so that I can write it down?” Her voice was really starting to bug.

“From where exactly?” I asked, honestly not knowing exactly what she wanted me to tell her.

“From the beginning.”

“… … … … Ok…” I complied, feeling my strength leave me.

I started dictating instructions while she jotted them down, word for word, beginning with “press the power button to turn the laptop on,” and ending with something like “then begin using the program to do whatever it is you turned on the computer to do in the first place.”

I’m not sure how much time passed between when they walked in and when they left. I do know that it took an episode of Modern Family and Fringe on Hulu to recover from it.