Isn’t it crazy how some people are just hopelessly tech-dumb?

This girl shares how an old lady couldn’t figure out a simple mistake in her computer.

Check out the full story!

Ma’am, do you know what a number is?

This happened at my last job. I wasn’t real tech support, but I knew how to google things, which somehow made me the unofficial IT Person for the office.

She doesn’t deal with things outside her job description…

I mostly dealt with lowkey questions like “How do I take a screenshot?” or “Can you fix my Excel sheet?” or “Why does my printer not print?” (The printer wasn’t turned on.)

They were cool about it when I didn’t know something, so I didn’t mind when everyone came to me with their problems.

Anyways, this happened in 2020, during the early months of the pandemic.

This time she had to!

My boss asked me to call one of her clients because said client had a problem filing a request for money from the government (yes, that was a thing here in Europe).

Boss told her I’m good with computers and promised I’ll help her with that.

I try to argue that I’m not actual tech support and this is a little bit above my paygrade (I’m dead serious when I say googling is my only IT skill), this might as well be an issue with the clients computer or wifi or whatever.

Boss insists I try anyways. Fine, let’s give this a shot.

UH OH…

I call the client. A small business owner, very nice lady. I ask her at what point she gets the error. She says it happens when she entered the amount of money. I ask what the error message says.

She reads (loosely translated here:) “Wrong decimal”. Okay, I can work with that, I’ve got an idea.

The following conversation happens (keep in mind that, since I’m not actual IT, I can’t remote access her computer and see what she’s doing. I was basically working blind):

Me: “Sounds like this you entered a wrong symbol there. Did you maybe add a comma and a cent amount? I think you’re only supposed to enter whole Euro amounts.”

Things are about to get really frustrating!

Her: “No, I didn’t. It’s [insert flat number with no decimals].”

Me: “Okay good. Did you enter a dot between the first and second digit?” (it was a four-figure-number.)

Her: “No, I didn’t.”

Me: “Maybe you have a space in there somewhere. Can you move your curser to the front and the end of the number and press the delete key once each time please?”

Her: “I did. Still doesn’t work.”

That’s so ANNOYING!

Me: “Okay, just so we’re on the same page. You only have numbers in this field. You didn’t enter a Euro symbol or anything else that is NOT a number?”

Her: “No. Only numbers.”

Me (still convinced I’m right with my hunch): “Can you check again if there’s a space in front or behind the number?”

Her: “There isn’t.”

Me: “And you’re absolutely sure there’s nothing else? No symbols, no letters, no dot or comma, only numbers.”

She had to find another way to deal with this!

Her (confident): “Only numbers!”

Me (desperate): “Ma’am, I’ll tell you my mobile phone number now. Please take a photo of the field and send it to me.”

Less than two minutes later I get a photo sent on WhatsApp.

Me (very politely, with the self-control of a saint): “Alright, Ma’am, I’ve figured it out. Please delete the letters EUR you typed behind the number.”

Finally! It ends here!

Short silence.

Her: “Oh, it works now! Thank you so much!”

Me: “No problem.”

I hang up, and as I proceed to bang my head against the closest flat surface, I wonder how you can own a business when you apparently never went to elementary school to learn the difference between letters and numbers.

GEEZ! That’s super annoying!

Why wouldn’t the lady just double check everything?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user thought it could have been worse!

This user knows the lady wasn’t paying any attention at all!

This user knows Windows has updated their system for such people.

This user hates the stories that tech support employees have.

This user knows some people are just stupid.

Someone’s trying to be really helpful here!

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