IT Support Technician Told High School Intern To Restart His Computer, But The Intern Thought The Monitor Was The Computer So He Had To Walk Down Himself And Fix It

Heather Hall

6 days ago

High school kid sitting at his desk, using an iPad

Pexels/Reddit

No one really prepares you for what dealing with the next generation will be like.

So, what would you think if you encountered a high school student who couldn’t find the only folder he had access to on a school computer? Would you think the system was glitching? Or would you consider that the student only knew how to use an iPad?

In the following story, one IT specialist is shocked to learn a student fits the latter category. Here’s what happened.

The iPad generation is coming.

My company has a summer internship for high schoolers.

They each get an old desktop and access to one folder on the company drive.

Well, this kid can’t find his folder. Sometimes, because of how this org was modified for COVID, our server disconnects, and users have to restart.

When he gets to the kid, he can see the folder.

I tell them to restart and call me back. They must have hit shutdown because 5 minutes later, I get a call back: it’s not starting up.

Long story short, after a few minutes of trying to walk them through it over the phone, I walk down and find he’s been thinking his monitor is the computer.

I plug in the vga cord (he thought was power) and push the power button. He still can’t find the folder…. He’s looking at the desktop.

I open File Explorer. I CAN SEE THE FOLDER.

The kid still couldn’t see it.

He said, “I don’t see it.”

I click the folder.

Then, he said, “Ok, now I see the folder.”

I create a shortcut on his desktop. I ask the user what he uses at home…. an iPad. What do you use in school? iPads.

Wow! You would think kids these days would know how to use both.

Let’s check out how the folks over at Reddit feel about iPads.

For this reader, there are plenty of kids to still do IT.