Working at a Help Desk

My on campus job for the past four years has been working at the technology help desk at my university. My duties have included phone tech support, project worker, student manager, and counselor. Sometimes my job is frustrating (Me: "What seems to be the problem, sir?" Prof: "I don't want to talk to you, find someone who can fix my problem." Stupid me. I'll grab the guy who fixes problems, just
hold one second.) But most of the time my job is pretty good (I push the power button and the Ph. D. practically hugs me and then writes letters to my boss saying how awesome I am).

The other day I had a gentlemen come in (I won't state his name, but he had a doctorate in something I'm sure) and ask me for help saving a file. I told him I could help and had him open up his computer. He started the process of getting to the file....and it was a process.

Step One: He opened a web browser (Internet explorer no less). This took several minutes to load because of the large number of tool bars he had.

Step Two: Ponderously type in "w...w...w....dot....g...o...o...g....l....e....dot.....c....o...m....." Wait for google to load

Step Three: Go to the search bar (which took several seconds)

Step Four: Ponderously type in our university's website (That has a web address)

Step Four: Click on the link to our university's employee portal (that has a web address)

Step Five: Click on the link in the employee portal for our university email (that has a web address)

Step Six: And finally he had emailed himself a copy of the document he wanted saved.

I won't even go into all of the ways you could have done this faster. I won't even go into how many extra steps this was. All I can say is, normal people are funny when they try to operate computers. :)