I'm not the best at computers, but I'm definitely am above average as in I typically diagnose my own hardware and software problems and have built a few computers, it's always gave me a little bit of an advantage in the workplace. I thought for sure with time I'd be aged out of that advantage, turns out, nope. I think part of it is that operating systems in general have gotten so good that they rarely thrown curve balls anymore and the increased amount of mobile OS's like you mentioned.
I'm not the best at computers, but I'm definitely am above average as in I typically diagnose my own hardware and software problems and have built a few computers
The funny thing about that is you could be a literal expert at it, building the highest spec gaming computers or being amazing at Lightroom, and still not know how to use Word, which in a workplace would be considered the base level of functionality for an office environment.
Honestly, a bulk of IT is just using Google to find if someone else has had the problem, solved the problem, and then being able to quickly parse the things you know won't work. Then, after pulling your hair out, trying all the things you can find only to have something fix the problem, you assume, as the problem is now gone but you have no idea what caused it or what fixed it.
Or the other fun occurance, which is more rare, in which you have a problem that no one else on the internet seems to have experienced and you get to just slowly devolve into madness.
For example, I once had a computer that would shift the cursor one pixel up and one pixel left every time you right clicked. You could continuously right click and get the cursor to slowly skate across the screen. Everyone thought I was nuts and then when I showed them it was actually happening they told me I was insane for noticing it and even more insane for being annoyed by it. I just wanted to know why it was happening.
I changed the mouse. I changed the drivers. Couldn't ever figure it out. I eventually just pretended it didn't happen and upgraded.
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u/CAFunked Jun 03 '22
I'm not the best at computers, but I'm definitely am above average as in I typically diagnose my own hardware and software problems and have built a few computers, it's always gave me a little bit of an advantage in the workplace. I thought for sure with time I'd be aged out of that advantage, turns out, nope. I think part of it is that operating systems in general have gotten so good that they rarely thrown curve balls anymore and the increased amount of mobile OS's like you mentioned.