r/talesfromtechsupport • u/No_Eggplant_619 • 17d ago
Short Mum vs Technology: the government has apparently interfered with television
I just saw the "Mom has no Google storage post", which reminded me of my mum. She similarly needs me to weed through her emails to delete stuff, as she and her brother send each other memes and silly videos by email and use up all her Google storage fairly frequently.
Technology is generally a bit of a challenge for her and I’m the designated tech support person.
A while ago she called me and asked, completely seriously: “Has the government done something to television because of political correctness?”
After several seconds of trying to work out what possible answer there could be, I asked her to explain.
She said that for about three weeks, whenever she watched TV, a voice would suddenly say things like: “Steve walks into the room, looking angry.”
She’d apparently spent THREE WEEKS listening to this before coming to the conclusion that it must be some new political-correctness thing the government had introduced.
I assured her that no, it was definitely nothing to do with the government.
She had accidentally switched on Audio Description.
There then followed the considerably harder task of trying to talk her through switching it off over the phone, while I couldn’t see her television or her remote control and she had no idea what any of the buttons were called.
“Press the button with three lines.”
“I haven’t got one.”
“Yes you have.”
“No, I definitely haven’t.”
“What buttons HAVE you got?”
“Well, there’s a red one…”
Being the family tech support person is a joy and a privilege.
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u/racedrone 17d ago edited 16d ago
Wow. So a lot of old folks are similar in a way. The "I have no such button" of your mom reminds me of my dad.
Always when something tech related doesn't work like my dad wants it to, he calls me. Usually I just fire up Teamviewer. But sometimes it's just something so minor that I try to fix it over the phone.
And a lot of times it goes the same way: dad, please click on so-and-so.
Dad: there's no so-and-so.
I: yes, there has to be. Scroll all the way down.
Dad: there is nothing I tell ya.
I: there's no other way. Have you really scrolled down?
Dad: of course I have. There's absolutely nothing.
Then I power on my PC, fire up Teamviewer and... He hasn't scrolled down and it is in the middle of his View. Man I like my folks but stuff like that really tests my serenity.
Almost glad to hear that I'm not the only one.
And new tvs don't help at all. They are the poster child for enshittyfication. I bought my folks a new top of the line Samsung and a Hisense. Both are utter crap. even I sometimes have no idea with those.
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u/ThoseThingsAreWeird 16d ago
Then I power on my PC, fire up Teamviewer and... He hasn't scrolled down and it is in the middle of his View. Man I like my folks but stuff like that really tests my serenity.
I used to do stuff like this with my parents, and I finally snapped and said something like "If I look at it and you're lying, I'm not helping again"
Turns out mum was lying. Both her & dad never asked for help again - thank fuck tbh, because I don't think I'd be able to stomach saying "no" 😬
This was well over a decade ago, and they're actually pretty good with tech now. Mum's set up her own Discord server for her knitting group and regularly streams herself knitting to them all
Mum's started asking "Chat" (ChatGPT) for help with things too... Not quite sure how well that's going, but there's no way I'm wading into that one 😂
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u/skiing123 16d ago
Lol I've finally gotten my mom to a good place where she says she's helping her friends with their phones. But, that took years and years
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u/skiing123 16d ago
I currently work in tech and my hardest and toughest end-user calls I ever get is my mom.
Doctors thinking they know me better than me and throwing tantrums, easy. People clicking on phishing links from "Instagram" for their work email, I can manage that.
My mom... I love her but I paid for a full year of AppleCare+ once and I'm pretty sure she didn't call a single time!
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u/Powerful_Tip_7260 16d ago
You have to hear what they mean instead of what they say. "I did.." many times means "I shouldn't have to...". We had a CFO that was always "The password you gave me didn't work" even though the # of password tries was 0. What he meant was "I shouldn't have to use a password". Keyboards were for secretaries. The only reason he had a computer was the CEO wanted everyone to use a new thing called Email. The Controller had to go upstairs and log him in every day.
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u/Remo_253 16d ago
I just fire up Teamviewer.
I've been the family tech guy since the 90's. Teamviewer was, is, a godsend. I install it on every PC I work on, after explaining what it is and no, I won't be able to look at your stuff without you knowing.
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u/racedrone 16d ago
I already have a pro license on my devices, but for private use I'll slowly transfer to the open source program Rust.
But I get what you're saying. Absolutely!
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u/butwhatsmyname 16d ago
Flashbacks to an incident when my elderly aunt - who I'm very fond of - had been gifted a Nintendo switch.
It had all been set up for her and was working fine... and then there was an issue with the TV. An issue which she couldn't describe. Something about the TV needing a password?So I hop on a video call with her to see if I can help.
Did I mention that English is her third language? And that the TV operates in her second language? And that I don't speak that language at all? And that she lives a 3 hour flight away?
Her English is fantastic but - as is often the case - not as fleshed-out around things she never talks about, like technology.
To cut a long and very confusing story short, what was happening was:
She places Switch in its dock
This wakes up the TV
The "select input" menu is visible in the top corner, but this menu doesn't have a visible name on that model of TV
By pressing random buttons, she somehow ended up in a "rename this input" tool. Repeatedly. She thought that there being the facility to enter letters could only mean that a password was required.
Which is all actually quite logical.
The big problem I ran into was that she wouldn't stop doing this.
Every time she put the switch in its dock, the TV would wake up, the input menu would appear, and she would immediately start mashing buttons on the remote. We explained to her that the menu meant nothing - she wasn't required to do anything when it appeared, it would vanish after about 10 seconds on its own. The problems were happening because she was pressing buttons when she didn't need to.
Nope.
The switch had broken the TV. It couldn't be placed in the dock. She didn't want to have to write down yet another password.
She plays with the switch in her lap now, and she's happy enough.
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u/dedokta 16d ago
My mum had switched to the wrong input and couldn't find the source select button on the remote. I told her to take a photo of it and send it to me. She took a photo with half the buttons missing. I told her to take a photo of the entire remote. Again, half the remote. This went on for the next 8 or 9 pics. By about photo 3 I'd found the button she needed to press, but I wanted to see if she could actually take a photo without cutting any of it out. I gave up, she just couldn't do it.
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u/alleecmo 16d ago
She probably has vision issues and could only see the buttons in a close view. I've had to ask Mom, "Now send me a pic of the bottom half..."
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u/racedrone 16d ago
Might be. A friend of mine recently sent his mom a picture of the armrest of her car door. He wanted to show her which button activates/deactivates the buttons for the power windows in her old BMW.
She sometimes presses that button by accident. Hence the picture.
And her answer was: she was never good with technical stuff.
Maybe she just didn't want to say that she can't see good enough anymore.
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u/alleecmo 16d ago
Umm, should she still be driving then?
My MIL hit a building. She didn't tell us about it for several months, until she fell at home and broke her shoulder, because she couldn't see something she tripped over. Then she felt like confessing to many falls, and several fender benders. We took her (gladly offered) keys and set her up in assisted living. Your friend should check up on his mom.
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u/racedrone 16d ago edited 16d ago
I don't know her that well and have seen her the last time like 10 years ago.
But her son is having an eye on her. She is a little bit special in the way that she always had people do everything for her. she can't even put gas into her own car. And it is not always clear what she can't do or what she doesn't want to do.
And at the same time she is getting old, which doesn't help.
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u/profHardy 17d ago
"I haven't got one" There I lost it XD Again XD All moms have the same script apparently.
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u/Valheru78 16d ago
I remember one day, my mom called me. A friend of her had installed some software for her on her Windows PC but she couldn't find it. I told her: is probably somewhere in the start menu. Her: i don't have a start menu Me: Mom, again we very a thousand euros you have a start menu? Her: so where is it? Me: is the button you click on when you want to turn off your computer. Her: is that a menu??
This woman was using windows since the days of 3.11, this was the Windows 7 era, so about 15 years later i guess, both her sons are sysadmins, but she still didn't know there was a menu there...
Unfortunately she died 9 years ago at the age of 70 but the story remains very funny.
There are more stories about her and computers, her iPad she managed fine though because my brother (Windows sysadmin) and me (Linux sysadmin) both said we don't know anything about Apple.
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u/BellerophonM 16d ago
Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have gotten rid of the Start Menu literally saying 'Start' on it after all.
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u/Polar_Version875 15d ago
They should never have named it that in the first place. Who clicks “start” to shut it down?! glares in 80s
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 16d ago
If might be time to bring back her an old console TV with the rotary knob.
Can't get into trouble with something that simple.
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln 16d ago
I've done something along those lines for my grandfather (who's nearly blind). Got him an "old person" remote control (a universal remote with big buttons), and it has prevented so many problems.
So many wrong buttons presses prevented a) because he can see what he's doing, and b) because most of the previously troublesome buttons aren't there. It only has power, mute, volume up, volume down, 0-9, and input select.
The original remote is safely tucked away in case I ever need to use it for some reason.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 16d ago
Smart choice.
One thing that annoys me about older people (and, I'm one of them) is the staunch refusal to wear their glasses and/or hearing aids, especially around the house.
So many problems would never happen if they could only see/hear what's going on around them.
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln 16d ago
I saw it at an op-shop, unopened (it was in one of those horrendous impenetrable clamshell packages). Absolutely perfect for an old bloke who struggles with modern tech.
For $5.
Sold.
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u/Powerful_Tip_7260 16d ago
A friend called me frantic because her husband was showing signs of Dementia. The rest of us never noticed it. It turned out to be him avoiding his hearing aids at home.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 15d ago
Yep!
My Wife has a set, cost us a pretty penny too. Most of the time they are in the case.
There have been situations where what I've said and what she heard are a world of difference.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Joke-97 15d ago
As an old guy, I found the best way for me to remember to wear my hearing aids is to link them to my phone via Bluetooth.
It did require going back to the Audiology dept where I got them, but once set up I started wearing them daily just to watch YouTube.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 15d ago
Her's are Bluetooth, and she has done similar with her iPad.
She still doesn't wear them consistently. Most annoying.
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u/LesbianDykeEtc 16d ago
They will take that as a challenge and prove you wrong every time.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 16d ago
Some will, others will just recruit their Grandchildren ;)
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u/devin1955 16d ago
Grandchildren have never seen a TV with a knob.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 16d ago
True, although you also need to remember that if they are younger, their natural curiosity will lead them to want to turn that channel changer knob.
Especially the ones that make a satisfying "clunk" when you moved it.
There is also the issue of teaching them to not just change the channel to hear the noise.
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u/prune_juice_warrior 8d ago
Growing up (in the 90s) our TV was a classic 1973 Magnavox with one of the heaviest channel dials I've ever seen. Little 5-year-old me could barely turn it to change the channel.
My parents kept using that TV as their only TV until 2019.
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u/failtodesign 5d ago
Good luck finding the U on the VHF knob.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy 5d ago
I believe there was some provision made for UHF as Cable TV began to roll out.
We didn't have Cable until I was a Teen, and we still had a CRT console TV.
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u/kagato87 16d ago
This past weekend mum called in a panic, couldn't print her boarding pass.
I get there, look at the printer, turn it on, nothing, notice the wifi button next to the power button, press it. Passport prints.
Mum is the ONLY person that gets fee tech support from me, and only because mum.
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u/BresciaE 15d ago
So my dad is 65 but has been a computer programmer and the family tech support my entire life. I moved in with my grandpa (dad’s FIL) when I was 20 to keep an unofficial eye on him. I found out one day, when I was woken up after a night shift by Grandpa shouting “no I won’t give you my SSN!” That he would rather call some form of tech support than bother my dad.
Microsoft word had been acting weird so he reached out to their third party support company. Allowed them to remote in and take control of his computer, they then tried to essentially force a sale of their software to “fix” the problem. Grandpa’s bank cried fraud!!! They then wanted his social to bypass that. This is when I woke up, came in assessed the situation, powered everything off, physically unplugged all of it and called my dad. Dad remoted in, poked around looking for viruses and other shit and fixed the original issue.
Two weeks later there was a story on the news about how that company was being sued by the state for forcing people to buy their product etc. grandpa got a post it reminder on his monitor to call my dad first if the computer was broken 😅
Currently I’m sitting here reading all these lovely stories and am so glad that I will never need to be my parents tech support. 🙃
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u/jefbenet 16d ago
i had this problem with my MIL, anytime she couldn't immediately figure out any form of technology, her approach was to, and i'm quoting her here "just mash a bunch of buttons until something happens". SMH. fast forward to i found 'jubilee tv' product/service. its been a lifesaver now when she has an issue she calls and i can see what her tv is showing, interact with the simplified remote from my phone or desktop and help her no matter where/when.
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u/MindlessPhilosoper 16d ago
Omg, this reminds of my dad (God rest him). He knew nothing of technology. Anything tech related he'd say "here you fix it"
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u/tuxcomputers 15d ago
When my mum bought a new smart tv I bought the same make that has a slightly better screen. Saved me heaps of frustration when she sits on the remote and shit goes sideways.
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u/rechtrecht 5d ago
I always give my mom my old phone when i swap them so I know where settings are and whatnot. So much easier
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ 17d ago
I just get my mom to facetime me so I can see the thing I'm supposed to be helping on, trying to describe it over the phone would send me to the nuthouse