What Does The "Undo" Button Do?: The Origin Of This Segment
I work in tech support. Please save your sympathies for someone else; I enjoy tech support. I come from a family of teachers. My mom and her youngest sister both teach Spanish, and their father taught finance at a local public university until his retirement. Education is in my blood, basically, and when the occasional tech support customer expresses amazement that I was able to make something seem so simple, I happily explain to them that tech support is my way of teaching students who all give a fuck about the lesson plan. (I don't say fuck on the phone.)
But while I do enjoy it, I also have a good amount of Stories(TM). Sadly, the origin of this segment isn't much of a story--but it is pretty important that I explain to you WTF the title even means.
See, a couple days ago a coworker from a different department stopped by and warned me she was going to ask me the stupidest question I'd ever been asked. I asked her without blinking, "Is it 'what does the 'undo' button do?" She said no. I said, "Then it's not the stupidest question I've ever been asked."
Yes, really.
I've supported a few different products, but at one point I was helping people with a document editor. Think online Microsoft Word. (No it's not Google Docs. If I supported Google Docs I'd have bullied them into making a case-sensitive AutoCorrect by now.)
Anyway. The caller sticks a picture in the wrong place. He panics. I say, "Try hitting undo."
His response, as you've probably guessed by now, was "What will the 'undo' button do?"
I did not respond to this with the appropriate level of snark. Mostly because I was baffled. Was this a joke? He couldn't really fail to know what the button did, right? It was literally in the name of the button. Except this was a frequent caller. I knew he wasn't kidding because he didn't really have a sense of humor to speak of. What the fuck?
In the end I could only say, "Just hit the button."
And, dear reader, it took the image out of the wrong place, and then he could put the image back in in the right place this time. If only he could have thought to read the name of the button, he could have accomplished that so much faster.
But while I do enjoy it, I also have a good amount of Stories(TM). Sadly, the origin of this segment isn't much of a story--but it is pretty important that I explain to you WTF the title even means.
See, a couple days ago a coworker from a different department stopped by and warned me she was going to ask me the stupidest question I'd ever been asked. I asked her without blinking, "Is it 'what does the 'undo' button do?" She said no. I said, "Then it's not the stupidest question I've ever been asked."
Yes, really.
I've supported a few different products, but at one point I was helping people with a document editor. Think online Microsoft Word. (No it's not Google Docs. If I supported Google Docs I'd have bullied them into making a case-sensitive AutoCorrect by now.)
Anyway. The caller sticks a picture in the wrong place. He panics. I say, "Try hitting undo."
His response, as you've probably guessed by now, was "What will the 'undo' button do?"
I did not respond to this with the appropriate level of snark. Mostly because I was baffled. Was this a joke? He couldn't really fail to know what the button did, right? It was literally in the name of the button. Except this was a frequent caller. I knew he wasn't kidding because he didn't really have a sense of humor to speak of. What the fuck?
In the end I could only say, "Just hit the button."
And, dear reader, it took the image out of the wrong place, and then he could put the image back in in the right place this time. If only he could have thought to read the name of the button, he could have accomplished that so much faster.
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