Horrid short term memory or just extremely stupid.
 

I think it's a legitimate question. I see this all the time and it baffles me.

This isn't unusual which is why it baffles me.

Customer is setting up the internet. They pick a username and a password and almost instantly they forget it. You tell them to write it down but they write down random stuff.

Honestly I can't imagine having such a short term memory that I couldn't even begin to remember that I'd tried to type something seconds earlier but there you have it. These people insist that they'd never entered a username/password but they're on the very next page from having done this. They've even sometimes had me walk them through the page then insist it never happened. That's scary stuff.

These are people to whom Leonard Shelby could legitimately say, "damn, your short term memory sucks."

Now, I do know stupid. That's the poor technician who spent 30 minutes trying to get the system to accept an email address that they guy had never even set up yet, before they sent the call to me due to the system not accepting his nonexistant login. SIGH. What a world sometimes. :)

This guy on the phone is a winner though. He's a firm believer that if he doesn't remember information he can just make it up new and it'll be fine. Shame passwords don't work like that though.

Horrid short term memory is extremely possible.

Now if I could only remember why I just typed that sentence ...

I spent 3+ years as a Computer Lab Assistant when I was in college. I know your pain.

I forget shit like that all the time. If you spend any time in on the internet you've set up hundreds of username/passwords - it's become one of those activities you can do without thinking.

And while there's definitly stupid people, tech support people need to realize that their job is to be able to professionally explain things in a layman's way. I mean, if someone's calling for help, it's probably because they need it. Tech support staff complaining about people not understanding computers is like a doctor complaining about everyone being sick.

P. Sherman
42 Wallaby Way
Sydney

It's kind of like being introduced to someone and then forgetting their name 30 second later. It's about focus. If you are focusing on something else, the average person will not remember the easiest of things that just happened. Just see how even eyewitness testimony to police moments after a crime can be different from one witness to the other.

Now, you would think someone would focus on the password; but there you have it.

That's me right there. By the time I've started to shake your hand I've already forgotten your name.

It's worse since stupidity ( not lack of ability but mere refusal to use what ability you have ) is one of my pet peeves. It's why i really hate driving.

I don't mind the fear questions.

"OK, now turn your router over to the bottom"

"How do I do that?" gets a response

"Well, grab the left side of the router with your left hand, the right side with your right hand then raise your right hand up and to the left while lowering your left hand down and to the right. Continue until you can see the bottom."

I don't mind the totally uneducated.

"Now, turn on your computer."

"I just need to let you know that I am a total novice and I don't understand technical terms like computer."

Yes, true call, true response. One of my favorite calls ever. I spent over three hours with this woman but we got her online.

She was in her 70's, disabled, and her daughter had just bought her a new powerbook and figured since it had a touchpad mom wouldn't need a mouse. :rolleyes:

Oh, and daughter then plugs everything in, tests nothing and tells her to play around with it then leaves for a two week vacation.

Ever have an old disabled person who's never touched a computer try and work a touchpad?

She logged off her computer at least 8 times trying to click on the preferences window. We stuck with it though and I got her online. Many called me crazy and it's true, I had several opportunities to brush her off legitimately but screw that.

When asked "why did I do it" I truthfully replied "because I knew no one else would." Sad, but that's the business environment that we live in. Helping people can be career suicide, what with handle times and the like. Still, I really enjoyed helping her, no matter how frustrating it got at time.

What does bother me is the people who refuse to think at all. Not can't think but won't. People who don't think that the password they're picking is worthy of remembering. That doesn't fly if you spend even a fraction of a second letting the thought "I'm picking a password. Might be helpful to oh, remember it or write it down or something."

Even the neophite great grandma understood that even though she didn't know what a computer was.

I have a HORRIBLE short-term memory, especially when it comes to passwords and names. I have trouble remembering either.

I use my username and password everyday at work, and have always been able to remember it with no problem. And the one day I used it when I got there, but for the life of me, I could not remember my username while trying to leave, 6 hours later.

Read my post for my response on those who want help and those who want someone to do it for them.

I had a woman call who simply wouldn't even take the install kit out of the box and called us to do it for her. She didn't even want to do it on the phone. She wanted someone to come to her house and do it even though it is marketed as a "self install."

Of course, she didn't want to pay the $150 an install would cost. Won't work with us on the phone, won't pay for an install. Kinda hard to see this as someone I should give a damn about whether I can help or not. If I can help somebody I'll do it ( see last post ) but if you don't want to work with me, why did you call me anyway?

Oh, and I can see forgetting a password months down the road. If you can't remember selecting it literally moments after you've done it again, why did you call me? Call me when you want to be part of the process of solving your problem.

I have a horrible short and long term memory. I don't know how I'm even typing this.

But I believe it's more about focus with regards to short term memory, as someone as already said.

Do you compensate for this known deficiency by writing them down? Maybe it's just how I like to approach the world but to me this makes more sense to do this than hanging on the phone several times a week getting the password reset.

In order to successfully get through the writing-it-down part, you have to remember it long enough to do so. And yes, I'm being serious.

Although I really do think my short-term memory is worse than average (to the degree that I've talked to a couple of doctors about it), I don't think I'm the only person who gets up to go to, for example, the kitchen for something only to realize that they've forgotten where they were going or why by the time they get there. Or even before they get out of the room they started in. I see what you're talking about as largely the same thing.

I can remember my grandparents phone number from four houses & almost 40 years ago ... but I usually can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, or even if I had lunch. And I'm not talking about immediate recall of something trivial, I mean that 3 days out of 5 I can't conjure up the correct answer if I concentrate on it for 20 minutes trying to remember. The info might be there somewhere, but damned if I can find it.

Of course, 40 years from now, I'll probably remember that it was a couple of baloney sandwiches w/ a side of storebrand cheetos.

me2

It's like looking at your watch and forgeting what time it is 2 seconds later.

Then it's the stupidity answer. See, you're calling because you have a problem you want solved but you don't think it makes sense to focus on getting your issue solved. Not exactly smart.

Only helps if you can find them when needed after writing them down.

And yes, that includes putting them in various notebooks, master lists, sticky notes, pretty much everything other than having them tatooed backwards on my forehead so that I can read them in a mirror.

I'm older than you and I know what you're talking about but I don't think it's the same thing. This is literally forgetting what you did less than a minute ago. That's why it seems weird. It's like you have zero awareness about the most basic function of living, namely dealing with input from your environment.

That's true, you're right. I should focus on it if I'm the one that called.

Agreed and I'm really bad about that. Those calls, the ones who lost their passwords or where they were written don't phase me one bit. I can relate. Not knowing what I did seconds ago, I can't relate and hopefully I never will.

These are the type of people that get run over in the doorway. Better check those ribs.

Nope. It's like It's like looking at your watch and forgetting what time it is 2 seconds later then forgetting that you'd even checked the watch at all then asking someone else the time and forgetting you have a watch and telling them that you don't have a watch on your arm so you couldn't have ever checked the time even though they saw you check it.

:D

Well played sir. Well played.

Of course, the doorway guys are the ones who have to help the other people get on the internet. Kinda makes you wonder how anyone even gets on the danged internet anyway or even remembers that they have access to the internet now that you mention it.

Oh, and I run into that too. People who are paying for service for months, yes months, then remember that they are and want to set up. Usually, by then the account has been cancelled ( but they're still getting billed which IMHO is crappy ) and we have to have them start all over again.

I try to, but when it comes to passwords, we're always told never to write them down (security thing). When it comes to passwords, I wind up taking a sheet of paper, writing the password about 100 times, then shredding it. That generally does the trick.

When it comes to names ... I'm still poor at that. In the team meeting at work, in teamwork exercises, I'm notorius for not remembering my own teammates names. It's a running gag.

Quick pitiful, now that I'm writing it down. Sometimes I feel like I have early onset Alzheimers, because there's times I have difficulty remembering really simple words.

Could be that I'm just not that smart, but it also could be one too many hits in the head during my football years. :-)

FWIW, I don't believe it's age related nearly so much as it was in generations past. I really think it's getting to the point that we're maxxing out on the amount of information that the human brain can process and access on demand, basically information overload, an ufortunate byproduct of the "information age".

And while I agree that the old phone number vs lunch analogy is somewhat different, I think your situation is pretty similar to something that I have happen all the time -- I need to call somebody, my wife rattles off the number while I'm standing there with phone in my hand ... and I can't finish dialing the ten digits before I have to ask her to repeat the number to me, even when it's a number I've dialed hundreds of times (there's a particular client's cell number that this happens with frequently). Literally seconds after the input which reinforced a task I've done countless times ... poof, the number is gone.

The only reason I don't suffer the password problem as much as some people is that I routinely ignore the security advice about using random passwords for everything & instead have a fairly set number of options derived from a common theme (albeit one that isn't any of the commonly used tricks like birthdays, children's names, etc) If at first I don't succeed, a few tries & I can come up with the variation about 90% of the time. About the only times I get tripped up on computer passwords is when a site has an odd set of requirements like "must include at least 3 letters & 3 numbers, one capital letter, and no more than two prime numbers".

That's been studied. The governement did a study that showed that 5 digits is the optimal amount for people to be able to quickly remember and deal with. That's why aircraft call signs are, yep, 5 digits long.

Your example here is pushing for a lot higher of a standard than most people can do normally. I can do it but it requires effort. Remembering what I did ten seconds ago, not so much.

{cue Johnny Carson voice} I did not know that {/Carson}

I saw this thread title and immediately thought it was about jbmagic.

What better horrid short term memory or

hey, a bee!!!!

My favorite was a friend of ours asking us the time while tapping her wrist where her watch would be (and actually was).

Mike (Blade) and I looked at each other, had that unspoken exchange of, "really?!", then broke out in gales of laughter.

Yes, gales.

OK, explain this one. It just happened but it happens all the time.

We send out a CD which is not an install CD. It's used for drivers. It clearly says "Backup CD. Do not insert CD unless instructed" It has a cover which also says "Do not insert CD unless instructed" They have to physically touch said cover to even get to the CD.

Guy calls because the CD installer is broke.

I said, "can you remove the CD from the drive"?

He says, "You mean the one that says "Backup CD Do not insert unless instructed"?

That folks ain't a focus issue right there.

The solution to this problem is in the bolded section.

Preaching to the choir my friend but we need the CD for any wireless adaptors we sell and it's easier and more convenient to the customer to have the cd with the modem as we don't sell except through ISP's. No one get's just an adaptor so no need to change the packaging because people don't want to be bothered to comprehend their native language.

Because it's usually a really short call it doesn't bother me and I don't consider it a problem in the way it affects my work but it's a problem in how humanity deals with how it interacts with it's environment.

I just find it scary that most people are that oblivious to their lives. That's what baffles me.

My experience is that any item that people acquire will be used in a way inconsistent with its purpose. And probably most people don't give instructions even a cursory glance.

Yes, but that's what I'm saying. We are a planet of billions of people who have decided to willfully ignore information that is designed to empower them to be able to do something that will enhance their own lives in some way. They want someone else to do it for them yet somehow we're the best species this planet has to offer. I'd say we're a species of millions of losers with maybe a thousand people worth a bucket of warm spit.

Hey, it's progress from hating people. Now I just feel extreme pity for them. :)

Dola,

I don't type this in any way to sound superior. Fact is, everyone who works phones has these same stories and yet we're not some super class of brilliant folks who decided to work jobs that pay barely above minimum wage.

We're ordinary folks who when confronted with other peoples lack of thinking recognize it for what it is but obviously we do similarly annoying things.

Well, but how often are instructions, etc. actually useful? Most of the time they're just nonsense. I'm surprised when I find directions that are comprehensible, much less useful.

It seems to me another possible solution to this problem is in engineering. People have been trained to use discs in a way that you expect them NOT to. How hard would it be to idiot-proof this disc, so that if they do insert it, nothing bad happens?

Yes, we could work around user's peccadillos but what I'm concerned with is that this is one huge, depressing peccadillo.

BTW, I strongly disagree that most instructions are not useful. That's simply not true if you read them. It's a funny thing to say and we can harp on typo's and bad grammer but truly useless manuals.? Not many at all and no where near enough to stop reading all of them.

Focus really is the problem of these memory issues, and most often, people don't realize that they aren't focusing on the right things. If you are setting up a computer for the first time, you aren't going to realize that the password is something you are going to use frequently. It is like giving your mother's maiden name to a bank for security. You expect to be able to answer a question about it, but you don't expect to need to be able to remember the question. If you don't tell people ahead of time how important the password is going to be and to write it down, there is no way they will remember it. You also have to factor in the stress of the situation they are in and realize they already have way too much going through their heads.

I suck at remembering names, and I know I suck at it. Knowing how much I need to do to remember the name past the handshake, I try very hard to focus on remembering the name. Every time I meet someone new I end up focusing on my own introduction and I still forget the name. Even knowing where I lack focus, I still usually get it wrong.

I'm speechless. I don't think I've come across ANY useful documentation for a product since I bought TCY, and most documentation strikes me as being PURPOSELY meaningless - the purpose being to cover somebody's ass.

So, it's 2k7 and the meaning and import of passwords is still unknown to the masses? I mean, codes and passwords have been around since I don't even know when but it's been several centuries.

I can't see how passwords can be seen as trivial with any amount of thinking beyond the most cursory low level brain scans verifying that all input sources for the body are currently accepting input.

Oh, and it doesn't explain the CD issue. :)

Either you're liberally using hyperbole or you have the "we only focus on the ones that stand out" syndrome going on most likely.

My favorite was the "all doctors are jerks" one I'd hear around the hospital. I'd start naming names and get, nope he's not a jerk from the complainers until they got frustrated realizing that doctors are humans and most of them are not jerks but we've all been told that doctors are jerks and we haven't all met EF27 so when we meet one that is a jerk it reinforces what we know which isn't exactly the reality.

I never, ever, ever use hyperbole. :D

Seriously, though, I understand not reading stuff like that. The consequences of not reading every little thing you are presented with are, 99% of the time, zero.

Oh, I agree, the world is not that dangerous ... yet. :)

Dola -

Let's give you the "not reading stuff like that" but recall, the customers are telling to me what it says on a CD that's in their computer. They have read it and remember it but chose to ignore it.

I read alot of stuff for work that you have to make sense of. Some instructions are very bad, simply put. Some are very clear and useful. Most fall somewhere in between. The biggest problem of a less than satisfactory manual is that it often covers only the basic situations. When something happens that falls outside those basic situations, one could say that for that particular issue, it is in fact "completely useless."

I agree with all of this but none of this is quite the same as



Emphasis on the word ANY.

At work, there are times when I will be talking to someone on the phone about a task that is relatively simple, and literally will be this close to screaming READ THE FUCKING MANUAL FIRST DOUCHEBAG, AND THEN CALL BACK WITH QUESTIONS. But I like my job and refrain.

NO!!!!