You know the Twitter hash tag "first world problems?" Kids whining that their high speed internet just isn't fast enough. Or a recent fav, people bitching that they only got a car and not that iPhone they were hoping for on Christmas day (side note, check out this video). Never, though, have I witnessed a more perfect display of someone legitimately distraught over one such problem as I did the other day.
My job consist of helping people with their technological illiteracy. I'm generally a patient person because I understand that a lot of people did not grow up with computers and their ability to understand the way they work is beneath that of my own and my peers. I don't consider myself condescending or judgmental (at least not to their faces).
A few days ago I was approached by a woman, I would put her at roughly 47, with some questions about adding email to her new smartphone. She also wanted some assistance setting up an id to buy things from the phone's app store. It was all set to be one of the easiest things I was going to do all day. In hindsight, I probably should not have even thought that thought.
We decided to start with the creation of a store id. Since she would have to later verify that by email anyway, it was the most logical order. During the creation process, the system alerted us that her ID had already been created. Awesome! That means this is going to be SUPER easy for me. Why do I even get my hopes up? She informs me that she has absolutely no guesses as to what that password could be. Still not the end of the world. We finish the password process and head over to set up the email as the new password has been sent to her inbox.
After entering her email address into the phone's mail client, she begins to just stare at the phone as if willing it to make the next move for her. I desperately wanted to tell her that although the phone is "smart," is it not autonomous. I resisted and asked her to please enter her email password. She looked at me as though I had just murdered her kitten and said, "I thought we just went over that I didn't have that password."
Sigh. "Ma'am, that is a different password all together that we reset. We are now trying to enter whatever password you would use when you go to check your email on your home computer."
"I don't have a password for my email. It just works."
Great. She probably doesn't know THAT password either. "Okay. So that password is stored in your computer for your convenience. However, there is still a password associated with that account. Would you happen to have a guess as to what it is? Or perhaps you wrote it down somewhere?"
Now, a rational human being would react by thinking to themselves, "Well, damn. I should probably reset this password too and maybe keep them written down for safe keeping so this doesn't happen to me again." This woman defied normality.
Her reaction was instead to drop to her knees, in the middle of a busy retail store mind you, and start openly sobbing. If you know me even a little, you know that I am socially retarded. My emotional defense mechanism is to run away when someone else is in pain because I literally do not know how to soothe them.
The end of this story is kind of anti-climactic. I walked away and let her cry in peace.
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