FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for January 29, 2019

please don’t point and stare, [Roger Fox is] just technologically impaired (Alfred Yankovic in “Amish Paradise”)

Just wait until Roger accidentally re-formats the server farm.

That copyright date is 1997, so it was not, in fact, the 21st century.

Doesn’t he use the computer at home?

I remember the rumor how computers were supposed to make us a paperless society. So why is there literally several tons of paper in the storeroom at my office?

Personally, I don’t print a lot. But I seem to be the only person in the office that notices when the printers have no paper nearby. Fortunately we have a bookcase next to them that holds two boxes worth of paper – that lasts about 3 months.

Roger would have a problem today. Manuals? What manuals? Everything is on line nowadays.

When I got my new smart phone, I went on line and downloaded and printed out the 69-page manual. I now know how to download and set ringtones, do fingerprint and voice recognition and set up a wifi hotspot.

Two things the manual does not address are: how to answer the phone and how to download the pictures you take with the phone. For the latter, it took Verizon technical support 15 minutes to figure it out themselves and that’s after consulting Google.

The thing about smart phones is you have to know when to tap, tap and hold, double-tap, do a tap dance and when to swipe (apologies to Dora the Explorer.).

And now that you have a computer we need a Power Point presentation based on the KPIs your department is responsible for broken down by individual contributor in order to better justify our 20% RIF next week.

Boss needs to send Roger to a technical class.

Doom, the reason I got my first PC at work and at home.

It’s rather bothersome to see husbands and fathers portrayed so often as bumbling, know nothing idiots in popular culture.

Good time for a “bring your kid to work” day.

Way back in the last century we had a computer access to operating valves and turning pumps on and off from the control room. Touch screen monitors.

Reminds me of the classic Doonesbury visit to the computer store:

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1982/12/15

I really don’t get this. I was using computers at work back in the 70s. Can’t imagine a middle-aged man now (early 2000s?) still being computer illiterate.

Having worked in fully computerized offices my considered opinion is that the early burst of productivity in the naughts reached a plateau caused by the overwhelming amount of games, videos, time-wasters and porn available to any employee clever enough to get around security.

Even necessary programs like Word have become bloated with unwanted, never-used “features” that add to the program cost while reducing productivity.

Full disclosure: I’m in my 8th decade and have earned the right to be a curmudgeon. “Things were better in my day!” “Why are things so much more complicated than they have to be today?” “All my doctors look like high-schoolers!” ""Social media" is converting young people into mindless wimps!" “They never made a car as good as my Studebaker!” “You kids get off my lawn!”

Ahhhhhh…. That felt good. Thanks for listening. Except you weren’t listening, you had both eyes on that damn cell phone all this time! Sheesh!

Wanna get away!

The 21st Century is courtesy of WhiteOut…

I used to work with this guy, his name was Dick. So anytime somebody admits to me that they are computer illiterate, I tell them they don’t know Dick.

I remember playing Doom at school while I was hard at learning. LOL