'It is like every email is a poem': 25+ Computer-challenged coworkers who needed a helping hand

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 15, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

We can't all be the most tech savvy person in the office. These people below think they are, though — because a lot of them are stuck helping their coworkers figure out the most basic computer skills. 

These employees have the responsibility of being pretty good at problem solving. More than 1,000 people responded to u/Spyder_J's question: "What's your funniest 'coworker is computer illiterate' story?" 

It's easy to take for granted how intuitive iPhones and iPads are, when just a few decades ago computers were so much simpler than they are now. These technological leaps and bounds make it hard to keep up! Even if you're just a year or two out of the loop, it can seriously impact your career (and your day to day life, too). 

It goes both ways, though. A few years ago, someone in my office had to send a fax, and all of us under age 30 had literally no idea how to do that. We can all email and DM each other, but faxing? You may as well have asked us to do rocket science. It took us a very long time to figure it out. Check out all these responses below.

Next up, these memes will be relatable to Gen Xers only. 

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  • 01
    Hair - What's your funniest "co- worker is computer illiterate" story?
    via u/Spyder_J
  • 02
    Smile - Orylus Needed a screenshot of an error so the client traced the image of the error and faxed it.
    via u/Orylus
  • 03
    Font - NickBurnsComputerGuy Yeah, asked for a screenshot once and they sent one with a circle around the problem. We later realized they had circled it on the monitor itself with a marker before taking the picture which they then sent.
    via u/NickBurnsComputerGuy
  • 04
    Font - [deleted] Worked in a call center. One lady's monitor went bad and the picture was dull. She asked if we needed to put ink in the monitor.
    via u/deleted
  • 05
    Font - [deleted] I used to work for the government. One time someone from the other side of the country sent out a mundane email to every single government employee in the country about booking a meeting room. People immediately started replying to all in order to be removed from the contact list. Other people replied all to tell the others that were replying all to stop (not the most productive response).
    via u/deleted
  • 06
    Font - It took HOURS for the constant stream of emails to end. There were hundreds coming through to the everyone in the office all day. It was a funny and unproductive day.
    via u/deleted
  • 07
    Font - Dangerous Logic My sister works in aerospace with a lot of old guys. When she first started her job and was being trained by one of the more senior members of the team, he taught her his "trick" of copy and pasting. It was only to be used when you had a large amount of text that needed to be moved. He told her to try not to use more than a few times a day because it put a strain on the computer.
    via u/DangerousLogic
  • 08
    Font - clocksailor I used to work at a call center. We weren't supposed to use the internet on our computers because the supervisor was paranoid about viruses, but everyone did anyway. One guy was using Notepad to take legitimate work-related notes when the supervisor walked by, saw the window, and said, "That better not be a litte virus box!" She was like 26. There is no excuse.
    via u/clocksailor
  • 09
    Font - RightSideClyde Worked for a bank where we used a lot of Excel spreadsheets to analyze loans. Instead of pulling up a spreadsheet and filling in the information, I worked with a guy who would print the blank spreadsheet, write in the information, then hand it to his secretary who would pull up the same spreadsheet and fill in the information.
    via u/RightSideClyde
  • 10
    Font - [deleted] I manage a small warehouse and my coworker is an older man. Computers were well before his time but a lot of things have gone digital-only now (his pay stubs, social security, whatever). I'm at my desk doing some work and he comes in through the door wanting to check an online statement or something, and demands "Take me to the beginning of the internet."
    via u/deleted
  • 11
    Font - couchpotatosalad My former boss: "Oh my God! A virus! This must be a virus! I can't write anything!" A pack of paper was pressing down the spacebar.
    via u/couchpotatosalad
  • 12
    Font - [deleted] When I worked in retail I worked with an older man (Dennis) who was convinced he was a computer genius. Now I admit that I am not great with computers but I do have a decent general knowledge. One time I asked my boss why we turn off all the computers at night - there really was no reason for it. She told me that Dennis had told her that if a computer doesn't get "regular rest" the clock will start running backwards and destroy your files. I talked to him about this later and ye
    via u/deleted
  • 13
    Font - newked Having to reduce the speed of the mouse to almost the lowest level was one of the funniest occurrences in my former consulting career, the woman who worked the computer, had a tendency to click and flick everything around, meaning that menus, bars, emails, everything you could imagine ended up everywhere.
    via u/newked
  • 14
    Font - OfficerBimbeau I overheard my secretary insisting to the IT person that she was getting an error message because there was something wrong with the hotmail on her computer, and the confused IT person trying to explain that we don't use hotmail. They finally figured out that she thought HTML stood for hotmail.
    via u/OfficerBimbeau
  • 15
    Font - captain15 Technically smart phone illiterate, but an older coworker carriers two phones around with him because he doesn't believe that you can have multiple email accounts set up on one phone. So he carries an iphone around for his work email and an old blackberry around for his personal. Multiple people have tried to explain to him how stupid it is but he just can't wrap his head around it
    via u/captain15
  • 16
    Font - [deleted] Scanned a form to email. Got ped when she couldn't open the jpg in word and edit it. Got more ped when I told her that she needed to make it a pdf. Tried explaining that she simply took a picture of words when she scanned it and that wasn't the same as making a word doc. She told me to f off.
    via u/deleted
  • 17
    Font - shanawane Coworker was getting upset because her keyboard won't work. She asks me to come make sure it is plugged in. Turns out that the whole computer was turned off and she hasn't noticed yet.
    via u/shanawane
  • 18
    Font - my old boss asked me to fix her christmas letter a couple of years ago. she wanted to get it all on one page, and it wouldn't fit. "oh no, problem, just extend the margins a bit, or reduce the font..." and then i tried that. she'd not only typed the entire thing in caps, but had hit return at the end of the line. like you would on a typewriter. it blew her mind when i told her, "yeah, you can just keep typing. it will do that for you now."
    via r/AskReddit
  • 19
    Font - Waffles-McGee my coworker hits enter in emails. Ive have told him it makes it unreadable since MY email frame isnt the same size as his, but he never listens. It is like every email is a poem
    via u/Waffles-McGee
  • 20
    Font - phenry1110 This was around 1994, recruiting office. Hired a woman who said she was computer literate. She could not get her computer to do anything. I told her to use the mouse. She picked up the mouse and pointed it at the screen like it was a TV remote control. Mice weren't that new by then.
    via u/phenry1110
  • 21
    Font - thethirdegg New guy starts in the office. He's straight away the oldest person I've ever worked with. His tie was covered in dust. Just... weird. So he gets a tour in the morning and then lunch hour rolls round. He doesn't report back after lunch. Where is he? No one knows.
    via u/thethirdegg
  • 22
    Font - I go into the post room, where the colour printer is, to pick up some project prints and he's in there, tie stuck in the ink cartridge bay. That's not it. His sandwiches were also stuck in there and he had somehow managed to shove an apple in the fax machine. He didn't come back the next day.
    via u/thethirdegg
  • 23
    Font - 4. [deleted] Boss wants to delete info in a large number of excel fields. Selects them one by one, by mouse, and hits delete. Show him how to highlight them in a block...keeps doing it.
    via u/deleted
  • 24
    Font - corby315 I watched a co-worker go to Google,type in Google in the search bar, press enter and then click on the first link. That took him directly back to Google.
    via u/corby315
  • 25
    Font - Taking screenshots using his phone and then transferring via micro USB back to the pc so he can email them further Edit: little misunderstanding here as i didn't clarify...the document was on his computer. He took a pic of his screen with his phone...
    via r/AskReddit
  • 26
    Font - dufourgood Really didn't know that 'any key' actually meant any key at all (an 'any key' sticker was then placed on the space bar, via labelmaker). Also, the function keys: she was pushing them separately (F, then 1, then 0 for having to push F10). Yeah, she didn't do much on the computers after that.
    via u/dufourgood
  • 27
    Font - ttidernam Not my Co-worker experience. This lady calls Tech support because her MS Word is not working. After remote access and finding no viruses or malware, Tech guy physically examines the laptop and finally explains to her that using white-colored font on a white background will result in words, but she won't be able to see them unless she changed the background color or font color.
    via u/ttidernam
  • 28
    Font - St atvw I had a colleague when we started using windows95 at work (.. around 1995). He was a great guy but very proud. He did not want to admit that he was wrong about something or that he didn't know how stuff worked. I looked at his screen and I saw that he was minimizing and maximizing windows. That was it: Window gone, window back, window gone, window back, etc. All the time he was saying things like 'aha, almost finished' and 'yep'.
    via u/atvw
  • 29
    Font - Baphomorg Right now I do data entry as a temp. We work in all kinds of databases, mostly Excel. The woman I worked with at my last job "ran out of cells" and asked me for help. I went to her console, scrolled down, and she was all "You're like a computer genius!"
    via u/Baphomorg
  • 30
    Font - A90Y drinkbot Working in customer service, there was this friendly but completely clueless German woman who seemed to always be having problems with her computer. Usually it was just newby stuff, like thinking her keyboard was broken because she's turned off num lock, or would turn on cap lock and have no idea what to do.
    via u/drinkbot
  • 31
    Font - One day she starts complaining that her computer is slow. I ignore this because our computers are slow and our techs like to f around with the server without warning us first. 5 minutes later, this woman is practically in tears, she can't load a customer's account page (these pop up in a new Firefox window) and the customer is yelling at her.
    via u/drinkbot
  • 32
    Font - I walk over to see if I can help. The account page is blank. I click refresh, nada. I close and reopen it, still won't load. Then I notice she's got other Firefox windows minimized. I click on the tab... turns out she had over 50 different account pages open simultaneously. She thought minimizing the window was the same as closing it. Needless to say, she didn't last long.
    via u/drinkbot
  • 33
    Font - newoldwave Worked IT support for a large company. I can't tell you how many times we got calls from workers saying the pc, printer or what ever was blanked out, not working at all, etc. I learned in the first week to first ask if it was plugged in and turned on. Many of the new people thought I was genius for figuring that out. I loved telling them that electronic stuff always works better when plugged in.
    via u/newoldwave
  • 34
    Font - At my last job, we were given secure thumb- print USB drives. I watched my genius coworker following the instructions to set it up. He kept pressing his thumb to his computer screen. He couldn't understand why it wasn't working.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 35
    Font - mlkelty My wife's boss centered each cell individually, extending 15 minute jobs into a 12 hour day and letting all her other duties fall to my wife. So her incompetence caused my wife to do the work of two people until she realized her boss would never learn (my wife showed her how to modify by selection, but her boss didn't trust it was done right since it was finished so quickly) and left for another job.
    via u/mlkelty
  • 36
    Font - f_ranz1224 Types documents as slowly and as meticulously as a monk since once he noticed an error at the start of a document, and he had to retype the whole thing to correct it. His insert button was on and he didn't know what that was, he just assumed succeeding letters always vanished when you went back to type more
    via u/f_ranz1224
  • 37
    Font - Kordwar I watched someone click on text that wasn't a link for a few minutes, I didn't say anything at first because I figured they would realize their mistake. They didn't, so I didn't say anything because it would have been very awkward that she was clicking on it for three minutes and saying "I don't understand why this isn't working"
    via u/Kordwar
  • 38
    Font - [deleted] I asked a coworker to send me a list of addresses so I could send out about 900 letters. They had the workbook saved to their desktop, which gave two options of sending them to me: Saving that workbook to a common drive or emailing it to me. Did they take either option? No. They printed off something like 20 pages of addresses and faxed them to me.
    via u/deleted

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