Sometimes I Just Want to Forget What I Know

Have you ever had one of those days when you just wanted to forget everything you ever knew about something? There are times that I would like to be able to and recently it was about computers.
Now I don’t know a great deal about computers, but what I do know was self learned because, having to work on a computer every day you are going to have problems and you can’t wait for a tech or spend money every time some little something goes wrong.
I though it would be wise to take a few courses and learn a little about computers, which I did several years ago, and it has helped me out over the years. However, there was a recent incident that me just way to scream, “Stop, I don’t know anything about computers.”
Because I do know a little about computers, sometimes my co-workers or friends will ask for my advice or, if the computer they own is having issues, ask me to try and repair it.
Once working with a coworker, he entered my office with a strange look on his face and told me his television for his computer was black and he couldn’t work.
My first thought was it could be the monitor or a video card that had gone bad. That was once an issue with Mac computers.
Once in his office, I realized the computer was not on. I attempted to turn it on, but no response. I began looking for the issue and when I finally realized the problem was internal, I opened the Mac and couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Well, it’s dead.”
So, after a discussion with my boss at the time, we ordered a new Mac for him. Imagine my surprise when I walked in his office one day and his disc player was open with a cup of coffee in it.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Don’t you know if that coffee spills that new computer is going to be nothing but a paper weight?”
“That might explain the other computer,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The cup holder closed and coke went everywhere.”
I guess that did explain a lot, like coke and computers mix about as well as fire and gasoline.
I once received a call from a friend who said she needed help because her email was giving her trouble and wouldn’t work.
“I’m not receiving emails that people say they are sending and there are a large number of the mails I’m sending not being received,” she said.
There are several things that can cause this problem and I began walking her through the things that could be causing the problem. I was trying to eliminate the issue step by step. It seemed nothing I told her to do was working.
“Let me think about this a little and I’ll call you back,” I told her.
I went through my head over and over if there was something I missed that could be causing the issue, but I couldn’t think of a thing.
One of the greatest things that have been added to computers over the years is Team Viewer. With Team Viewer you can connect to another computer through you computer. Problem solved, I decided to open Team Viewer and take a look at her computer.
Not as easy as I thought.
I called her back and asked if she had Team Viewer on her computer. She did not. You can download the software pretty quickly, but I had to walk her through it and it seemed as if it took forever. Once downloaded it’s easy to open and all you need to get on the person’s computers are the numbers that pop up when the software opens. Again, this was a daunting task.
After I finally got into her computer and was ready to take a look at her issue, it didn’t take long to find the problem. She had never deleted any emails and it clearly read 98% of 15 GB used. When I told her the emails had to be deleted, she didn’t like it.
“How do I get them back?” she asked.
“You can’t,” I said.
“But what if I need them?”
“You don’t need them some have been there for well over a year.”
“But I might.”
I just wanted to scream, but I didn’t. I simply highlighted, trashed and deleted. I checked her email and it was working fine.
“Problem solved,” I said.
“You got rid of my…”
All she heard was click and I thought, “I’m going to try forget what I know about computers.
So now, when I’m asked if I can help, I have a standard answer. “They have changed computers so much today, like cars, I’ll be no help you need to take it to a shop. Sorry.”
Sometimes forgetting what you know can be a benefit, even if you haven’t forgotten it all.