Old newbies are better than young ones!

I've spent a few days setting up and cinfiguring a PC for my inlaws. They've been into digital photography for a couple of years and are keen to start editing their pictures, post them on Flickr (see the right hand link bar) and generally do email/browsing etc. Skype and VNC have proved invaluable in subsequent tech support sessions!
Anyhow - I've been reflecting on how nice it's been dealing with none-technical users who have a lifetime of dealing with kids/friends/family etc. rather than the arrogant young idiots I normally have to instruct. It made me think of a couple of instances when I was working on a big reality show (ok, Big Brother if you really want to know!).

• I got a call to a production office where someone was complaining that their PC was beeping - when I got there I noticed that there was a camcorder resting on the numeric key-pad. I lifted the PD150 and the PC stopped it's electronic moaning and ceased the string of zeros it was entering into Microsoft Word. I glanced over at the person (who was no doubt about eighteen months out of meeja-skool) and they seemed unimpressed. So, to illustrate what the problem had been I placed the camcorder back on the keypad and within a few seconds the "fault" returned. Rather than a "..oh, how silly of me - terribly sorry.." I got a dirty look and a curt; "Well if that's the problem then don't put it back!".
  
• Emily, one of my engineers, got called to sort out a broken printer. When she got there the printer was out of paper - what made it ammusing was that although it was a network printer it was on the desk next to the user. The "paper-out" light was winking and the paper-hopper (top-rear of the printer, so clearly visible) was obviously empty. There was even a ream of A4 on the desk! When Emily pointed this out they made her load the paper. At that point it became clear that they had sent the document MANY times. Now I'd have let them wait while all 207 copies came out but Emily had a bit more grace than me and cleared the server queue.
  
• I was talking someone through moving a file over the network. When it became clear that whatever had wound up at the user's workstation was not what they expected I asked "..how big is the file?" the response was "..oh, about two by three millimeters, little yellow icon..". The few seconds of silence on the 'phone let them know I hadn't expected that response!

With these three examples I was astonished how young-adults' arrogance often shines through. A smile and an apology would mean eveyone would walk away feeling good rather than an angry exchange and my prejudice of media-fools being confirmed. Give me OAP newbies any day!