[pubutil]

My experience in tech support was similar though, of course, it also depends on the person. I’ve met CAD folks who didn’t understand a password reset, and secretaries who gave great feedback on infrastructure.

I usually experienced much less resistance explaining tasks and problems to people close to my age. Younger people would listen to a point until I saw their eyes gloss over, waiting for me to get to my point. Many older folks were tuned out from the start and just wanted to hear their problem was fixed. I’m sure part of this involves my lack of skill in explaining technical concepts to non-technical people.

Someone else mentioned that the internet changing over the years affected this. I think part of this also has to do with the pranks of our generation:

-“how do I [x] in this game?” “Alt-F4”

-“how do I get rid of this virus?” “Delete System32”

We’d either look it up first and call BS, or follow the instructions with reckless abandon and learn the hard way.

Somewhat recently we had people microwaving iPhones thinking it’d charge them. I saw more news stories about this than I’d have expected, given it’s metal in a microwave. Something that many of us were taught not to do from a young age.