[zwnow]

My state (Germany) recently switched away from Microsoft to open source solutions and public offices have week long delays due to employees not finding buttons they were used to. They expect a 1 to 1 copy of the Microsoft product. Training should be software independent. People need to be educated with computer basics, if they work in a field that requires the usage of computers. Having to go to some public office in my area already is notorious, now its even worse.

[mmmllm]

They had the week long delays before this switch :D - now they just found a good excuse

[thewebguyd]

> Training should be software independent.

Agree, and I see this problem in both non-tech users and even sysadmins on my team when I'm looking for new hires.

I'll get resumes of people that are seemingly great, but they really only learned a few specific tools and had no general understanding of theory or even what those tools were doing. I don't care if you "know" Ansible, I do care if you know why we use orchestration management in the first place, and what those ansible playbooks are doing. Tools come and go, but the principles remain.

Likewise with general users. Don't train how to use Word, train how to communicate clearly, format ideas, and share them with others using a computer. The tool is irrelevant

[nradov]

The type of education in fundamentals that would allow users to flexibly switch between office productivity applications requires a fairly high level of abstract thinking. Not everyone has that cognitive ability. Some struggle with anything more complex than executing a set procedure and would require years of remedial education to break out of that mindset.

[zwnow]

Maybe dont employ these people in positions that require a specific way of thinking then...

[nradov]

You're really missing the point. Most clerical jobs don't require that specific way of thinking. Major changes to office productivity applications are quite rare and it would be silly to hire for those jobs based on abstract cognitive abilities. Ability to reliably follow instructions is usually sufficient.

[zwnow]

Until... you change the software.