When people hear what I do for a living, they always say the same thing. “Oh really? I’m terrible with computers.”
Here’s the secret: we’re all terrible with computers. Most people don’t realize it, but bumbling around trying to work out how to make it do something is what we, the engineers who design and build the machines in the first place, spend most of our time doing.
So there’s the secret. 95% of the time, we don’t have a clue what’s going on with the bloody things either.
We’re not all terrible with computers. Computers are, naturally, stupid and irritating and lots of the stuff that run on them are badly written and the operating systems are still decades away from Star Trek “Computer? Do everything for me and make me a cup of tea while you’re at it”. However, some of us are good with the computers that exist today and we can get them to work and, eventually, do what we want.
Lots of things are difficult and aggravating but this doesn’t stop some people being much more attuned to doing them than others. It’s the computers that are terrible, not us.
That said, most of the time I feel like Marge Simpson teaching piano “I just have to stay one lesson ahead of the kid”!