My new boss is computer illiterate. weird.

[ucmike]

The company i work for is a mess, so they brought an operations manager to organize the NJ operation and do whatever it takes to make us profitable. I was offered the job and turned it down, I saw that there were fundamental problems and the job just didn't suit my personality.

So the people in the california main office hired this guy on a recommendation of someone affiliated with our operation then brought him to california for a week of training. His credentials sound great, he ran his own company while working as sales and field manager for a major national franchise, he has thirty years experience in the business, he knows everyone there is to know, he's full of big ideas, etc.

So we're in the office yesterday, going over schedules for the next couple of weeks when he asks one of the other guys (Chris) to get a weather forecast and motions to the computer and says "from this thing". I thought that was odd, but didn't pay much attention. Then a few minutes later Chris asks him to look up some info from a customer file. He ignored that request, so he was asked again. He said he didn't know how to get the info, I thought he meant he needed a password, or didn't know where to look. So Chris opens the file, shows him where it is in the directory and how to search the customer files and goes back to his work. Chris asks for info on a customer named "Holtz". The boss sits there staring at the keyboard for about ten seconds and asks "where's the H?". We all looked at each other and the boss says, "When I went to school typing was for girls to learn", kind of dismissively. Then he started going through a filing cabinet.

So our new operations manager is computer illiterate. Never touched one in his life. If that isn't strange enough, all of our information is kept online, so we can share it with California. They generate most of the info we need and we update from our end online. We only keep enough paper work around to send out with the installation crews to build the jobs. I can't figure how this guy got through the interview process. The owner of our company is a high tech kind of guy, our industry is fairly high tech, and our company does as much business as possible by computer.

It was weird to meet a business guy with no computer skills. I can't remember meeting anyone at work that had no computer skills since I graduated college. Even most of the laborers i know use email and know something about the internet. When he said the comment about girls typing it really made me wonder. That tells me that this is a guy who is stuck in the past.

This should be interesting..........

[elehhhhna]

1. can you offer him some help?

tutoring him on the absolute basics (email, google, company-specific apps) would be a benefit to everyone.

[ucmike]

3. I'm trying on all fronts.

He needs lots of help, on top of not knowing computer stuff he has no idea of the real problems at our company. I don't think he's interested in learning, like I said, his attitude seems to be that computers are somebody else's job. I'm getting to know him a little and I think he's pretty old fashioned and set in his ways. yesterday he wanted to see job photos and asked someone to print out all of them. when he was told that he was asking for 300+ photos to be downloaded and printed and that it would take most of the day and would tie up the network he responded "then how are we supposed to see the pictures?". he wouldn't even listen to alternatives, or to reason-he wanted the job photos. i left before that was resolved, somebody may have spent all day printing photos.

The first day he was there I pulled him aside and told him how I could help him out, and what i had to offer. the rest of the conversation was him telling me how qualified he was and that we would soon be doing things his way.

anyone who thinks "typing is a girls job" in the year 2006 is probably not all that open to suggestions.

[wain]

4. Not a bad approach

Yet, in today's business world it's hard to do just about any job without basic computer skills. I remember in the early days of PCs a common problem of many executives was a fear of computing; hence an aversion to learning. Thirty years experience puts him in this group and he's still running!

The CEO of my Fortune 500 lives by Blackberry. In my IT days I remember my company hiring a manager of a programming team that didn't even know how to login to TSO. Now he's become a guru of office software. Some get it, some don't want to. :shrug:

[CabalPowered]

2. I just got a hand written resume from a nuclear engineer

who's obviously been in the Navy too long. I feel your pain.

[Deja Q]

5. Try bosses of IT companies or departments who come in with no experience!

:rofl:

[ucmike]

6. I worked in telecom and met some of them

i did work in some network hubs and got to know some of the guys who monitored them and did the tech stuff. i figured they all had tech backgrounds, but learned otherwise. one day i was bs'ing over a cup of coffee and asked this guy Josh about his background. We were the only people in the hub so he tells me the whole story...his friend used to have Josh's job, but moved on. Knowing there would be an opening he told Josh to submit a resume, problem was Josh had never done anything more technical than data entry. His friend helped him with the resume, taught him all the appropritate language and buzzwords and Josh, completely unqualified, got the $60k a year job and had been faking it ever since. He just watched what the other people did and took advantage of distance and lack of supervision to get by. The day he told me the story he admitted that he still didn't know what he was doing, he just plugged and unplugged the circuits they told him to and talked in circles and made stuff up when he didn't know what to do.