Sympathies for the Technologically Impaired

Progress continues!

A complaint came in today and was cleared for sharing, which is fortunate as it leads into something I have thought worth pondering for some time.

Dear Director,

Retire Henchperson #(redacted) immediately. Please. I am constantly being put upon to answer their complaints about technical difficulties regarding their computer and it's almost always just a matter of the geezer failing to understand or remember the basics of using software. I swear if I have to answer one more call about how their files vanished when they simply forgot which folder they put them in I am going to trigger a failsafe with my insane screaming.

I understand your frustration and sympathize, I would ask you to have the same understanding for the employee you refer to. I am familiar with them and their work and they are among our finest and most dedicated researchers. They are invaluable for finding information most often considered lost to the ages and understand every archaic method for organizing and storing paper-based data there is.

They are an increasingly rare sort of individual and quite irreplaceable.

Now, while I am sure their discomfort with modern systems is vexing to deal with secondhand please do keep in mind the nature and cause of it. They come from a not-too-distant past in which computers of the caliber many people carry around in their pockets and call 'phones' were absurd ideas more exotic than 'Star Trek'. We have long since exceeded dreams of flip-phone communicators.

Consider, if you will, that not only is it jarring for them to wake up in their later life to find themselves regularly confronted with Science Fiction realized as Science Fact, but that the likelihood of the same happening to you is, granting a full and long life, almost certain.

Today, you roll your eyes at the venerable researcher who has difficulty grasping that they didn't click on the right tiny pixel folder,

Tomorrow, eyes will be rolled at you for being incapable of understanding that the holo-jacks are directed by focused thought. No, FOCUSED thought. Look, Grandpa, just... do what I do. Form a mental image of the relevant query and-

You get the idea.

We will look into lessening the stress for all involved here, but you could likely use the karma (if such a concept exists) for when you are reliant on getting your descendants to shut off the Cyservecs for you. Geezer.

Progress continues.