TLDR is at the bottom in bold!
I work in supply chain management and my main duties require me to have a decent understanding of a combination of financial math, basic contract law, and ERP/database skills. Though these are the only skills I need to keep sharp in order to do my job well, it GREATLY helps to also know how to use Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, DocuSign, all of which I have “advanced” experience/skills with due to me growing up with regularly evolving computers (multiple!) in my house since I was in pre-school (1994).
Most people outside of my department are not technologically proficient. They don't know what Excel is used for. They don't understand why typing a name in Microsoft Word cannot be legally accepted as a signature under my firm's policies. They don't know what “click and drag” means. These are people between the ages of 25 and 70. I'm constantly getting calls and emails about how to perform these administrative computer tasks because I am constantly denying the paperwork they send me that are inaccurate or out of policy. One out of five times my team or managers ask me if I can attend a certain meeting, I flat out tell them “no” because I'm too busy due to being behind on work; nobody gets mad at me for denying them, not even the director of my department, because according to the company's metrics, I'm the highest performing employee in my department's history. However, last Wednesday, the director stopped by my office unannounced and asked me what I was so busy with (a question out of curiosity, not out of suspicion). I told him about the tech support emails I get and showed him. Luckily, someone called asking how to “sign a Word Document” and I had it on speakerphone telling them to use DocuSign and I had to walk them through with how to log into DocuSign and upload the document and leave a signature and download the PDF.
The director ended up apologizing to me and he and I discussed that, despite how time-consuming and frustrating these requests can be, if those jobs aren't completed correctly, the firm is at risk of losing money or getting a lawsuit. The director told me he'd give me 2 extra paid days off if I worked for only the first half of the upcoming Friday and then spent an hour giving a basic computer instruction lecture to the “technicians” that were constantly asking me how to do basic stuff. Then he said I could leave early after the lecture for a full day's pay. It sounded great to me, but I had a genius plan.
Lecture day comes, I have a conference room with a laptop, and a projector and 20 “technicians” in the room that I needed to teach. I told everyone straight up that there would be no introductions and to think of multiple questions in regards to how to do something on a computer. The first person asked me how to convert a Word Document to a PDF. This is where my genius plan comes in. Of course, I know how to do this with 2 clicks of the mouse, but I don't show them how to do it that way. The projector is on and I go to Google and type in “how to convert Word Document to PDF” and I clicked on the first link. I read the first step out loud. I opened a random Word Doc in my Contracts folder. I read step 2. I go back to the Word Doc and do it. I go back to the website to read step 3. I do that on the document. Then it's done.
I ask for another question. Someone asks “How do I combine two PDFs together?” I do the same thing: go to Google and type in the question. I opened a random PDF, read the instructions, added a random different PDF to the original one using the exact steps I found on a website via Google.
I thought that the group would get the message and that whenever they had a question, instead of calling or emailing me, they should consult Google, but they didn't get the message at all. I kept on getting more basic questions and I kept on typing them into Google and reciting the solution to them verbatim via the website or YouTube video that came up. I did that for an entire hour. What was even more mind-boggling was they STILL had more questions after the first hour. I told them that we were out of time and I had some other duties to attend to, but in reality I just went out to lunch and then I went home. When I go back to the office on Monday, I don't expect to be in any trouble and if I am, I don't care.
Are people getting stupider or have most of them always been this dumb?
TLDR: My boss asked me to give a basic computer course about Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat to some employees and I agreed. My lecture was 100% them asking me basic software operating questions, me typing the question into Google on the projector, and then me reciting what Google/YouTube instructed me to do. I thought the employees would get the message and consult Google/YouTube whenever they had a question but no, they kept on asking me questions and I kept on reciting/demonstrating Google and YouTube results for an entire hour.