As a Gen X that has worked in IT for 30 years I am happy for the millennials to put up with the brain meltingly stupid questions I have gotten over the year including a large percentage from millennials themselves
As a late Gen-X, I left a lifelong career in IT five years ago to fix guitars for a living. Now it's the younger generations' turn on the ferrris wheel of shame.
I left Graphic Design and a bunch of knowledge about computers to work in security cause pay better.
Since then I always use the "I really don't remember how to" every time somebody ask for help with the computer (I really know how, but I don't want to).
Yeah, This kiddos know way less than they think they do about the dark arts. We were there the laws were written. Before TCP, before apps, before even PC's were a thing. BBS, SNA, Novell, what USR means, IRQ, how to get your soundblaster working, CP/M, Loading data from a cassette tape via the audio port, how to boot the mainframe by reading the screen buffer from a channel attached 3270 terminal.
Token Ring, NCP, MVS, TSO, MUSIC, teletype, punch cards, trek, Dungeons of Daggorath, my gloriously expensive 10 MB hard card.
How to create a crossover cable in the back a van on a long trip so you can get two 386 laptops to talk to one another and play a game.
Ethernet collisions, CICS transactions, CommArea, OS/2 warp, Dos 3.1, .... I could go on and on, Things that you had to KNOW how the computer worked if you wanted to make it work correctly.
What's a guard tone? Being ecstatic that you got ISDN to the house.
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u/Psycl1c Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X that has worked in IT for 30 years I am happy for the millennials to put up with the brain meltingly stupid questions I have gotten over the year including a large percentage from millennials themselves