Work can be fun...Hell yeah it can be fun

Read on...
LAST WEEK I had the privelege of working with Insurance underwriters who are aged between 50 and 60 and who have been working since the 'paper' age. Now they have to use the application which was developed by my team and believe me they just dont like computers and have no clue about anything. There was a business emergency last weekend and 30 of the underwriters had to work on saturday and I had to help them if they ran into any difficulties.

I was just not able to digest the fact that I had to work on saturday but then..."What" a day it has been...One of those rare 'memorable' days at work.Here goes some of the conversations.
Guidelines:
1) X here is an American who is atleast 50 years old.
2) Please try reading everything from X in an American accent.

PS : (No its not the end of the blog..) These ladies and gentlemen never worked on a Windows system.

I was introduced to all the 30 underwriters and everyone was given my telephone extension so that they can either call me or they can even directly come to my desk. Everybody has to login to the application with a user id "creator" and start working.

I take my place at about 7:30 am in the morning.
AT 7:35 am i get a call.
X: Hi there, you know wat..you might not like it but I ran into a problem already. Can you stop by?
Me: Alright, I am coming.As i walk towards her cubicle, I find her talking on phone. She doesnt notice me, and this is what she says on phone. "(Angrily) Man...I always hated this screen stuff. Paper was always the best. There is this white thing on my screen and it says I dont have priveleges, what the hell...I have been working in this company for 35 years and "NOW" I dont have priveleges......" and then she turns around to see me and says "Oh..you are here.."..I nod...and then she says on phone "Ok..the cables and wires guy is here..I will talk to ya later..bye" (Cables and wires guy??????)
Me: Ok so what is the problem you are facing ?
X: I just cant do ANYTHING.
Me: Oh..what happened?
X: I tried to login and it says you have no priveleges..
Me: Oh, maybe you really dont have. What is the user id that you used?
X: The same thing which I use for my Yahoo mail. I would have tried some other id, but I use Yahoo only.(Believe me guys, I did my best to not laugh at her but I laughed eventually..so had to do some damage control)
Me: (Laughing) Oh that was a good catch..You know wat, our application is not yet designed to handle your Yahoo ids. Maybe we can allow that in future but for now please log in with the id "creator".X: Oh..ok so that means I can log in..I thought I will go home..Both of us laugh...I laugh till I reach my place...:-)
I get another call
X: Can you help me? I cant log in
Me: (Fresh from memories of previous encounter) Are you using the id "creator"?
X: yes
Me: Hmm..Ok I will stop by..
I dont understand what the problem is...so i ask her ..
Me: Can you open a new window.
X: (very confused, looking directly at the nearest window). Did you just ask me to open the window? Its 0 degrees outside. (I thought this happened only in forward mails)
Me: No, I just wanted you open a new window and i opened the Internet Explorer.
X: You call that a window??? Well, then do you have doors, restrooms, powder rooms, kitchens and roofs in ther as well??
(Before i could say anything)
X: (Laughs) just kidding... We call it the "e-thing". Anyways thank you for your help.
The next one...
X: Hello, can you come and help me. I am not understanding the screens.
Me: Sure. ( I walk to her desk)She asks me how to enter values on a screen.
Me: Select one of the values from the "dropdown".X: Select of the values from the "what"?
Me: Hmm..the dropdown that you see ther?
X: A "dropdown"??
Me: I take the mouse and go and click on the dropdown menu which now drops showing all the values.Now she gives million dollar expression as if like totally shocked and surprised.,
X: Wow, you rolled up all those things into that thing there, as if into a blanket..Wow...can i just try selecting a value..(I nod and give her the mouse)She plays with it selecting each of the values and gives me a big smile..I smile back
X: Ok, that was so cool..so what should i do now.........
Next day, there were only 10 ppl working so we all sit in a big conference hall and continue working.A new printer had to be setup.
So a guy walks in and explains how to configure the new printer.
This guy had a bad habit of calling forward slash a backward slash and a backward slash as a forward slash. So this is how it goes
Guy: Everybody please key in S :(read colon) followed by \ (read forward slash) followed by the printer name.
X : Did you mean backward slash?
Guy : (Seriously) when i say forward slash i mean forward slash..
X: hmm..it doesnt accept..
Guy: lets do it again...please key in S:\(read forward slash)
X: It doesnt work again.
Guy: Ladies, please enter S: followed by the key that is on top of the "Enter" key. Thats it ..all hells break lose.......Now all the ladies together yell "There is no forward slash on top of Enter key. Its backward slash...."..."Man i knew there was something goofy in what he was saying...".."I never bothered, he was always wrong"...."I say lets not take any printouts anymore..SAVE PAPER"....
I never intervened..I just enjoyed the show.
These are few incidents that happened on that wonderful weekend...There were tons and tons more....and something rare is happening in my life..Im enjoying my WORK...............

More to come....:-)