One of the many varieties of callers that we get is “The Automaton.”  This type of user is trained to do their job by rote instead of understanding what it is they are actually doing.  All they know is that if they click the mouse here and type this word here the computer won’t yell at them.

If any small change to their work environment occurs, this will cause immense mental anguish and angry phone calls.

The following conversation took place when I was able to see the user’s screen.  She had recently installed a new program, which added one more program in her Start menu.

“My Outlook is missing!  I need to find it!”

“Uh, ma’am, it’s…right there,” as I move the mouse to the correct icon.

“No, that’s not right!  I always click on Start, then Programs, and then I move my mouse to the right and Outlook was there!”

“Ma’am, it’s right below your mouse, like a quarter inch down.  See? Outlook.  When you installed that new program, it slid Outlook down to make room.”

“Well…I don’t like it there!  I’ve been trying to do work all morning and haven’t been able to!”

Apparently this issue had derailed her productivity for about 6 hours.

And at no point during that six hours did she find the icon for Outlook, which was DIRECTLY BELOW WHERE IT USED TO BE.