The retired teacher who taught me more than any cert class

Back in 2017 I got a call from this elderly lady in Des Moines who had a dinosaur of a Dell desktop from 2004. She told me it was slow and I figured it was just malware, but she sat there and watched everything I did. After I cleaned it up she asked if I could show her how to back up her family photos to a USB drive. I spent an extra 45 minutes with her and she said something that stuck: 'You're the first tech who didn't treat me like I was dumb.' That moment made me realize most of us rush fixes instead of teaching people. Now I always ask clients if they want to learn what I'm doing before I touch their machine. Has anyone else had a customer who ended up being a better teacher than a paycheck?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris92722d ago

Heard a podcast once where this old phone repair guy said the same thing, that kids just swap screens but never explain why the phone died in the first place. It's like we forget that knowing the 'why' is the whole point for some folks. That lady probably remembers more about her computer now than half the people who paid for classes.

wyatt_mitchell2622d ago

Bro that's deep, but how do you even teach curiosity to someone who never had it?