To be surprised a woman in her 30s can't use a computer?

[ZenGardener]

I'm on the PTA at DS's pre-school. A woman was asked to be secretary so she would write up meeting minutes and make notices. She says she cannot use a computer so it has been agreed that she will write everything by hand.

I was shocked by this. She can email from her phone so surely typing a document isn't that hard? I really wanted to suggest that she use this as an opportunity to learn but obviously didn't.

She's a nice, normal, middle-class woman in her mid-thirties (I guess).

I just was utterly bewildered by it. Is it common? Perhaps it is? I just can't think of anyone who can't use a computer. It's so easy.

Oh I know. OH is an IT bod (solutions architect).

beingfrank it would be a complete waste of my time and very poor office management for me to do my own typing, formatting, printing, copying, scanning and general faffing around with equipment. That isn't what clients are paying me for.

As someone who has been to more meetings than I've had hot dinners, I think it would be revolutionary if people stopped typing up minutes and instead just photocopied and handed round the handwritten notes taken straight away.

The amount of work it generates with people procrastinating about typing them up, fucking about with fonts, and the delay before they actually get distributed to the people who were mostly sat in the meeting anyway and just need a reminder of what was said and who has agreed to do what...

Obviously this doesn't apply to some of the other secretarial tasks you've mentioned, but maybe they could be rotated amongst the rest of the group.

I'm sure I've read that vanessa feltz is computer illiterate. I find that astonishing in this day and age.

FrankInteresting you say specialist advice is quicker to type yourself. That in my view is a not a cost effective way of working. It's always quicker to dictate than type. In my office having the qualified staff doing manual tasks is a waste of the money we are paying them . There are people there whose job it is to type up their work in a turnaround time of less than an hour or faster if it's urgent.

They should be concentrating on the work they are qualified in and which brings in fees. If they waste time doing work which someone else is paid to do for considerably less they are not doing work which can be fee'd . If that continues the people who are supposed to do the manual work won't get enough sent their way and fee income drops. Doing your own typing is discouraged for anyone who isn't a trainee.

As for emails, I dictate the text she types it I send it. For mundane ones , yes she sends them on my behalf. Why would I have to grovel to a secretary if I want changes? I'm her employer and it's her job.

Who is "she"? Gosh - you must be most incredibly important if you can't even refer to 'her' as an everyday human being.

I'm an employer, but I refer to and treat my employee in a very nice way - which is how it should be.

I don't think I would like to work for you - you sound a bit too ...... ummm ...... self-important.

Oh don't be ridiculous. I'm not going to refer to my secretary by her first name on here am I? "She" simply avoids saying "my secretary"

I can tell you one thing the secretarial staff don't like the qualified staff doing their own typing and copying. They can see it's a poor use of resources.

I'm 38 and I don't remember doing any computing at school before upper school, and very little there either. I got a pc of my own in the late 90s and just played with it but I didnt start to really learn anything until I got the internet in 2003.

Now I'm fairly literate, I know my way around word processing programs and can produce a powerpoint and such (though I loathe excel with a passion bordering on the pathological). I'm probably at the same skill level as your average 15 year old. My 18 has now far surpassed me.

So why couldn't you just say "my secretary" rather than just "she"? That sounded rather rude. Not ridiculous at all - good manners cost nothing. No-one expects you to use first names, that would be silly. "She" is just ill-mannered.

As someone who has been to more meetings than I've had hot dinners, I think it would be revolutionary if people stopped typing up minutes and instead just photocopied and handed round the handwritten notes taken straight away.
Oh, dear, you've never actually seen handwritten notes produced by the true amateur (eg, me), have you? Mine are mostly sardonic aides-memoire and swearing. My minutes are generally well-received, but the notes are no use to anyone who can't read my idiosyncratic shorthand and wasn't at the meeting in the first place. Anyway. I feel a bit sorry for the poor woman who's clearly been guilt-tripped into agreeing to secretarial duties. I am surprised at her lack of skills, as I'm a good decade older than my thirties, and despite having had no training in computer skills or typing, and being generally a bit of a technophobe, have undertaken similar roles over the years without shocking anyone at my incompetence. I've always had someone at home, usually a child, to steer me in the right direction. I bet if she has a computer, one of her DC could help out. Can you find a tactful way to suggest that, OP?

I can tell you one thing the secretarial staff don't like the qualified staff doing their own typing and copying. They can see it's a poor use of resources

So secretarial staff are not qualified? What is your definition of "qualified"? Just wondering.

"It's always quicker to dictate than type."

God, it isn't for me, it makes me want to scream! I can type about as fast as I think (70wpm apparently) but I've never dictated to any office junior who can go as fast as me and spell/punctuate with the same accuracy. If your PA is top notch, as in 120wpm with flawless English, it might work, and I can certainly see how typing up long documents isn't a good use of a fee-earner's time. But for communication purposes I would find it odd not to watch the email unfolding, there is something conducive to the flow of thought about performing the physical creation of the words yourself.

This thread is an eye opener. Maybe I should make more of computer skills on my CV, I had no idea it was so common among people my age to see performing them as an extra effort of some kind.

The secretarial skills are surely part and parcel of the "fee earner"' skills. If the "fee earner" is unable to produce a suitably typed and legible document, typed up neatly and accurately by his/her lovely secretary, who has more often than not corrected spelling and bad grammar along the way then where would he/she be?

Some "fee earners" are dreadful in that area - I know, I've worked for some very top-notch and high profile lawyers, Spelling, handwriting, grammar - Absolutely Bleurgh!! Luckily, they were lovely people, not full of their own self-importance and great to work for. It's all give and take, mutual respect, etc.

Definitely yanbu - and like madbuslady I am amazed at the admissions of computer illiteracy on this thread. Anyone who's in their 30s who can't use a computer should take steps to correct that immediately. And the op's colleague should stand down from being a secretary if she can't use the proper tools to get the job done.

I tend to use a mix of dictation and self-typing at work (ex lawyer, so was trained in using dictation). I can type as fast as I can speak, mostly, so I type myself for really easy stuff (one liners) and really hard stuff (complex docs where I am not necessarily writing them in a linear fashion) and dictation for the rest (emails w attachments, edits to existing docs, medium length emails etc). It just depends on how good your typing is as to whether it's efficient to dictate or not.

Caitlin - we will have to beg to differ on this one. I don't see the typing as a manual task if it is part and parcel of formulating the advice/argument, and you can type as fast as you can dictate.

I agree that some routine stuff is clearly more efficiently word processed by non fee earners, but I was making the point that fast typing is a life skill which makes you more efficient in all computer use.

Who types your emails at home, for example? If the answer is you, then wouldn't it be a better use of your time to train yourself to use the keyboard efficiently? Email is central to a lot of our home admin these days - I'm glad that I'm not held up by an inability to use a keyboard.

Evans, it's pretty clear that Caitlin means professionally qualified. A partner in a city law firm's time is billed to clients at hundreds of pounds per hour. Her secretary's annual salary will be equivalent to around £25 per hour. Doctors and lawyers still rely heavily on dictation to save time, and many NHS doctors' dictation is now sent overseas to be typed up in countries like the Philippines, where labour costs are very low indeed.

Dictation is itself a skill, of course; as a PA, I haven't had many bosses who could dictate a coherent document all in one go!

It's a myth that DC are taught to use computers at school.
DS1 is 18 and came out of secondary with a string of A* GCSEs and a mysterious certificate in IT. He claims not to remember doing IT. He's certainly useless at it. I have had to teach him how to use excel, word, how to do a business email and attach documents.

Who taught me?
I am 56 and taught myself as most users did.

DS is 5 and in Reception. They do IT stuff, started in preschool.

It's a myth that DC are taught to use computers at school.

I must pass that on to DH, he teaching programming to children from reception up. He'd like to know he's mythical.

I have had to teach him how to use excel, word, how to do a business email and attach documents.
Also, this kind of computer use, although useful in the world of office use teaches you nothing about computers. Just like begin able to drive doesn't make you a mechanic. DH could build you a computer from the ground up. But he can't use excel.

Thanks, Trillions - I'm aware of how it works. I did work in that industry for a long time myself.
I was trying to make the point that if someone who views themselves to be so superior and so far above the menial secretarial staff, they should surely be able to sufficiently articulate themselves without sounding demeaning and condescending.

Typing up PTA minutes is using a computer in the sense that most people do. Most of us are drivers not mechanics.

We are a computer orientated house.
DH started programming in the early 1970s on machines as big as a room, and worked in computer process control all his life.
My DC were not taught how to use computers by their teachers (true, neither opted for "IT" as a subject).
DS2 on the other hand is a natural. He was given the role of mentoring staff on some new IT project when he was in Y10. Most of the teachers seemed to have missed out on learning about computer use themselves. Last night DS2 came to me with a big grin and said "dad just asked me how to do something on the computer".

your - what I was meaning is that someones ability to use a computer isn't based on their ability to use excel.