This isn't just ignorance, this is... Advanced Ignorance!

Credit to my coworker for the title.

One of the frustrating aspects of my job is supporting legacy software for customers that can't (or won't) upgrade. Invariably, the customers that have the old software are less technically-inclined than their peers.

Fortunately enough, most of these customers are knowledgeable enough that we can hack our way through fixing their problem.

This is not one of those cases.

Our customer here had been working with our company for years, back before we had switched to an online content delivery system. He still had CDs, and was waiting to receive the last batch of updates from us. That was a customer service thing, so no skin off my bones. It fell upon me to help our customer get his software running in the meantime.

The man himself seemed amiable enough. He mentioned offhand during the call that his son had helped him get everything set up, and he didn't really understand computers all that well. I smiled, said "I've seen that before," and we continued. Then this happened:

Customer: "So I typed in my account number in the box here..."

Resdamalos: "Great. Now go ahead and type the name of your shop in the next box."

C: "Oh, it keeps adding letters to the top."

He forgot to click. No worries.

R: "No problem, just click on the next box there."

C: "I removed all the extra letters but there's a little blinking line in there."

Oh.

R: [non-tech explanation mode engaged] "...That's the cursor. That shows where the next letter you type goes. You want to put the blinking line in the next box."

C: "How do I do that?"

Ohhhh...

R: "Move the mouse over to the box and click."

C: "I try to get the arrow over there but when it's over the white box it disappears."

Oh boy...

R: "Does it turn into a line?"

C: "Yes."

R: "Then that's fine. Click in there."

C: "Okay..."

R: "Great! After you type in your business name-"

C: "Hold on. There are two words in the name of my business... how do I get the second one to be separated from the first one there?"

WHAT.

R: [not-losing-my-cool mode engaged] "...the spacebar?"

C: "You mean Shift?"

WHAT IS THIS. You've been working with this software for years and you don't know how to TYPE?

R: "...it's... the long key on the bottom of your keyboard."

C: "Ooooh."

I facepalmed loud enough that it was audible the next cube over.

-User resdamalos on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3azye9/this_isnt_just_ignorance_this_is_advanced/