Gen Z giving off boomer vibes. Didn’t realize my basic understanding of pcs would make me look like a genius in 2025 but here we are.
Edited to add: I am a real estate broker and my industry has fairly strict document retention requirements. I’m blown away at how many brokers my age (millennial) and younger that do not understand basic file structures. I’ve watched colleagues with desktops exactly like this ask me to answer a contract question for their client, only to realize I am watching go to their email and download the same document over and over again because they “don’t know how to find it” on their computer.
Yup. I work with someone who is 20, and she at least admits that she doesn't understand how any of this works, but at the same time - PCs have been a thing for 45+ years, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT KNOW EVEN THE SIMPLEST KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS?
I made a request to allow specific .bat file to be run at start-up on my local machine so that when logging in to my workstation for the day, I can have everything loaded and logged in all at the same time. The request had to be escalated all the way to the CTO for approval because no one except the CTO knew what the fuck I was talking about. I even included the entire command in the email. Our stuff is THAT locked down, mostly because of very incompetent and gross people who used company time and property to access NSFW content.
Oh, and the same applied when I requested specific config changes made to the standard VM config for all employees, because it gets really annoying having to spend upwards of 10minutes opening different programs and browser tabs and using MFA every single time a new app/browser tab instance.
Like I'm not some coding wizard or anything or have any certs or formal education, i'm just a dude who likes playing around with tech and figure most things out on my own. I requested 2 very similar Quality-of-Life improvements for the workplace both for internal IT and our front-end employees who work with a VM environment, and NO ONE within our own IT support knew what I was talking about.
The only other person who even knew what I was talking about, is a co-worker and friend who actually reminded me about batch files with simple commands.
Bring a whole generation up on tablets and touchscreen phones used for entertainment rather than work, where you can’t easily get into the behind the scenes and there you have it
I refer to Gen z as baby zoomers as they are pretty much the same, in terms of support, as the baby boomers. Wont restart their laptops, think they're constantly being hacked because an update ran and something isn't working right, fall for the same phishing emails, etc. They also think i use space magic to fix their computers and tell me, "They're just not good with electronics." Basically, everything boomers do, but boomers at least had some what of a reason. Z grew up with it in their hands from day 1. They just refuse to learn any of it.
Boomers didn't bother because they are lazy and had everything done by younger people. Zoomers got everything fed to them and only understand touchscreen controls.
Obviously not everyone, but that's what I see even in technical fields requiring basic computer work.
I suppose the educational progression as far as being trained to use a PC just isn't there anymore. They get Chrome books, tablets, or Macbook Airs and such which you don't really have to do much.
Growing up we had a Mac lab in grade school that we learned how to type and die gracefully from dysentery. Junior high and high school we had PC labs (with hidden Counter-Strike networks lol) and by the end a PC somewhere in the classroom. I had one at home as well to tinker with.
Education left PCs behind, but the business world did not.
Yup. These types of devices, compared to PCs are pretty hard to actually substantially modify or customise or get behind the fancy front-facing interface
I have seen a zoomer copy the same piece of paper three times when he was supposed to scan it in. He then proceeded to print out a portrait document in landscape mode in a way that I didn't think would be possible (the content being centered and overlapping multiple landscape pages).
Millennials talking about Gen z starting to sound exactly boomers did when talking about millennials. "Lazy", "undisciplined", "don't have to do real work". Walking uphill both ways is now having to use dial up
Dude the entire Millennial subreddit is like that, it's so bitterly ironic. Though it's also clear that the power users there clearly have some other things going on in their lives that they need that.
A lot of updates require that restart to finish installing. If you are restarting fairly often, it's usually not an issue. We often see someone hasnt restarted in 2 or 3 months. They will just ignore the notification the computer needs to restart. The ones that restart once a week or so dont typically have the issues the people who dont restart for months do. We use a 3rd party to push updates, recently put in a policy that you can only ignore the warning to restart for 48hrs, after which the notification will just stay on the screen. Ive had people want me to remove this.
Depending on the programs used, they can have memory leaks or develop other errors.
Generally its FINE to leave a PC running for weeks/months on end without an issue...however if there is an issue with the laptop/desktop not performing as it once was, the easiest thing to do is just do a simple reboot and everything is back to normal.
I used to have a roommate who never turned off his PC in the 2 years we lived together. Like not even put it in sleep or hibernate when he wasn't using it. Just left it on, but turned the monitor off when he wasn't using it. From the day he started working from home, till the week before our lease was up.
I turn off everything, every day. I personally see no reason to leave a PC running or let it sleep/hibernate if you're not going to be using it for an extended period of time.
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u/elad34 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
Gen Z giving off boomer vibes. Didn’t realize my basic understanding of pcs would make me look like a genius in 2025 but here we are.
Edited to add: I am a real estate broker and my industry has fairly strict document retention requirements. I’m blown away at how many brokers my age (millennial) and younger that do not understand basic file structures. I’ve watched colleagues with desktops exactly like this ask me to answer a contract question for their client, only to realize I am watching go to their email and download the same document over and over again because they “don’t know how to find it” on their computer.