My old smart phone had reached its sell-by date. Beginning in February, it would no longer work with ATT’s new 4G system. So I bought myself a brand new, very spiffy Samsung S21Ultra 5G, and now it was time to hook it up. I’d need some help, so I called ATT tech support — and got ageism.
The project took the better part of an afternoon and I had to phone ATT tech support several times as the process unfolded.
Each time I called I got great help. All the techies I talked to at ATT were women. All spoke with gentle, unmistakably southern accents. Was ATT tech support located in the South, I wondered? Yes, indeed, said one of the techies. She was talking to me from Alabama.
Things went great until the last of the ATT techies tried to test my telephone connection.
My New Smart Phone Is Touchy
She dialed my number. My cell phone rang. A green telephone icon appeared.
I touched the icon. Nothing happened.
I swiped the icon. Nothing happened.
I swiped the icon faster. Then slower. In this direction. Then that.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“Can someone come over to your house and help you, one of your neighbors?” the Techie said.
I said no. If ATT tech support couldn’t make my phone work, neither could my neighbors.
The techie dialed my cell phone a few more times.
I touched. I pressed. I swiped.
Nothing.
Finally, she said, “Are you sure you can’t get a neighbor to come help you? Someone younger?”
Someone younger?
I Called Tech Support and I Got Ageism
I hung up the phone on the ATT techie. I wish I hadn’t.
Hanging up on someone is rude. Besides, I robbed myself of a chance to tell her she was patronizing me, that she making assumptions about me that did not apply. She probably knew all about sexism and racism. I wanted her to know about ageism.
Days later, I was back on the phone. This time with a Samsung techie, a woman again, but this one in the Philippines.
The diagnosis took minutes. The screen sensitivity on my phone needed calibration, she said.
The fix took a big chunk of yet another day. But now, like me, my new smart phone was smart enough to accept a simple phone call.
Try Hand Lotion
The techie in the Philippines tossed off some parting advice as we said good-bye: try using hand lotion, she said. That might make the screen more sensitive to my touch.
With that, I did an internet search for “fingertips and touch screens” and found a guy named Gabe Fender, who bills himself as a digital inclusion volunteer.
In working with an 88-year-old woman he calls Edna, Gabe noticed that Edna was having trouble making the touch screen on her tablet work. Gabe did some investigating and learned that many older people were having trouble with their touch screens — the problem was with the temperature and moisture in their fingers.
Gabe fixed Edna up with a stylus pen for her tablet, and she was off and running.
So. Maybe the techie in the South was right. Maybe I do need to get one of my neighbors over here, somebody with warm and juicy fingertips.
Somebody young.
That or spit on my finger.
More about keeping my self-esteem intact at “Widowed. Or How to Wrestle a Christmas Tree Into Its Stand Without Calling the Neighbors.” You might also like, “Widowed. Life Goes on and Some of Us Still Like It.”
Great column! We have experienced this as well.
I have a theory about one big reason young people are more fluent technically: It’s because they hang out with each other all day long. They live in the same dormitory, or the work in adjacent cubicles. If they can’t figure out how to delete an unwanted icon on their home screen, they ask the person sitting next to them, and they are up to speed before they could notice that they had fallen behind. And here we are, older people, happy and comfy in our retirement, without a pal a few feet away to ask how to delete that @#$%^& icon. We try to figure it out on our own. It can take long minutes. Hours! We gnash our teeth. And often we lose a lot of techie self-esteem in the process.
(Tip: I find that googling my technical question often gets me to a helpful YouTube video in no time. Videos are easy to follow.)
A warm hello to you, Barbara. Think about you often. ~Deidre
Hello, Deidre! Good to know. Thank you.
Barbie, I love it! I too am going to need a new phone soon. Maybe I will wait until my very smart neighbor returns from Miami Beach so he can help if I have problems. Meanwhile, I will keep hand lotion at the ready!
If I had a problem with my laptop or my cell phone, I always got Jon to look into it. But I had to watch out — once he got on my laptop, he might monopolize it for the rest of the afternoon, trying to figure out what the bug was. So, I’d have to time things carefully. Now that Jon’s not here, I am trying to be as self-sufficient as possible. It’s one thing to have your tech support in the house and available at a moment’s notice. It’s another to have to wait until a neighbor or friend is available to come help.
Good one Barbara!
Thanks. There’s nothing like feeling misunderstood and underestimated to get the juices flowing to sit down and write a post!
Brilliant Barb. I got the same thing at Microsoft. In my case, I found a lovely MIcrosoft freelancer working from home (in Greece) and we were off and running,–sans the ageism– and talking about Greece and the film festival i used to cover there. Some patience is needed but no reason why anyone needs to put up with ageism any more than you would sexism or racism. Well done Gabe for figuring out not every body is the same. ;
Yes. I really appreciated Gabe’s willingness to look at the facts in front of him — and to believe that an 88-year-old was entitled to be taken seriously.
Oh, Barb, just go find any 12 year old! 🙄
That’s the point though — summoning a 12-year-old would not have solved the problem. My cell phone needed calibrating. What really annoyed me is that the techie down South was unwilling to admit that she didn’t know how to solve the problem. Instead she insisted that I was the problem.
This is so true for us ol’ folks. My sister sent me such a cute photo of a little girl with her hand over her face talking on the phone…with this caption:
“Geez Grandma It’s not that hard!
Go to Settings… select wi-fi…
OMG any finger!! Grrrrr “
Right! Why is it OK to stereotype grandmas as computer illiterates and little kids as young whizzes?