The power of expectations and branded conscious ignorance

[ananix]

At my work we have a frugal tiny core as office workstation, at one occasion the user was not present and three mac users had to turn it off, they all three stud there discussing how one turns off a "PC" as they called it (they all three use their mac laptops as pc). It has a wmclock (fishtank and 4 icon wbar one icon being power off. One decides to click the mouse button and sees the exit.
Another occasion same workstation one needs to read some files on a usb and boots the workstation up, the wallpaper being a telephone list for the company with logo, names and all confuses him so he reboots just to be greeted with the same desktop 10secs later, confused it just shows some strange "computer" list thingie he gives up. Not seeing wbar nor clock both pretty large at the top.
Writting this I now wonder how he got it rebooted, not sure if he turned it off.

[curaga]

Eh, how about holding some training seminar? People will be more accepting of change if they're told how things work

[ananix]

our mac users and to me mac users in general has made a conscious decision about they only know how to use mac "because they are creative" and on mac "everything just work", regardless mac most deffently take up most support hours with things not working or users not knowing how to do things. All the computer training in the world would not help, its an image and branding issue that can only be handled with true education of the human mind.
Its like teaching evolution to christians nothing they say make sense but they stand firm on it and they can confirm each other in their enlightenment and belong to a higher understanding.

[althalus]

Don't assume people won't learn just because they use a mac. There are plenty of Mac users who also happen to be programmers or systems administrators, etc, and I know a fair few (very intelligent) people who use Ubuntu who would be just as confused and useless if you asked them to sit in front of a mac. Curaga's right, a bit of training can go a long way.

[ananix]

Im really not trying to generalize mac users but humans, i was just telling their story and it made me think about my self and something we all as humans are all victims of. How we see our self and the power of expectations.
But now you mention it out of 18 mac users i know two chose their personal laptop from other than personal branding (or different kind). They are booth system engineers and my friends, the rest are "create users", people from the movie and commercial industry.
Showing up with anything else than an apple product to a meeting would be like going to a mosk with a calot. We all wear a uniform and lifestyle it makes us belong and feel comfortable safe. If people from two different cultures meet it takes time to build confidence and establish cooperation.
Having the same pencil can be the difference that makes you the one who get to sign the contract.

This makes me think of the difference in reading Alice in wonder land as a kid and as an adult.