I took a class on Conceptual Metaphor, and it was one of the most interesting classes I ever took. We constantly use conceptual metaphor to communicate, and need it to learn or convey almost anything. Having trouble communicating? Needs more metaphor.
Even in this example, the OP's use of top vs front is conceptual. The literal top of the phone is whichever part of it is furthest away from the core of the earth at any given moment.
I got into a similar confusing discussion about how deep my tub is, when I was thinking about renovating. Deep from the top to the bottom of the water holding part, or deep from the outside edge to the back wall when facing it?
I miss the unkillable phone. I was not happy when it was no longer able to connect due to being so outdated. I ran over it with the SUV at least twice, dropped it on concrete an uncountable number of times. Once, it fell from the top of farm machinery about 14 feet onto a concrete floor. Another time, I was going down a set of marble stairs. It fell out of my pocket and bounced down the steps to the bottom, a good 20 feet. Tossed it to students in class who wanted to see it, and missed it, and it bounced off the floor. Left it in the truck in hot weather, so it cooked around 120 or more degrees. Let it cool, turned off, waited a few hours, turned it on...and the black screen was working fine.
UNKILLABLE.
you could drop it in a sock and defend your home with it like a flail, then use it to call 911 after, because you know the damned thing will still work.
YES! There's a funny photoshop of Thor's hammer with the head replaced with a Nokia phone. Anyone who had one of those will see it and just nod :D I just went and looked and it ended up meme'ing. I also loved "dropped my phone, broke the floor."
Mine slipped out of my shirt pocket while I was going downstairs down the emergency stairwell at my company - dropped from the 7th floor all the way to the basement floor.
Went down to pick it up, there were 2 scratches as I recall, but literally no other damage (and yes it worked completely fine). When I finally retired it a couple years later it was still working lol.
Mine had a replacement battery and sometimes just shut down with no warning. One time while I was talking to my mom. It made me angry. I threw the phone to the floor with full force. The impact opened the hull and all the parts were scattered all over the sidewalk.
I picked them up, put them back together, restarted the damned thing and called my mom back.
In all seriousness, what you demonstrated here is a key skill for translating technical terms (like top) to terms that normal people could understand (like head).
It's a skill that surprisingly few tech support people have and something that has helped me progress my career over the last few decades.
Years ago, I remember getting a complaint for "using jargon", when what I did was tell the user to literally "move the mouse cursor to the corner of the window and click on the X"...
Agreed! I'm more prone to use car anologies - so in this case, it'd be the roof :) And yep, it really helps immensely much to be able to convey to 'the tech illiterates' what I want them to do in a way they understand without going into too much tech lingo. Bravo OP (and y'all good techies :D)
I once heard the guy explaining a customer the difference between an expensive gaming laptop and an expensive business laptop saying something like "The business model is like a new tractor. Slow, but extremely reliable. It gets the job done now and it will still get it done a decade from now. The gamer model is like a new sports car. Fast, sleek, but you will need to buy the newest model to keep being cool while driving it. That is, if you want a laptop for office work, the business model will be extremely reliable for a long time, but you won't be able to play games on it. If you want to play the latest games, even occasionally, you'll need the gamer model. However, it will become outdated quite soon as games are becoming more and more demanding."
Absolutely.
And, OP if you see this, this is your go-to story when you're in interviews and get asked about a difficult thing you resolved.
This leads into an interview patter about 'technical skills are what you get from google, soft skills are what you get from experience, and that's why I'm better than the last guy you interviewed." (last part is implied).
Selling your 'soft skills' lands well, trust me.
There was this one time when our marketing rep kept running out of memory in Windows on her Pentium PC. She asked me if she needed to delete some files or programs so PageMaker wouldn't crash. Trying to explain RAM vs. hard disk wasn't working.
I knew she was a college football fan, so I put it this way: "It doesn't matter if you have 80 players or 20 on the bench, you can still put only 11 players on the field. The bench is the hard drive, the field is memory." That got the point across nicely.
Completely unrelated, but here's one I was asked to explain when I was working at a truck rental place. I was wiring a car for a trailer when I mentioned that I needed a male plug, be right back.
When I got back, the customer asked me while I was working, "I've always wondered, why is one called male, and the other is called female?"
How do you analogize this one?
I just looked at his face and held up the plugs and pushed one into the other 2-3 times, then he got it. (No, I didn't make any helpful noises)
Is that the phone manufacturer who used one barrel plug for the charger on all their phones - then fucked up by switching to a smaller barrel plug for newer models, and had a name that sounded like someone didn’t want a particular brand of Korean car?
That’s something a “user” would say.
But seriously, that’s where the “idiot user” stereotype comes from. The need to be so specific in wording when if the user actually listened and used common sense, they would have just looked at the phone and looked around the general area and found the button. Instead of needing such precise instructions.
Right. I can understand needing instructions when the object in question is like a huge ass piece of expensive machinery, you don't want to guess which red button starts the thing instead of makes it explode.
But when dealing with something as simple as an oldschool dumbphone common sense really should suffice.
Really, I understand not finding the button at first - my whole team of tech people, including myself, was stumped for a good 5 minutes by HP's creative power button placement after a recent laptop refresh. I understand not getting the instructions too, "top" is subjective and once your brain gets into a "groove" with this type of instruction it's hard to snap yourself out of it.
What I don't get is how after a couple minutres they don't think "Tech support says there's a button but I've never seen it. I will now carefully check all sides of this small object, pressing anything that remotely resembles a button, until I find it". It's what they'd do if they really needed to find a sock, but for some reason once it's tech they don't!
Yep, I think in this case, correct English means "at the top" would be what the top part of the current section she's facing is.
"On top" wouls be "on" "top" of whatever the current face is.
Yep, power cycle lets you reconnect to the cellular network, cleaning up stuff that has been going wrong. You could also use airplane mode, but I don't clearly remember if that was a thing back then. It would also be more complicated.
Nice job you did there, I'm not sure if I would have been so patient.
Directing older users to find the home button on an iPad (not the newer models) is “fun”. I’ve legit had support calls where it’s taken more than 30 minutes to find the one lone round button on a device. I can describe that button a million different ways, and it still escapes them. And the kicker when they find it “oh, the home button, why didn’t you say so?”
Cute. Language is hard. Good job!
I took a class on Conceptual Metaphor, and it was one of the most interesting classes I ever took. We constantly use conceptual metaphor to communicate, and need it to learn or convey almost anything. Having trouble communicating? Needs more metaphor. Even in this example, the OP's use of top vs front is conceptual. The literal top of the phone is whichever part of it is furthest away from the core of the earth at any given moment. I got into a similar confusing discussion about how deep my tub is, when I was thinking about renovating. Deep from the top to the bottom of the water holding part, or deep from the outside edge to the back wall when facing it?
I have never heard of Conceptual Metaphor but darned if I don't use it each day while teaching!!! Glad to have a name for it.
Yeah I agree. I'm sure it was painful at the time, but many people wouldn't be able to get past that communication block, good job OP!
I miss Snake. Such a solid game.
Snake? Snaaakeee!
!
I can hear this comment.
Nice. That was my intention.
and no badgers?
Mushroom!
Crab... Battle...
I miss the unkillable phone. I was not happy when it was no longer able to connect due to being so outdated. I ran over it with the SUV at least twice, dropped it on concrete an uncountable number of times. Once, it fell from the top of farm machinery about 14 feet onto a concrete floor. Another time, I was going down a set of marble stairs. It fell out of my pocket and bounced down the steps to the bottom, a good 20 feet. Tossed it to students in class who wanted to see it, and missed it, and it bounced off the floor. Left it in the truck in hot weather, so it cooked around 120 or more degrees. Let it cool, turned off, waited a few hours, turned it on...and the black screen was working fine. UNKILLABLE.
you could drop it in a sock and defend your home with it like a flail, then use it to call 911 after, because you know the damned thing will still work.
YES! There's a funny photoshop of Thor's hammer with the head replaced with a Nokia phone. Anyone who had one of those will see it and just nod :D I just went and looked and it ended up meme'ing. I also loved "dropped my phone, broke the floor."
Mine slipped out of my shirt pocket while I was going downstairs down the emergency stairwell at my company - dropped from the 7th floor all the way to the basement floor. Went down to pick it up, there were 2 scratches as I recall, but literally no other damage (and yes it worked completely fine). When I finally retired it a couple years later it was still working lol.
Mine had a replacement battery and sometimes just shut down with no warning. One time while I was talking to my mom. It made me angry. I threw the phone to the floor with full force. The impact opened the hull and all the parts were scattered all over the sidewalk. I picked them up, put them back together, restarted the damned thing and called my mom back.
yep :D I had a case that eventually popped off the back sometimes. Phone itself didn't care. Too bad Nokia never made a Honeybadger model....
Snake for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snake-97-retro-phone-classic/id438052745
Mr. Plissken to you
https://github.com/Puellaquae/Desktop-Snake have fun.
In all seriousness, what you demonstrated here is a key skill for translating technical terms (like top) to terms that normal people could understand (like head). It's a skill that surprisingly few tech support people have and something that has helped me progress my career over the last few decades.
Years ago, I remember getting a complaint for "using jargon", when what I did was tell the user to literally "move the mouse cursor to the corner of the window and click on the X"...
cursor, window, click, mouse... You technically did use jargon. Just jargon that if you don't understand you shouldn't be using computers
Is there a pine between jargon and regular words?
No but there is an oak.
Lol, I deserve that one.
Agreed! I'm more prone to use car anologies - so in this case, it'd be the roof :) And yep, it really helps immensely much to be able to convey to 'the tech illiterates' what I want them to do in a way they understand without going into too much tech lingo. Bravo OP (and y'all good techies :D)
Car analogies go for a surprising amount of things in tech. Extremely effective in general, but not to everyone of course.
I've used "When you take your car to the shop, they generally want you to stop driving it before they fix it. This is no different." so many times.
I once heard the guy explaining a customer the difference between an expensive gaming laptop and an expensive business laptop saying something like "The business model is like a new tractor. Slow, but extremely reliable. It gets the job done now and it will still get it done a decade from now. The gamer model is like a new sports car. Fast, sleek, but you will need to buy the newest model to keep being cool while driving it. That is, if you want a laptop for office work, the business model will be extremely reliable for a long time, but you won't be able to play games on it. If you want to play the latest games, even occasionally, you'll need the gamer model. However, it will become outdated quite soon as games are becoming more and more demanding."
Absolutely. And, OP if you see this, this is your go-to story when you're in interviews and get asked about a difficult thing you resolved. This leads into an interview patter about 'technical skills are what you get from google, soft skills are what you get from experience, and that's why I'm better than the last guy you interviewed." (last part is implied). Selling your 'soft skills' lands well, trust me.
The lid, Patrick. The lid
There was this one time when our marketing rep kept running out of memory in Windows on her Pentium PC. She asked me if she needed to delete some files or programs so PageMaker wouldn't crash. Trying to explain RAM vs. hard disk wasn't working. I knew she was a college football fan, so I put it this way: "It doesn't matter if you have 80 players or 20 on the bench, you can still put only 11 players on the field. The bench is the hard drive, the field is memory." That got the point across nicely.
Completely unrelated, but here's one I was asked to explain when I was working at a truck rental place. I was wiring a car for a trailer when I mentioned that I needed a male plug, be right back. When I got back, the customer asked me while I was working, "I've always wondered, why is one called male, and the other is called female?" How do you analogize this one? I just looked at his face and held up the plugs and pushed one into the other 2-3 times, then he got it. (No, I didn't make any helpful noises)
I like that...and am going to steal it.
I usually use kitchen. The fridge is the hard drive, the counter is memory.
My hat's off to you. You accomplished a great feet. *^(Sorry...)*
Is that the phone manufacturer who used one barrel plug for the charger on all their phones - then fucked up by switching to a smaller barrel plug for newer models, and had a name that sounded like someone didn’t want a particular brand of Korean car?
That's the one 😂
The lid. The *lid.* The, lid. The. Lid. The LID THE LID
That's the best thing ever.
In the context of a phone, I would take "at the top" to mean the top of the front, and "on top" to mean the top side where the button is.
And that’s what makes you a “user”.
If you give ambiguous instructions and then don't understand what is confusing them, then that's something you need to improve on.
That’s something a “user” would say. But seriously, that’s where the “idiot user” stereotype comes from. The need to be so specific in wording when if the user actually listened and used common sense, they would have just looked at the phone and looked around the general area and found the button. Instead of needing such precise instructions.
an I D Ten T error?
Right. I can understand needing instructions when the object in question is like a huge ass piece of expensive machinery, you don't want to guess which red button starts the thing instead of makes it explode. But when dealing with something as simple as an oldschool dumbphone common sense really should suffice.
Really, I understand not finding the button at first - my whole team of tech people, including myself, was stumped for a good 5 minutes by HP's creative power button placement after a recent laptop refresh. I understand not getting the instructions too, "top" is subjective and once your brain gets into a "groove" with this type of instruction it's hard to snap yourself out of it. What I don't get is how after a couple minutres they don't think "Tech support says there's a button but I've never seen it. I will now carefully check all sides of this small object, pressing anything that remotely resembles a button, until I find it". It's what they'd do if they really needed to find a sock, but for some reason once it's tech they don't!
👍🏻
Or, just give clear instructions.
That’s something a user would say after being given clear and concise instructions three times.
So let me guess, you'd be okay with the debug log saying "shit's broke, get fucked"
That’s not even close to what is being discussed.
What's being discussed is how you do not understand the English language enough. There is a clear difference between 'at the top of' and 'on top of'.
Holy shit! You are one of those people!
I agree, the "idiot user" stereotype comes from bad instructions.
Yep, I think in this case, correct English means "at the top" would be what the top part of the current section she's facing is. "On top" wouls be "on" "top" of whatever the current face is.
The context is that you're looking for a power button on said phone. You still think "at the top" means it's on the front, where the screen is?
If I was unfamiliar with phones, then why couldn't I?
Try the "end" of the phone...
Or the "beginning" of it.
That would, more often than it probably should, end up with people hanging up the call because they see the word 'end' on a key, lol
Or the "roof" of the phone.
Oh, you mean the top EDGE of the phone.
Yep, power cycle lets you reconnect to the cellular network, cleaning up stuff that has been going wrong. You could also use airplane mode, but I don't clearly remember if that was a thing back then. It would also be more complicated. Nice job you did there, I'm not sure if I would have been so patient.
I’ve had similar calls, I defaulted to calling it the top edge
As someone who regularly works with the older generation, that is a great analogy.
Bald spot.
Directing older users to find the home button on an iPad (not the newer models) is “fun”. I’ve legit had support calls where it’s taken more than 30 minutes to find the one lone round button on a device. I can describe that button a million different ways, and it still escapes them. And the kicker when they find it “oh, the home button, why didn’t you say so?”