If so many of the menus weren’t PDFs, I think the overall idea wouldn’t get such a bad rap. But yeah around half of all restaurants still do it in my experience.
It’s remarkable how particular non-IT industries attract personalities that are more or less technically averse than others. Arts and media, retail, building contractors: generally quite competent. Lawyers, medical: usually pretty bad.
Restauranteurs: the most technically inept grandparent you’ve ever encountered, the one who insists that if they ever touch a mouse it will catch on fire, and then somehow proves it
Go look at hobby sites for hobbies that are heavily weighted towards the elderly. OMG.
It's way better now, but for a long time I would go to woodworking sites (before it was trendy), and if you got much past GeoCities level sites it was almost a miracle.
I remember helping an older relative. They said they needed my help ASAP because Dish network was coming because they deleted their account. Couldn't get any details. Eventually saw they simply deleted an email about their bill.
Only sorta related but I wonder why it seems so hard for some to adjust while others do just fine. It seems like it would make sense that "email is just like real mail, its just on a screen." Maybe the "infinite options" scare them a bit?
Honestly, I think it’s the “mysterious beige box.”
When I was a teen in the nineties, I was the go-to guy in the neighborhood for fixing computers (beats mowing lawns). One trick I figured out was, I could demonstrate something like plug in a RAM chip or CD-ROM drive, take the parts back out, and then tell them to do it.
Even though their problems were invariably software-driven (fcking windows), just having that hands-on experience — not much different from changing your oil — would usually be all it took. The fear would be gone.
It’s remarkable how particular non-IT industries attract personalities that are more or less technically averse than others. Arts and media, retail, building contractors: generally quite competent. Lawyers, medical: usually pretty bad.
Restauranteurs: the most technically inept grandparent you’ve ever encountered, the one who insists that if they ever touch a mouse it will catch on fire, and then somehow proves it