"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
09/10/2015 at 20:59 • Filed to: None
3
11|
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
09/10/2015 at 20:59 • Filed to: None | 3
| 11 |
My grandparents are all 90+ and having various health issues. Recently, my dad and aunt have had to swoop in and be more hands-on with their parents’ healthcare. This turned into a request for me to help them set up a shared calendar for my grandparents’ doctor appointments and such.
My aunt emailed me, my uncle, my dad, and her son (my cousin), asking if there’s some way that they can all coordinate appointments for my grandparents. I suggested they use Google Calendar, since they all have Gmail accounts. Create an event, invite the other people to the event, the end.
Then my dad said he wanted a shared calendar so they’re don’t have to constantly invite people to every event. Well lucky for me, Google makes it super easy to create shared calendars! I sent them !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with step-by-step instructions on how to create a shared calendar, and told them to read starting where it says “create a new calendar to share.”
I thought this would be enough help, what with the step-by-step instructions, but nooooo. My aunt asked if I could set it up for them, and then she could guilt trip her son or son-in-law who live near her, to come over to her house and show her how it works.
This is my aunt. I like to picture her making this face upon reading the instructions I sent her.
Come on aunt! I already sent you the step-by-step instructions! I explained that if I created the calendar, I’d get all the notifications from it on all my devices, and no offense but I don’t want to get reminders for my grandpa’s upcoming colonoscopy on my phone, tablet, personal laptop, and work PC.
I sent the same link, again, and pointed out that it has step-by-step instructions. I suggested that if my aunt isn’t comfortable following these instructions, my dad or uncle should create the calendar and invite her to it.
So that ended it, right? Nope! She still thought there was something that she’d have to rope someone into setting up for her. GAÀÁÂÄÃÅHHHHHHH!! There’s nothing to set up!
I figured I hadn’t explained exactly what getting invited to a shared calendar looks like, so I tried breaking it down as much as possible:
Let’s say (my dad) creates the calendar. When he does, he invites (aunt), (uncle), and (grandpa) to access it. He does this by entering your emails and giving each of those emails permission to edit the calendar.
Everyone who he invites, will get an email with a link to join the calendar, and once they click the link they will all have access to this shared calendar. All you have to do is click the link. There’s no other setup needed.
Now this is just far more detail than I feel like going into, but of course she couldn’t just say “ok got it,” because this conversation needs to go on and on and on and on.
OK....so what you’re saying is that even a technillerate like me should be able to do it?
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Yes, exactly. Once you click the link, you will be added to the shared calendar, and will be able to access it from any device which you get Gmail on.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
OK....we will see what we can do!
Somehow, I have a feeling this is not the last I’m going to hear about this damn shared calendar. Maybe next week she’ll ask me how to make the clock on her VCR stop blinking.
UPDATE: I emailed my dad directly and asked him to create the shared calendar and invite my aunt to it since she’s not getting it. He just replied to the main email thread that everyone’s on:
Okay. I’ll try this. Nothing to watch on TV now except the stupid Patriots game.
(My aunt and the rest of them live in Boston and have chowdah head accents.)
You go, dad!
UPDATE 2: My dad emailed my aunt and I to let us know he had successfully created the shared calendar. But he invited me to view the thing, so I could check and make sure he was using it right. But that auto-subscribed me to notifications for this shared calendar. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to be the one to create the thing in the first place. Dammit dad!
lonestranger
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 21:11 |
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Are we related? Your aunt sounds just like my aunt. Tech illiterate, and loves to keep the convo going on and on.
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lonestranger
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 21:14 |
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Grandma, did you plug the monitor in? No, Grandma, WiFi is something different.
ttyymmnn
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 21:19 |
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Dude. You’re hot.
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Textured Soy Protein
> ttyymmnn
09/10/2015 at 21:19 |
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This is a stock photo.
Spaceball-Two
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 21:30 |
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I like your dad.
-Seahawks fan
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Textured Soy Protein
> lonestranger
09/10/2015 at 21:31 |
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My mom is even worse than this. She holds people conversationally hostage. Whenever she calls me I try to tell her something else I have going on right at the beginning of the conversation in the hopes that she’ll keep it brief, but it never works.
The other day she called me to wish me a happy birthday, and I said I was heading out to the grocery store soon. She kept going and going and going, and even asked me to hand the phone over to my gf. She talked my gf’s ear off until finally I picked up the other handset (yay for landline) and said I needed to steal my gf away to go over the grocery list. Total conversation time: 41 minutes.
Svend
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 21:31 |
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I got roped in somehow by my family to visit an elderly guy across the round to sort out his problem he was having.
I said “okay, what’s the problem”
step father, “he can’t get the words to stop coming up on the tv screen”,
me, “you mean the subtitles?”,
step father, “ye’, that’s it, the subtitles”,
me, “well did you tell him to press the subtitles button on the remote control?”,
step father, “no, I said you’d go and see him”,
me, “well why didn’t you just say to him to press the button on the remote control. I’m working nightshift the next three nights and have to go and see him to press a ruddy button”,
step father, “just do it for your mum it’ll make her happy”,
me “fine”.
Well I forgot about it till a couple of days later when I saw a guy from the Sony Centre go to the door and then I thought, doh. The guy was in there for all of ten seconds.
I mentioned it to my mother and she went crazy that I couldn’t do one task for her (these one tasks amount to a never ending task), I forgot simple as, when she forgets I’m in the dog house for reminding her she’s forgotten something. FAMILY!
Frank Grimes
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 22:36 |
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I find it ironic when my parents tell me to do good in college and then I try to tell them to learn computers better and they just say.
WE CAN’T WE ARE OLD!!! WE DIDNT GROW UP USING COMPUTERS!!! WE ARE JUST NOT GOOD AT THIS TYPE OF THINGS!!!!
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Textured Soy Protein
09/10/2015 at 22:39 |
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Chowdah
Chowdare
Chow-dah
Chowdare
CHOW-DAH
Chowdare
Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
> Textured Soy Protein
09/11/2015 at 08:31 |
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This is how my parental tech support conversations go:
Phone rings. “Hi dad what’s up”
“I need help with xyz”
“Have you googled it?”
“No...”
“Go google it first”
I also recommend teamviewer so you can just do what you need to do without having to be there
Snuze: Needs another Swede
> Textured Soy Protein
09/16/2015 at 16:52 |
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My mom has some kind of “tech Alzheimers” that gets worse when other people are around. She’s not super good with the computer, but she uses it every day. She can browse the internet, get on FB, transfer pictures from her phone to her computer, open up Word documents, etc.
But if there’s something she needs help with, she will ask me, and this is how literally every instance of this goes..
Mom: “Mark, I need you to help me do something on the computer”
Me: “Sure Mom, what is it?”
Mom: “Well, I need to blah blah blah blah”
Me: “Ok, well first close out of your browser”
Mom: “What?”
Me: “Close your browser. The window thats on the screen right now. Just close it”
Mom: “Whats a browser? I don’t think I have that... Do I have that?”
Me: *blank stare* “Just close the open window”
Mom: “How do I do that?”
Me: “The same way you close a window every day when I’m not here?”
Mom: “Don’t get short with me!”
Me: “God dammit. Look, just close the window. And how can I be short with you when I’m taller than you?”
Mom: “Don’t talk to me like that! If I wanted this kind of help, I’d ask your father!!!”
Me: *Falls over dead laughing*