The Internet Not for Old People

Alien54 writes to tell us the Daily Mail is reporting that if you want an internet connection and you are over 70 you may be in for a surprise. From the article: "After walking the Great Wall of China and making plans for a trip to Russia, Shirley Greening-Jackson thought signing up for a new internet service would be a doddle. But the young man behind the counter had other ideas. He said she was barred - because she was too old."

Comments

Email

[PoprocksCk]

But the Internet is a prerequisite for email, which in turn is only for old people. I'm confused.

This is absurd!

[shrtcircuit]

The amount of old-people porn on the Internet will dwindle rapidly if the old codgers are prevented from signing up for broadband!

FREE THE GERIATRICS! Bottles of Ensure and Cable Modems for ALL!

Re:Done b/c of complaints

[Elemenope]

Rarely is it that rules exist for no reason, but this one is kind of like the king whose subjects suffered from paper cuts, so as a solution he banned all the books.

Re:Done b/c of complaints

[Anonymous Coward]

So apparently they want younger (and probably more technical) people to read the contract so the 70+ people know what they're getting. Stupid, but it's not a rule without a reason.

Maybe if you need a "younger" person with you to read the fine print in the contract, maybe the problem isn't with being over 70, maybe the problem is too much fine print.

Re:Another idea

[pilkul]

You're right, let's just shoot anyone with an IQ below 120.

You haven't quite thought this through. As median cognitive ability goes up as a result of all this shooting, more and more people will drop under the 120 IQ line until we finally end up killing everybody.

why would HE be reprimanded?

[deft]

He's following company policy. He works there... it is not his problem, it's the companies.

Thats like getting mad at the cashier because your Big Mac went up 20 cents. I assure you he doesn;t set policy.

Re:why would HE be reprimanded?

[KingSkippus]

He's following company policy. He works there... it is not his problem, it's the companies.

He's a representative of the company. Even if he doesn't personally set the policy, that doesn't make him any less legitimate a target of one's anger. I have friends who feel the incessant need to explain to cashiers are other service reps, "I understand you're just doing your job, but..." That's silly.

Companies hire these kinds of people specifically for the purpose of you getting mad at them so that, if they're lucky, you won't do something that might bother the higher-ups. So feel free to cuss and fuss to your heart's content, that's what they're there for. (And yes, I used to be one of them, and until very recently, part of my job involved appeasing angry people.)

Of course, by the same logic, one should also realize that other than as a cathartic release, fussing and cussing at these people doesn't do any good, because like I said, part of their job is to make sure your ranting ends with them and doesn't bother the people-in-charge. If you do want to make a difference, you'll have to figure out some way to go around these paid bullet-takers to get to the people who actually can make some sort of difference. If they get bothered enough, believe me, the policy will change.

At my job, when people did go over my head or otherwise around me and my boss got bothered, guess what. Whoever's problem that was suddenly became my top priority, whether it was legitimate or not. And if someone went over my boss's head or otherwise went around him, well, I'll leave it to you to imagine just how much attention the problem got.

In an ideal world, if you fuss and cuss at the lowly service rep, what he should do is report to his manager that this customer is very mad and feels like this is a very important problem. If his manager gets enough of these types of complaints, he'd report it to his boss, and it would eventually propagate to someone who sees a pattern of people getting very angry at the service reps, which impacts the company's bottom line, and would make a change. Unfortunately in today's corporate society, what happens more often than not is that the service rep's feedback isn't seen as the constructive feedback that it is, and the rep gets fired for making a stink instead of just keeping his damn mouth shut, so the service reps just sit on these types of problems instead.

A couple of years later, when the company's stock price has tanked because everyone has figured out what lousy customer service they have, the board of directors sits around in a meeting scratching their heads over why things are going so badly, and they end up laying a bunch of people off, thinking that somehow solves their problem.

*shrug* Welcome to the corporate world at work!

Re:why would HE be reprimanded?

[Duds]

So it's ok to treat people with no control over things like shit because you have a self-esteem problem.

Gotcha.

Re:why would HE be reprimanded?

[supersocialist]

You might have a point when you get up to store managers, but even they have very limited power in a lot of chain stores. The wage slave actually manning a register only has any kind of power if the store is run by a reasonable manager, and all you do by yelling at some poor kid is vent your frustrations and get a black mark like "URINATES ON DVDS--DO NOT RENT!!!" on your account.

For that matter, all you get out of talking about policy with peon-level clerks is maybe some sympathetic "uh huhs" and "okays" but the policy won't change and the best they can do is fetch a manager to make an exception in your case--this probably won't happen if you're rude about it. Most of the time, regardless of how calm you remain, all you'll do is hold the clerk up while lines build, other work piles up, and he has to stand there, all smiles, pretending he really, really cares why you think you should be exempt from the policies that are set well over his head.

Seriously, if you're angry enough to make some high school girl behind the register cry over your abuse, take it to the manager. You can even ask to see the manager in your scariest, angriest voice if it makes you feel better about yourself. A store manager may have the power to help you, if they want to, and they're probably seasoned enough to take a little abuse--tell you to fuck off when you well deserve it.

This shit is why I miss washing dishes. The only customers I hated then were the ones with gum.

Re:Discriminating against the wrong group

[SpecialAgentXXX]

You apparently haven't been to MySpace. Young people add a great deal of value to the Internet.

Makes Sense to Me

[fuzznutz]

After all. Who wants them poking along on the Internet, slowing everybody down with the left blinker on?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[davidwr]

Appearently they'd sold service to a few people who didn't need it who also happened to be 1) old and 2) unable or unwilling to read and/or understand the fine print.

The solution is to
1) make the fine print bigger, say, newsprint-size.
2) make the fine print easier to understand, say, newspaper-reading-level.
3) go over the fine print with every customer to make sure they understand it.

After all, if companies can find a way to sell a 70-year-old a reverse morgtage without getting complaints, surely they can figure out a way to sell internet services.

Re:Another idea

[ZachPruckowski]

The point is that you shoot about 80% of the people, then when the score is renormalized, another 80% of the population gets shot, then you repeat. Ultimately, you get to one person with an IQ of exactly 100 (the only guy alive, thus perfectly average) who shoots himself.

Re:I've been here too long...

[Anonymous Coward]

What an increidble bad idea. Internet doesn't kill people, wheres is my freedom if I'm not allowed to use Internet? Why not extend your "wonderful" idea to knifes, regulate the ability to have babies...and control every potencially dangeous aspect of your life? Why are people allowed to walk in the street? They may cause accidents!

You're just mad because you'd fail the test.

Nonsense

[jmenon]

Hey everybody, lay off the old people, okay?

My grandmother is 88 years old and is an active and intelligent Internet user. She bought her first computer at the age of 77 and has upgraded it twice since then. She walks into the computer store and the salespeople try to steer her toward little useless beginner machines, until she straigtens them out and tells them the specs she needs.

She uses scanners and digital cameras, and does almost everything a normal Internet user does. Email is still the best way to reach her.

For people who pride themselves for being on the cutting edge, a lot of your opinions on this issue are retrograde to say the least. Welcome to the 1960s, everyone.

Witness the misery caused by AOL dropping dialup

[wsanders]

This is all because AOL dropped dialup service. (Could you ever get it in the UK? There must have been an equivalent.)

My cousins conspired against me and gave my mother a computer last winter. Now she is calling me with questions like "how do I get the email into the computer?" and "Do I have to plug the computer in for it to work?" I TOLD her not to sign up for broadband but she did anyway and has had it for six months and never AFAIK seen a single web page or sent a single email.

If I had the time I would develop a Linux liveCD "GrandpaOS". (Knoppix and the ilk come close but still have too many bells and whistles.) Instead, I will give all my cousins' small children drum sets next Christmas.