This week's On Call recounts a story from a reader known as 'Walter', a mechanical engineer from the 1980s who faced an unexpected tech support challenge. After purchasing a BBC Microcomputer, he was approached by his company's typing pool supervisor for help with their new mainframe-based word processing system, which had malfunctioned. Walter, with no IT training beyond his recent purchase, felt overwhelmed by the pressure and the complexity of the manuals, confronting the reality of his limitations in a high-stakes situation.
I could feel a panic attack settling in; I was being stared at by a dozen sets of pleading eyes wanting me to fix a giant lump of dead-in-the-water kit.
Even the mainframe's manuals were dauntingly large, and Walter despaired of being able to find a fix in their pages.
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