Three weeks ago I was sitting in an internet cafe in Phnom Penh with a Khmer friend showing her how to use her yahoo email account. I was finding it hard to explain to her what to do, as its all so obvious to me. "just open the email".. she had no idea how to do that. We had a few sessions where I helped her open and reply to emails, and we uploaded her resume and made a folder for it.
She was amazed that I knew how to do all that stuff. "Do you know how to use facebook?" she asked me. When she found out I do she said "wow! so clever!"
Fast forward two weeks.....
Last week one of my team mates was showing us new staff how to use the office. He explained how to use the photocopier... including how to scan something to email to people. He seemed to assume that that was a basic thing that we all knew how to do, but I was totally weirded out. And apparently i can send things to print from from my laptop without even plugging anything in....
My previous relationship with photocopies is this: I need to copy something so i go to the photocopy shop. I try to explain in Khmer to the lady what I want done, and if the copier works, and the power is on, and its not raining, and she understood my Khmer, then I get my copying done. If not, i wait a day, or go to another part of town where the power is on.
I'd read about people coming back from overseas and finding the tech stuff had changed a lot, but I didn't really think I would find it weird, as we hear about lots of things via the net and cable TV, but I guess I haven't worked in an office before.
Another thing i found surprising was that it was assumed that i would have a laptop. It was "do you have access to a computer" but "bring your laptop". I do have one, but only cos Soeun can't use his old mac for what he needs to do, so I ended up using it.
Other random new things:
In Cambodia i always have my flash drive in my pocket, but i haven't even used it once here.
Since I started work a week and a half ago, people keep asking me (avrg 1 time per day) "Do you know what a google.doc is?"
2 comments:
no need to learn unless you're going to use it. I can do lots of stuff on computer -but I can't answer a mobile phone m
Wow lots of interesting things you need to learn. Its amazing the changing technology we take for granted in the working world. Even I, at times, feel very removed from a lot of it because I have no desire to take part. (I'm probably the last person on earth who doesn't have an iPhone.)
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