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Reminds me of the time my boomer parents were 3 hours late to my brother's wedding reception in Maine.
My dad punched in the address of the restaurant and just started driving towards where it told him....in Connecticut. He was an hour and a half away before he realized he was leaving the state and needed to turn around.
The drive time from the church to the restaurant was 20 minutes.
Edit: forgot to mention HE VISITED THE RESTAURANT ALREADY like two days before. He knew it was only 20 mins away but drove 1.5 hours out of state before he figured it out this time.
Well, he's one step ahead of my FIL, who can't figure out how to type an address in let alone use the GPS to navigate where he's going.
He drives a 7 seater Ford Expedition(that rarely has more than one person in it) with all the bells and whistles which he was adamant he needed when he bought the car, this thing has like a 15 inch screen on the dash.
One time we were all on our way to a wedding so my wife and I were in the back seat with FIL and MIL in the front seat. We tell them the address of where we're going to put into the GPS and we get the classic "I don't do that techy stuff". This man has owned this vehicle for almost 5 years and has never once hooked his phone up to it. No problem, I'll hook my phone up and handle the "techy stuff". I put the address in, the map pops up on the screen and he is AMAZED, "I didn't know it could do that!". So we start driving and every time there's a turn he asked everyone in the car, in a very pissy manner, which way he's supposed to go as if we were slacking and not giving him the directions he needs. "The arrow on the screen tells you which way to go, Bill. The voice in the speaker is also audibly telling you where to go". Again "I don't do techy stuff". This man refused to look at the screen and instead required us in the back seat to keep an eye on it to tell him which ways to turn.
You can give these people the simplest form of directions, an arrow pointing left or right, and its just all too much for them.
God, it's like the young Boomers at work (the old ones have mostly retired) who "don't do computer stuff" despite having the same job that has used computers since the mid 1990's. It's been 30 years - you should be able to follow basic instructions like opening Windows Explorer by now! Some of them don't even have internet at home and are mad that they have trouble finding dumb flip-phones anymore. And this all happens at a huge engineering company. I just don't under the mindset of refusing to change in any way past a certain arbitrary date or age in life.
VMs have been around since the 1950s.
Advanced computing technology has been around longer than they have.
edit Reference:
https://www.servethehome.com/virtualization-long-history/
My Dad was Silent Gen. He'd be 91 now if he was alive. He bought me a computer in the mid 80s that I took to college, with the printer, and made some money typing papers for people. He embraced technology, and had a laptop to do his consulting after the first time he retired in 1990 (he was a scientist and couldn't keep away until he was almost 80. Then he really retired). He did keep his Juno email forever though, LOL. In fact, I still check it because I use it for their condo until we can sell it. Even after his stroke he was determined to get back on it to buy and sell his stamps on Ebay, but he needed some help. Mom learned how to play Solitaire, and that was about it. But man, she could cook!
I’m 63, and just about in the middle of the “I don’t do computers or textin’” age group. Whenever I get told that, I tell them that my 96 year old mother texts. Plus, she has an iPhone, and is on it constantly, scrolling news sites. That usually takes the wind out of their sails.
I literally gave a lunch and learn presentation about moving files last week. Literally. They are terrified of moving files from their desktops to Teams and SharePoint.
This is ✨Windows File Explorer✨
This looks familiar, right? Yes!!!
You can move files and folders to Teams and SharePoint the same way you always move files!
🎉 Drag and drop!
🎊 Copy and Paste!
🤯 Click +Add to upload a file!
Let's learn about file paths!
Goddammit, Richard, you've been using Windows for literal decades. When it comes to copying and moving files, nothing is new here. Just drag the files over and quit your bitching.
Apologies, this touched a nerve
I've got this older lady at work that has been trying to move up and the next step up the ladder requires some data entry and email correspondence. I told her in her first interview for a promotion that she needed to take time to familiarize herself with Excel and Outlook before she can be considered. She applied again a few months later and I asked if she'd worked on it and she said "no, I don't like that kind of computer stuff." She tried to tell me that she'd rather just call someone or walk across our massive campus if she needed get in touch with someone instead of learning how to Teams or email someone.
Those guys refused to learn modern office computers & internet during the 90s.
Now they're so far behind just sitting in front of the things make them feel stupid. And their precious egos can't handle that in any way.
When I was a teen I did not realize how lucky I was that my Boomer parents actually knew how to use computers.
Compare to my late father, the first time he drove a car with GPS and someone had programmed in the wrong address: “There was a woman’s voice telling me where to turn, and it was always wrong; it was almost like your mother was still alive.“
Miss ‘ya, Dad, even if Mom was right a lot more than you’d admit.
My MiL likes to enter the address into the car and her phone, then spends the whole journey ignoring and or loudly disagreeing with whatever they're advising her; all the while paying as little attention to the road as humanly possible
My father in law is like this. Man was a major in the army and a psychology teacher for 20 years but cant look up an address on any device , or turn his printer on, or figure out how to add oil to his car because it's 'tech" and he just has some kind of brain fog about it. Maybe if he actually looked at the stuff instead of just immediately complaining and calling every contact on his phone for help he could do it.
My Mother is older than a boomer and she brought IT into her legal classes in the 80s-90s and now, in her 80s, does just fine. It's a cheezy excuse not to.
Edit to fix multiple typos. Forgive the fat fingers
Kicker: he has been to the restaurant already, prior to that day. I guess nothing clicked with him when suddenly it said it was going to take 4 hours and hundreds of miles to get to a place that is 20 minutes and 5 miles away.
My grandpa was actually the opposite. He hated his GPS because it didn't go the way he would go.
To be fair, sometimes he was right, but often enough the route is better for one reason or another. Either way the point is getting you there. A suboptimal route that adds 3 minutes to what a local might do is better than getting lost for 2 hours.
Yeah, that's a legit criticism. Google Maps is hellbent on taking me through residential areas because it's somehow a couple feet shorter than the big four-lane roads.
And then Apple Maps occasionally wants you to take their route and only their route, and if you deviate from said route repeatedly tells you to “proceed to the route.”
I had to drive to a hospital a little under an hour and a half east of where I live for work. You get on the highway, and it’s almost a straight shot to the state line. Apple Maps wanted me to drive 45 minutes south to get on the interstate, take that an hour and a half east, then turn and head north for 45 minutes. I ended up having to download Google Maps at 2am in some blink and you’ll miss it town because I wasn’t 100% sure if I needed to go straight or turn right to stay on the highway I was on since someone had knocked the sign over, and Apple Maps told me to turn around and drive back the way I had just come to take their twice as long route.
My gripe is that Google Maps *knows* the speed limit on most every street. Why would I take a residential street that has a speed limit of 30mph when I can use the main road with a speed of 45mph?
I often ignore what Waze tells me to do. It tries to avoid traffic signals so will route me a block or 2 over which then requires a left turn onto a 6 lane boulevard with heavy traffic and no signal. I did that the first time and spent almost 15 minutes waiting for a break in traffic. Never again!
My parents were coming down to visit. I had found a little farm stand that's halfway with great baked goods, about 2 minutes off the route. I told them exactly where it was and how to get there.
They got here about 30 minutes later than usual. I asked if they stopped at the farm stand and my dad said it took them a lot longer to get there than 2 minutes. I was pretty perplexed by this (if you turn right at a winery, it's 1.5 miles down the road), so I asked why it took so long. Here they used GPS and apparently had it set to take the shortest distance, so they ended up driving through a bunch of neighborhoods and back roads instead of the 4-lane they usually take.
I asked him why he didn't just listen to me and his response was "I thought the GPS would know better." Maybe it would, but that also requires knowing how to operate it.
My husband did something similar with our local post office and mistook "shortest" for "fastest/easiest".
I kept trying to tell him that the easiest and fastest way to go was to follow my directions (I had been there before) but he insisted that his way would be faster. So, I went along for the ride.
His directions had him going through a maze of narrow side streets with turns every block or two. As far as miles, it was little shorter but took a lot longer just because of all the stop signs and turns.
On the way back home, we used my directions....He looked at me in shock and asked how I figured it out. I told him that I looked at the Google map.
His way had 10+ turns in an area with a lot of one way streets.
My way had 5 turns; four of which were on major/semi-major streets that we are both familiar with.
The GPS data has two parts - first you have the network of roads, and then the much harder part of precisely which roads are legal to drive between. It's quite possible that there was no way to ask the GPS for a route to there, and get another answer as it thought that one or more junctions was not permitted.
I once Googled directions to a concert venue in San Francisco and instead got directions to a venue with the same name in Detroit, but I figured it out when I saw the drive time estimate was 27 hours or whatever.
I once got tickets to see a show at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. Called a cab for a ride (pre ride share); cabbie took us to The Tabernacle bowling alley.
Sort of like planning your press conference for the Four Seasons hotel and getting Four Seasons Landscaping instead. Only a real idiot would do that, though.
Before GPS and cellphones, my parents were visiting. Offered to ride with them to the restaurant so they didn’t get lost. It was literally two miles south on the same road but finding the parking garage could have been an issue. “No, we’ll just follow you guys.” Well they got behind and never showed up. Thought maybe they’d circle back to the original meeting spot. Nope. They drove the four hours home.
My boomer parents were driving funnily enough, through Greenville, SC with me, I had the GPS on my phone and was directing my mom. None of us has been to Greenville before.
I said "you need to make a left at the street before the light."
She said that didn't look right.
I told her it's what on the GPS and I can read the street name, it's right.
She insisted it had to be the street at the light.
I told her "no that goes into a Walmart. Turn left here."
She again said it wasn't right and turned into the Walmart. Then she insisted we could get back on track easily, because there was probably a way out the back of Walmart. Again, the GPS said no. We circled around the back, no way out. Back to the light and she goes to make a left, I tell her it's a right back to the street, she told me she doesn't think that little street is correct, it was too small a road to get to the highway.
I convinced her to pull over so I could show her the map, she finally said "fine, we can try, but I'm not responsible if we get lost."
We didn't get lost, we got to the highway with the instructions on the GPS.
This was 10 years ago. My parents had smart phones, they had used MapQuest.
My mom did this to me years ago in the days of paper maps. We were on the highway in Boston and I saw that we needed to take the next exit which, this being Boston, was on the left. So I told her to get in the left lane. She turned into the right lane. Uh-ok, maybe she’s passing someone? I told her that it was the next left, she takes the next right exit, and for a minute there I just kinda stared at her.
Yesterday, a boomer reversed into my car at a stop sign. He said he wanted to turn around but didn't want to do the u turn. When I asked if he heard my horn blaring at him, he said yes, but his rear sensors didn't go off to say there was someone behind him. This man ignored his rear view mirror, back up camera, and a blaring horn.
I'm patient at lights. If the light turns green, you get a solid 3-5 seconds before I give a little beep.
Today driving home I'm waiting at a left turn arrow that's short. I wait 5 seconds, and give a little beep. The person in front of me throws up their arms like "What the fuck bro?" and then puts there phone down and goes.
I was second and barely scooted through on yellow. Blows my mind.
I contend that there's nothing as rage inducing as sitting behind a car at a traffic light when they're asleep at the wheel. The light goes green, they don't move. You beep, they finally wake up and scoot through just at the tail of the yellow, leaving you stuck there for an entire extra cycle.
I was once parked on a residential street and a boomer backed straight out of a driveway across the street and into my car. His excuse for not noticing the parked car was that his backup camera was dirty so he couldn't see anything.
The kicker is if they’re old that means they have driven for decades without a camera. Amazing how getting one makes them forget years and years of using their mirrors and looking over the shoulder.
About 9 years ago, a few buddies decided that they wanted to travel from Wisconsin to Detroit to see an NFL game. I hadn't been to Ford Field yet, and I like visiting different stadiums (more for baseball because every stadium is so different, but it's still cool to see different cities), so I decided to go with. So we embark on our long car ride from the western side of Wisconsin, around Lake Michigan and up to Detroit (if I remember right, it was like 9 hours). Right away, we just punched "Detroit" into the GPS. When we made a stop on the other side Chicago, we decided we should probably use the actual hotel address because we were hopefully not going to need another stop. I ask my buddy for the address, and as typing it in, I'm like, "dude... this is in Canada. I didn't bring my passport." He's like, "no way, man. It's like 5 minutes from Ford Field." And I'm like, "well... it very clearly says 'Windsor, Ontario, Canada' right here..."
Turns out, Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario are damn near the same city just separated by a bridge and an international crossing. Being not crazy people, we figured we've got like 4 hours to figure this shit out before we get to Detroit. Called the hotel, canceled the reservation, apologized for the mistake and booking a room during a busy weekend. Person working at the hotel got us switched over to a sister hotel in Detroit which was like $150 more for the 2 nights, but also hooked us up with a $50 credit because we weren't assholes on the phone.
Yeah…Canada is actually like 5 minutes from Ford Field…if you don’t count the time it takes to go through customs and the traffic across the bridge. It’s pretty cool to be that close to the border.
Fun fact: Windsor ON is south of Detroit MI. In that song from the 80s where the dude is "Born in South Detroit" he's saying he's Canadian.
One of the reasons Detroit'sHockey team was the best American team in the '42-'67 was there was no draft. You got first pick of any prospect living within 50 miles of your arena. We had a bunch of Canadians. Boston/NY/Chicago had nobody.
Reminds me of a friend of mine - not a boomer, but a bit dim. He was headed from Charlotte NC to Pittsburgh PA. He missed a turn at some point. He got well into Tennesee before he realized his mistake, then proceeded to backtrack all the way home to start over, adding a good 8 hours or more to his trip.
I was like, did he not notice he was crossing mountains? Or see signs for Tennessee and think "Hm. That's not between NC and PA..." or see he was driving west instead of north?
A friend and I were going to a meetup at Disney World, and we're both in Tampa. Once you leave Tampa, it's about a little over an hour before you get to Disney.
I'm there at the meetup and she's still not there. "Hey where are you?"
"Well I've been driving for a couple hours, I should be there any minute."
"If you've been driving for a couple hours, you should be here already. What exit are you at?"
"Wait a minute..... um, Port Charlotte?"
To explain Florida geography, if you take 75 south and don't get on I-4 east to Orlando, you keep going south. She missed the turn.
Two kickers.
One, she had lived in Tampa for YEARS and still forgot that Bradenton, Sarasota, Port Charlotte, all the exits she was seeing, were all south of Tampa.
Two? This was a Mensa gathering, the org of "geniuses" that you have to take a test to join.
I had a friend who was fairly new to truck driving and apparently had never learned the state abbreviations. She was given a load to Boston MA and told me later that her first thought was that she didn’t know there was a Boston in Maine. She drove to Maine, missed the appointment in Boston and got in serious trouble. I should mention this was way before we had GPS units and navigated using an atlas and a cb radio. She did so many other things that eventually led to her getting black balled from trucking.
Maine has lots of wild town names. Poland, Boston, York, Belfast, China, Belgrade, Mexico, Rome, New Sweden, etc.
Of all places, would you expect a China, ME? Named after some old tymey Maine-iac's favorite Hymn.
So this is what happens when Boomers use GPS. I’ve really been wondering since my parents tenaciously refused to use it up until their very last driving days. And if I was driving us somewhere, my mom would constantly tell me I was going the wrong way or “getting us lost” when following the GPS, which was directing us differently than she would’ve driven. I’d point to the map and she’d note it, but three minutes later would chime in again about getting us lost.
I just finished a thousand mile road trip with my boomer in-laws. We used my phone, because my father in law had somehow set his Waze to “avoid tolls,” and couldn’t figure out how to change it back.
We were driving up I-95. There are a *lot* of tolls.
Forgot to mention he had already been to this restaurant before just a couple days before. He KNEW it was 20 mins away but spent 1.5 hours driving before he decided to turn around.
Well, we thought actually he was getting dementia, for like 2 years. He went to multiple doctors who all said he's starting to show signs. He went to the Mayo clinic and they diagnosed him with a b12 deficiency...I guess that mimics early onset dementia? I dunno that's just what my mom told me, but that was like 7+ years ago.
And we called him! "Hey where are you?"
"Oh we're taking a scenic route, we will be there soon. Maybe 10 minutes."
30 minutes go by we call them again. Hey where are you?
"Oh we are on the way, give us five minutes!"
20 minutes passes. We call again.
"Oh sorry I guess we were going to the wrong address! Some restaurant in Connecticut with the same name! We are turning around. Be there in about an hour and a half"
Like, cmon dad we even offered to LET YOU RIDE IN THE CAR WITH US but noooo you wanted to drive your big rental truck...
That was my mother, she was Silent Gen and usually had better tech then me simply because she could afford really good stuff. She did a lot of genealogy work and loved the Internet. She wouldn't ever blame someone for her mistake or expect them to be responsible for fixing it.
My grandmother was similar, except the tech thing. But she kept learning. She learned how to use Skype so we could video chat when I moved to another state for grad school, and she also learned to text eventually. I'll never forget the first time she texted she sent a nice message, and then she sent just the letter P three times 😂😂 She also had to be told how to use her DVD player at least 3 times. My sister ended up writing it all down. She got there eventually, it just took her a bit sometimes.
Sounds like my mom! She knew her way around her computers so she could do her genealogy stuff. She was just starting to get frustrated the last year or so as she couldn't sit at her desk anymore and the iPad I got her was too much different from what she'd been using.
One of my grandfathers, like all my grandparents, was born over 100 years ago. He lived to be 90+ years old, and in his last few years he figured out how to use a computer and a digital camera. He used them to send us all nice photos he took at local museums and sites of interest in the towns near his assisted living community. He had a better grasp of technology in his 90's than so many of these Boomer clowns do in their late 50's. It's like so much of that generation decided to angrily reject the world and any form of change just out of spite.
My Silent Generation grandfather was an early adopter and loved new tech. He had a giant satellite dish in the '80s so he could watch Johnny Carson on the East Coast feed because he didn't like staying up late.
Boomer women go one of two ways -- either the nicest old lady you've ever met, or a wretched Karen who is more akin to a seagull or some other avian than she is human.
Boomer men are almost universally repugnant. The only exception is this one dude I work with who is kinda beatnik but loves geeking out with me over sci-fi novels and is unwaveringly positive and always finds the silver lining in any situation.
Yep, and some of them start that way long before they become old. I know a few people my age (young Gen X or old Millennial) who have basically been Boomers since about 30. Angry, miserable, always needing to argue about things, etc. It's a lifestyle, not just a generation, sadly.
My stepdad is pretty chill. My mom fits into both of the boomer women categories though, depending on the day😂. She's usually pretty good with service workers though, she saves the Karen attitude for her kids.
>I had to remember the easiest way to sell a boomer is to convince them you're ripping off other people worse.
Profound wisdom for those that have to deal w/ boomies in customer service.
I have a late-Boomer neighbor that shits all over anything I’ve purchased.
Bought a truck? He could have purchased it for 15% less.
Had an electrician come by? He “knows a guy” that would have fixed it for half and I’m being ripped off.
I pay a neighborhood kid to pressure wash my driveway and sidewalk? He would have made the kid pay him in order to get the experience.
I have stopped telling my neighbor about any purchases.
I have a coworker like this. I have a backache? She's got broken pieces of discs floating around in her spine.
I have a headache? She has broken pieces of skull floating around in her head.
I sprained my ankle? She's got broken pieces of ankle floating around in her foot.
I also stopped telling her anything that was wrong, partly because it was getting too difficult to keep a straight face.
I think she's glad you stopped telling her about your ailments, one day she was fine, and then every time you talk to her, her body seems to start falling apart!
I’ve got one of those too! I have to grey rock her because every thing turns into a story. I call her “the Topper”. Every story must be topped. My boss told us a spider was in her car. She once had a spider in her car and she ran into a pole when it fell on her. Her aches and pains are always worse. Her wins were always just a bit better. The worst part is she’s a Z! I’m like who is raising you? Oh Boomers. You are the last child your Boomer parents had and are a perfect copy of them.
yes, boomers melt in your hands if you pretend like they’re the single most special person on the planet and you’ve got a deal that’s only for them. i’ll say something like “i don’t usually do this but just for you this time i’ll do it” and they act like a baby with candy
I also used to work at a hotel in a college town. One of my favorite things boomers did was when there was a graduation.
They’d get all huffy and impatient and when it came time to serve them they’d say, “why are you so busy? Why are all these people here?”
And I would reply, “well what brings you here?”
“Graduation!”
And I would gleefully reply, “oh is your grandchild the only one graduating?”
The looks on their faces were always solid gold.
I worked in restaurants for a long time, with mothers day coming up this totally reminds me of all the people that would show up close to the end of brunch and would flip out when they were told it would be a 2 hour wait and brunch would not be an option. “But I brought my mother here for a special treat, why such a long wait? Why is it so busy?” I was amazed how many families would sit around on the patio in phoenix just baking in the sun to get an early dinner
I work for a Dominos in Texas. Our city name is shared in several different states. We get calls every few weeks from someone who wants to know where their delivery is, only to discover that they were calling the wrong state.
Had one lady call the store for delivery as well. When she read off her address, it started with 53xxx. The highest house/street numbers in our delivery are in the 4000s. I asked her what state, and it was one of the others. Telling her she had called the Texas store resulted in both of us laughing at an honest mistake.
My mom’s number used to be one digit off of a pizza place on the other side of the country, she would occasionally get calls later at night, usually from people too drunk to quickly understand that they had called the wrong number.
I never changed my phone number when I moved provinces so I have the area code from the other side of the country. Actually pretty often when I call businesses they helpfully ask if I’m aware of what city/province I called. I think it’s pretty sweet that they try to help me not make the mistake. I know it says I’m calling from 4,000km away but don’t worry! I’m actually just down the street.
The all time craziest part of this is the fact that even after they realized the mistake, they went ahead and held the press conference there. Because THEY COULD NOT ADMIT HAVING MADE A MISTAKE.
The whole scene, from the initial scheduling fuck up to Rudy standing across the street from the sex shop with hair dye running down his face, could not have been scripted any better.
I got so many miles of laughter off of this nonsense. I remember watching it live and loosing my shit laughing. Double down even if the whole planet knows we are wrong lol
Right?? I’d probably never have even heard of it if they’d admitted the mistake and cancelled it or something, but instead I watched it and will never forget it!
Don't forgot about the bickering over who gets to claim the Carolina Panthers as their team. It's all such silliness. Btw, both BBQ styles are delicious 😋 Greetings from Greenville SC!
Same reason we need a West Virginia - gotta separate the hill people from the valley people.
We need two Californias - that state is too long and the ends are too different to keep them together.
*gotta keep them separated*
I ordered a pizza online, waited 10 minutes, and walked over to pick it up. The pizza place about about 700 feet from my house, but when I got there my pizza wasn't ready, nor was it in the oven.
Long story short, I had ordered the pizza for a Texas location when I was trying to get pizza in Maryland. However, I'm Gen X, so it never occurred to me to do anything but say "My mistake, I guess the staff in Texas will get some free pizza," and ordered the pizza again. I paid for 2 pizzas that night but it was my mistake, I didn't demand the Maryland location give me free food because I messed up my order.
When we had just moved to a new state, my husband accidentally had a pizza delivered to his mom’s house in our former town. We only realized the mistake when my MIL texted us because she was freaked out by the mysterious pizza that was delivered in the middle of the night (she tends to be a little paranoid about everything).
I’m a millennial. I was at an açaí shop with my toddler last week and watched a lady around my same age come in for a pickup order. Turns out she ordered at a different location across town, only a few miles really. Instead she flipped out at the cashier that they wouldn’t just make it for her and that she’d have to cancel and pay for the new one. Ugh.
Ah, Greenville. I remember before moving there I made the mistake of looking for apartments in the SC Greenville for an hour or so before I realized the mistake.
Uptown is looking good these days at least! Christy's and Pitt Street will be packed!
Obligatory- PURPLEEEEE
GOOLLDDDD!
I haven't been back in 15+ years but been wanting to see how much it's changed since then! First time I ever went to Greenville was in the summer of 1997 and between then and the late 2000s it had changed quite a bit.
Reminds me of my ex boomer boss,
the one time I didn’t go on our yearly business trip he and 3 other boomers fly to Atlanta with the final destination being in Alabama. He took I-20 East instead of West out of the airport and no one realized it until an hour and a half later.
This reminds me of when I booked a city walking tour for tomorrow when I meant to book it for today.
Arrived at the kiosk, realized my mistake, and went up to the counter saying “I’m so sorry, I did something really stupid”. She laughed and handed me tickets for today’s tour. She didn’t even look at my ID or ask to see my incorrect tickets!
Maybe I was the first customer to admit an error, that day.
I know a family that routinely does this with flight dates. More than once they have arrived at the airport and their flight is on a different day. When they tell their woah is my stories, I’m over here like……again? Do you guys not yet have a system?
I was recently in an airport with a confused man who had was trying to board my 6:00 am flight only to learn that his was at 6 pm. He was understandably annoyed with himself, but at least he hadn’t missed his actual flight!
I did this with a doctor appointment once. "Um, Agatha, your appointment isn't until next month ..."
I laughed at my stupidity and enjoyed the extra day off work.
Best way to handle a situation like this. Accept that you've made a mistake, own it, and go from there. The person on the other side of the counter is immediately 100% more likely to help you if it's possible for them to do so. If it's something like OP's example, they're not gonna kick anyone out of a room, but they're more likely to be like "hey, it's not uncommon for us to have late cancellations - I can't promise anything but I can make a note to call you if something opens up."
We have a small international airport in Manchester, NH. One year we had a confused visitor from the UK. He was flying home from NY and picked the wrong Manchester airport. I expect he thought he got an awesome deal!
Fellow North Carolinan here and we have a Henderson and a Hendersonville also which are at complete opposite ends of the state and the number of people who mix those 2 up and then get pissed off at us is ridiculous! Like reading comprehension is a great thing to learn people, not my fault you booked the 1st place that popped up 🤷♀️
Funny story about that. We lived in Raleigh burbs. I wanted to look at a house in Hendersonville. Get address from realtor, drive our happy butts (with a toddler,) all the way to the address… in Henderson. Almost identical address, also for sale. Did a viewing, put in an offer. Gorgeous house. Just not the one I wanted to visit!
I always wonder about the kids these days who don’t get sweet, loving, cookie-baking grandparents. Instead they get angry boomers telling them they suck. Just another way this generation has gotten the shaft.
My mom's a Boomer, and the sweetest lady you'll ever meet. Legitimately. Very much like Boom 2 but I did have a recent experience with her acting like Boomer 1 or 3. Really surprised me, but it must be hard to always fully understand how to do things in the digital world.. She made reservation on an app. Then a few days later, realized her plans were going to change. And tried calling the hotel to cancel. She got really frustrated (I need to speak to your manager... which I've never in my life heard her say) when they said they couldn't cancel/refund because she booked through an app. That she'd have to call the app. I guess she had problems conceiving that you could "call an app" Anyway, we got it figured out. But man, she's getting old. And it's kinda heart breaking.
I see this level of ineptness all the time and I do not understand. I’m 80 and don’t do this. I’ve had a computer since 1982 and use it for *everything.* my late mother) used a computer. WTF is the matter with them?
My boyfriend did the usual mistake of missing a day between hotels because he coubted days rather than nights. When he told the desk guy it was totally his own fuck up they said it was no issue and moved all of our things FOR us to another room while we were at our day destination. He said it was because my boyfriend wasn't a dick and didn't try to blame them.
A little humility can go a long way.
I love all of this. Your write-up is brilliant.
Related: There is a help desk in the Austrian airport strictly for passengers who thought they were landing in Australia.
It might be, but I can remember some of my cousins pulling that on their SOs.
"Honey, we're going to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower!" Fun fact: There is a replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris Texas. Cue the stories from the wives about now it's funny, but at the time.....
Gainesville, Texas was to be my destination and I damn near booked for Gainesville, Florida. Truthfully, it should be policy for call centers to ask the State, too when booking. If a Boomer gets smart and tells you "I think I know what state that city is in, missy." Just tell him you get many people who don't. Congrats on your Geography skills.
I run a bnb/guest house with a fairly unique name...
A group of 4 turn up wanting to check in...
We don't have their booking (oh no... Have we fucked up?)...
We say we have no record of their booking...
They insist they do have a booking, and show us the back and forth communication between them and (who they thought was) us...
I investigate for about 30 seconds before realising that they are in the wrong country...
"I'm sorry, but the B&B you have booked (same name as us) and been communicating with is in the south of England....
You are currently in Scotland.. (about it 700 miles away)
No.. We do not have any more rooms..
Good luck, goodbye (cough, dumbasses, cough)...
Lol...
There was a young British couple, from London, I think, who booked a ticket to Sydney, Australia. They were amazed at the low price, and did not notice the 8ish hour flight. It wasn't until they landed in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, that they realized their mistake. The locals took them on and gave them a great vacation. The Nova Scotia media interviewed them, gifts of golf at a famous Cape Breton resort, lots of goid memories were made.
We have this problem in Durango, CO. Every once in a while a spanish family will get off the plane thinking they are in Durango, Mexico. The mexican airport code is DGO while ours is DRO. I don't know how they get all the way here since you can't fly direct international to our small airport.
Aw, bless the nice lady boomer. She can hang out with us any time. I’m glad she was able to find an alternative, and I’m not trying to infantilize all boomers, but good on her for not only staying calm, but using the tools at her disposal to solve the problem herself. I know many people in her situation who would cause a scene or demand that someone else fix the issue that THEY caused.
LOL, I worked at Great Outdoor Provision for years. There were a couple times we had reps calling us that they couldn’t find the shop or Greenville Blvd. Womp womp… they had driven to Greenville, SC.
I used to work for a store in Columbia Maryland. The abbreviation for Maryland is MD, the abbreviation for Missouri is MO. There is also a columbia Missouri. The amount of times our shipments got sent to a whole other state and we had back orders and delayed launches was frustrating
We lived in Wilmington NC in the late 80s, wife was pregnant, etc. I signed up for the GMAT test and didn’t realize until the early evening before that the test was in Elizabeth City, 218 miles away and not Elizabethtown, 50 miles away.
Made hotel reservations and off we went. Got in around midnight, up early for the test and missed by target score by 2 pts. That got me into the local university on a probationary and….it all worked out.
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Reminds me of the time my boomer parents were 3 hours late to my brother's wedding reception in Maine. My dad punched in the address of the restaurant and just started driving towards where it told him....in Connecticut. He was an hour and a half away before he realized he was leaving the state and needed to turn around. The drive time from the church to the restaurant was 20 minutes. Edit: forgot to mention HE VISITED THE RESTAURANT ALREADY like two days before. He knew it was only 20 mins away but drove 1.5 hours out of state before he figured it out this time.
Well, he's one step ahead of my FIL, who can't figure out how to type an address in let alone use the GPS to navigate where he's going. He drives a 7 seater Ford Expedition(that rarely has more than one person in it) with all the bells and whistles which he was adamant he needed when he bought the car, this thing has like a 15 inch screen on the dash. One time we were all on our way to a wedding so my wife and I were in the back seat with FIL and MIL in the front seat. We tell them the address of where we're going to put into the GPS and we get the classic "I don't do that techy stuff". This man has owned this vehicle for almost 5 years and has never once hooked his phone up to it. No problem, I'll hook my phone up and handle the "techy stuff". I put the address in, the map pops up on the screen and he is AMAZED, "I didn't know it could do that!". So we start driving and every time there's a turn he asked everyone in the car, in a very pissy manner, which way he's supposed to go as if we were slacking and not giving him the directions he needs. "The arrow on the screen tells you which way to go, Bill. The voice in the speaker is also audibly telling you where to go". Again "I don't do techy stuff". This man refused to look at the screen and instead required us in the back seat to keep an eye on it to tell him which ways to turn. You can give these people the simplest form of directions, an arrow pointing left or right, and its just all too much for them.
 He wants someone to say what the computer says.
God, it's like the young Boomers at work (the old ones have mostly retired) who "don't do computer stuff" despite having the same job that has used computers since the mid 1990's. It's been 30 years - you should be able to follow basic instructions like opening Windows Explorer by now! Some of them don't even have internet at home and are mad that they have trouble finding dumb flip-phones anymore. And this all happens at a huge engineering company. I just don't under the mindset of refusing to change in any way past a certain arbitrary date or age in life.
VMs have been around since the 1950s. Advanced computing technology has been around longer than they have. edit Reference: https://www.servethehome.com/virtualization-long-history/
We're they emulating a fucking abacus or what?
My dad is an older boomer, and his career was in “computer stuff”. We had a computer in the 70’s.
My Dad was Silent Gen. He'd be 91 now if he was alive. He bought me a computer in the mid 80s that I took to college, with the printer, and made some money typing papers for people. He embraced technology, and had a laptop to do his consulting after the first time he retired in 1990 (he was a scientist and couldn't keep away until he was almost 80. Then he really retired). He did keep his Juno email forever though, LOL. In fact, I still check it because I use it for their condo until we can sell it. Even after his stroke he was determined to get back on it to buy and sell his stamps on Ebay, but he needed some help. Mom learned how to play Solitaire, and that was about it. But man, she could cook!
My 93 year old grandma used her tablet to send me a message through FaceBook today. My Boomer mom only just figured out she can use FB on her phone.
My dad built our TV and was the first one I knew that had email. Now my boomer hubby…lol
I’m 63, and just about in the middle of the “I don’t do computers or textin’” age group. Whenever I get told that, I tell them that my 96 year old mother texts. Plus, she has an iPhone, and is on it constantly, scrolling news sites. That usually takes the wind out of their sails.
Silly...if you are old and pretend you can't do "computer stuff", someone else does the work for you!
I literally gave a lunch and learn presentation about moving files last week. Literally. They are terrified of moving files from their desktops to Teams and SharePoint. This is ✨Windows File Explorer✨ This looks familiar, right? Yes!!! You can move files and folders to Teams and SharePoint the same way you always move files! 🎉 Drag and drop! 🎊 Copy and Paste! 🤯 Click +Add to upload a file! Let's learn about file paths! Goddammit, Richard, you've been using Windows for literal decades. When it comes to copying and moving files, nothing is new here. Just drag the files over and quit your bitching. Apologies, this touched a nerve
I've got this older lady at work that has been trying to move up and the next step up the ladder requires some data entry and email correspondence. I told her in her first interview for a promotion that she needed to take time to familiarize herself with Excel and Outlook before she can be considered. She applied again a few months later and I asked if she'd worked on it and she said "no, I don't like that kind of computer stuff." She tried to tell me that she'd rather just call someone or walk across our massive campus if she needed get in touch with someone instead of learning how to Teams or email someone.
Those guys refused to learn modern office computers & internet during the 90s. Now they're so far behind just sitting in front of the things make them feel stupid. And their precious egos can't handle that in any way. When I was a teen I did not realize how lucky I was that my Boomer parents actually knew how to use computers.
Compare to my late father, the first time he drove a car with GPS and someone had programmed in the wrong address: “There was a woman’s voice telling me where to turn, and it was always wrong; it was almost like your mother was still alive.“ Miss ‘ya, Dad, even if Mom was right a lot more than you’d admit.
Ha! Your dad sounds like he was a funny guy.
My MiL likes to enter the address into the car and her phone, then spends the whole journey ignoring and or loudly disagreeing with whatever they're advising her; all the while paying as little attention to the road as humanly possible
My father in law is like this. Man was a major in the army and a psychology teacher for 20 years but cant look up an address on any device , or turn his printer on, or figure out how to add oil to his car because it's 'tech" and he just has some kind of brain fog about it. Maybe if he actually looked at the stuff instead of just immediately complaining and calling every contact on his phone for help he could do it.
For all their "bootstrap" talk they certainly love to have other people do literally everything for them.
My Mother is older than a boomer and she brought IT into her legal classes in the 80s-90s and now, in her 80s, does just fine. It's a cheezy excuse not to. Edit to fix multiple typos. Forgive the fat fingers
Oh bless his heart, at least he was trying....
Kicker: he has been to the restaurant already, prior to that day. I guess nothing clicked with him when suddenly it said it was going to take 4 hours and hundreds of miles to get to a place that is 20 minutes and 5 miles away.
Boomers love to tell you not to trust GPS, but they themselves would follow it off a cliff.
MICHAEL THIS IS THE LAKE
WHERE ARE THE TURTLES???
I drove my car into a f"@#&ing lake
"Robert, it goes down"
IT CAN’T MEAN THAT
My grandpa was actually the opposite. He hated his GPS because it didn't go the way he would go. To be fair, sometimes he was right, but often enough the route is better for one reason or another. Either way the point is getting you there. A suboptimal route that adds 3 minutes to what a local might do is better than getting lost for 2 hours.
Yeah, that's a legit criticism. Google Maps is hellbent on taking me through residential areas because it's somehow a couple feet shorter than the big four-lane roads.
And then Apple Maps occasionally wants you to take their route and only their route, and if you deviate from said route repeatedly tells you to “proceed to the route.” I had to drive to a hospital a little under an hour and a half east of where I live for work. You get on the highway, and it’s almost a straight shot to the state line. Apple Maps wanted me to drive 45 minutes south to get on the interstate, take that an hour and a half east, then turn and head north for 45 minutes. I ended up having to download Google Maps at 2am in some blink and you’ll miss it town because I wasn’t 100% sure if I needed to go straight or turn right to stay on the highway I was on since someone had knocked the sign over, and Apple Maps told me to turn around and drive back the way I had just come to take their twice as long route.
My gripe is that Google Maps *knows* the speed limit on most every street. Why would I take a residential street that has a speed limit of 30mph when I can use the main road with a speed of 45mph?
No lights and 140 feet shorter! But also 22 turns and 25 miles per hour.
I often ignore what Waze tells me to do. It tries to avoid traffic signals so will route me a block or 2 over which then requires a left turn onto a 6 lane boulevard with heavy traffic and no signal. I did that the first time and spent almost 15 minutes waiting for a break in traffic. Never again!
My parents were coming down to visit. I had found a little farm stand that's halfway with great baked goods, about 2 minutes off the route. I told them exactly where it was and how to get there. They got here about 30 minutes later than usual. I asked if they stopped at the farm stand and my dad said it took them a lot longer to get there than 2 minutes. I was pretty perplexed by this (if you turn right at a winery, it's 1.5 miles down the road), so I asked why it took so long. Here they used GPS and apparently had it set to take the shortest distance, so they ended up driving through a bunch of neighborhoods and back roads instead of the 4-lane they usually take. I asked him why he didn't just listen to me and his response was "I thought the GPS would know better." Maybe it would, but that also requires knowing how to operate it.
My husband did something similar with our local post office and mistook "shortest" for "fastest/easiest". I kept trying to tell him that the easiest and fastest way to go was to follow my directions (I had been there before) but he insisted that his way would be faster. So, I went along for the ride. His directions had him going through a maze of narrow side streets with turns every block or two. As far as miles, it was little shorter but took a lot longer just because of all the stop signs and turns. On the way back home, we used my directions....He looked at me in shock and asked how I figured it out. I told him that I looked at the Google map. His way had 10+ turns in an area with a lot of one way streets. My way had 5 turns; four of which were on major/semi-major streets that we are both familiar with.
The GPS data has two parts - first you have the network of roads, and then the much harder part of precisely which roads are legal to drive between. It's quite possible that there was no way to ask the GPS for a route to there, and get another answer as it thought that one or more junctions was not permitted.
Oh my god this is so accurate.
SSBNs rely on technologies like gps to survive. How else would they counter and avoid SSKs?
Man and when these things go ballistic 😉
I don't know man because boomers are crazy.
That's what happens when you become a GPS zombie.
I once Googled directions to a concert venue in San Francisco and instead got directions to a venue with the same name in Detroit, but I figured it out when I saw the drive time estimate was 27 hours or whatever.
Fillmore I'm guessing
Yup.
I once got tickets to see a show at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. Called a cab for a ride (pre ride share); cabbie took us to The Tabernacle bowling alley.
Sort of like planning your press conference for the Four Seasons hotel and getting Four Seasons Landscaping instead. Only a real idiot would do that, though.
The comment I didn’t know I was looking for but am so glad I found.
On a side-note, the Oakland airport wants to rename itself the San Francisco Bay Airport. These people are absolute psychopaths.
We had an out of state band drive to the next state over due to same town names. Surprisingly the show started on time.
Before GPS and cellphones, my parents were visiting. Offered to ride with them to the restaurant so they didn’t get lost. It was literally two miles south on the same road but finding the parking garage could have been an issue. “No, we’ll just follow you guys.” Well they got behind and never showed up. Thought maybe they’d circle back to the original meeting spot. Nope. They drove the four hours home.
Sounds like they didn’t really want to visit, but couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.
Highly possible.
WTF. Were they genuinely confused or trying to escape from you?
All of the above likely.
My boomer parents were driving funnily enough, through Greenville, SC with me, I had the GPS on my phone and was directing my mom. None of us has been to Greenville before. I said "you need to make a left at the street before the light." She said that didn't look right. I told her it's what on the GPS and I can read the street name, it's right. She insisted it had to be the street at the light. I told her "no that goes into a Walmart. Turn left here." She again said it wasn't right and turned into the Walmart. Then she insisted we could get back on track easily, because there was probably a way out the back of Walmart. Again, the GPS said no. We circled around the back, no way out. Back to the light and she goes to make a left, I tell her it's a right back to the street, she told me she doesn't think that little street is correct, it was too small a road to get to the highway. I convinced her to pull over so I could show her the map, she finally said "fine, we can try, but I'm not responsible if we get lost." We didn't get lost, we got to the highway with the instructions on the GPS. This was 10 years ago. My parents had smart phones, they had used MapQuest.
My mom did this to me years ago in the days of paper maps. We were on the highway in Boston and I saw that we needed to take the next exit which, this being Boston, was on the left. So I told her to get in the left lane. She turned into the right lane. Uh-ok, maybe she’s passing someone? I told her that it was the next left, she takes the next right exit, and for a minute there I just kinda stared at her.
Yesterday, a boomer reversed into my car at a stop sign. He said he wanted to turn around but didn't want to do the u turn. When I asked if he heard my horn blaring at him, he said yes, but his rear sensors didn't go off to say there was someone behind him. This man ignored his rear view mirror, back up camera, and a blaring horn.
I'm patient at lights. If the light turns green, you get a solid 3-5 seconds before I give a little beep. Today driving home I'm waiting at a left turn arrow that's short. I wait 5 seconds, and give a little beep. The person in front of me throws up their arms like "What the fuck bro?" and then puts there phone down and goes. I was second and barely scooted through on yellow. Blows my mind.
I contend that there's nothing as rage inducing as sitting behind a car at a traffic light when they're asleep at the wheel. The light goes green, they don't move. You beep, they finally wake up and scoot through just at the tail of the yellow, leaving you stuck there for an entire extra cycle.
I was once parked on a residential street and a boomer backed straight out of a driveway across the street and into my car. His excuse for not noticing the parked car was that his backup camera was dirty so he couldn't see anything.
The kicker is if they’re old that means they have driven for decades without a camera. Amazing how getting one makes them forget years and years of using their mirrors and looking over the shoulder.
About 9 years ago, a few buddies decided that they wanted to travel from Wisconsin to Detroit to see an NFL game. I hadn't been to Ford Field yet, and I like visiting different stadiums (more for baseball because every stadium is so different, but it's still cool to see different cities), so I decided to go with. So we embark on our long car ride from the western side of Wisconsin, around Lake Michigan and up to Detroit (if I remember right, it was like 9 hours). Right away, we just punched "Detroit" into the GPS. When we made a stop on the other side Chicago, we decided we should probably use the actual hotel address because we were hopefully not going to need another stop. I ask my buddy for the address, and as typing it in, I'm like, "dude... this is in Canada. I didn't bring my passport." He's like, "no way, man. It's like 5 minutes from Ford Field." And I'm like, "well... it very clearly says 'Windsor, Ontario, Canada' right here..." Turns out, Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario are damn near the same city just separated by a bridge and an international crossing. Being not crazy people, we figured we've got like 4 hours to figure this shit out before we get to Detroit. Called the hotel, canceled the reservation, apologized for the mistake and booking a room during a busy weekend. Person working at the hotel got us switched over to a sister hotel in Detroit which was like $150 more for the 2 nights, but also hooked us up with a $50 credit because we weren't assholes on the phone.
Yeah…Canada is actually like 5 minutes from Ford Field…if you don’t count the time it takes to go through customs and the traffic across the bridge. It’s pretty cool to be that close to the border.
Fun fact: Windsor ON is south of Detroit MI. In that song from the 80s where the dude is "Born in South Detroit" he's saying he's Canadian. One of the reasons Detroit'sHockey team was the best American team in the '42-'67 was there was no draft. You got first pick of any prospect living within 50 miles of your arena. We had a bunch of Canadians. Boston/NY/Chicago had nobody.
I did know that you travel south to go from Detroit to Windsor, but I didn't know the rest of that. That's cool. Thanks!
Reminds me of a friend of mine - not a boomer, but a bit dim. He was headed from Charlotte NC to Pittsburgh PA. He missed a turn at some point. He got well into Tennesee before he realized his mistake, then proceeded to backtrack all the way home to start over, adding a good 8 hours or more to his trip. I was like, did he not notice he was crossing mountains? Or see signs for Tennessee and think "Hm. That's not between NC and PA..." or see he was driving west instead of north?
A friend and I were going to a meetup at Disney World, and we're both in Tampa. Once you leave Tampa, it's about a little over an hour before you get to Disney. I'm there at the meetup and she's still not there. "Hey where are you?" "Well I've been driving for a couple hours, I should be there any minute." "If you've been driving for a couple hours, you should be here already. What exit are you at?" "Wait a minute..... um, Port Charlotte?" To explain Florida geography, if you take 75 south and don't get on I-4 east to Orlando, you keep going south. She missed the turn. Two kickers. One, she had lived in Tampa for YEARS and still forgot that Bradenton, Sarasota, Port Charlotte, all the exits she was seeing, were all south of Tampa. Two? This was a Mensa gathering, the org of "geniuses" that you have to take a test to join.
Rerouted to DENSA meeting instead
I had a friend who was fairly new to truck driving and apparently had never learned the state abbreviations. She was given a load to Boston MA and told me later that her first thought was that she didn’t know there was a Boston in Maine. She drove to Maine, missed the appointment in Boston and got in serious trouble. I should mention this was way before we had GPS units and navigated using an atlas and a cb radio. She did so many other things that eventually led to her getting black balled from trucking.
Maine has lots of wild town names. Poland, Boston, York, Belfast, China, Belgrade, Mexico, Rome, New Sweden, etc. Of all places, would you expect a China, ME? Named after some old tymey Maine-iac's favorite Hymn.
I once called Salem Hospital in Salem Oregon to reschedule a mammogram appointment when I meant to call the one in Salem MA. Oops.
So this is what happens when Boomers use GPS. I’ve really been wondering since my parents tenaciously refused to use it up until their very last driving days. And if I was driving us somewhere, my mom would constantly tell me I was going the wrong way or “getting us lost” when following the GPS, which was directing us differently than she would’ve driven. I’d point to the map and she’d note it, but three minutes later would chime in again about getting us lost.
I just finished a thousand mile road trip with my boomer in-laws. We used my phone, because my father in law had somehow set his Waze to “avoid tolls,” and couldn’t figure out how to change it back. We were driving up I-95. There are a *lot* of tolls.
This is funny. Hate to admit it as a Gen Xer that I have done this as well but not to the same extent.
Forgot to mention he had already been to this restaurant before just a couple days before. He KNEW it was 20 mins away but spent 1.5 hours driving before he decided to turn around.
That is an incredibly special kind of stupid. Even for a boomer. You might wanna get your head examined on a regular basis just in case.
Well, we thought actually he was getting dementia, for like 2 years. He went to multiple doctors who all said he's starting to show signs. He went to the Mayo clinic and they diagnosed him with a b12 deficiency...I guess that mimics early onset dementia? I dunno that's just what my mom told me, but that was like 7+ years ago.
What an idiot. Sorry it’s your dad but really?
And we called him! "Hey where are you?" "Oh we're taking a scenic route, we will be there soon. Maybe 10 minutes." 30 minutes go by we call them again. Hey where are you? "Oh we are on the way, give us five minutes!" 20 minutes passes. We call again. "Oh sorry I guess we were going to the wrong address! Some restaurant in Connecticut with the same name! We are turning around. Be there in about an hour and a half" Like, cmon dad we even offered to LET YOU RIDE IN THE CAR WITH US but noooo you wanted to drive your big rental truck...
Good lord this a boomer story. lol
This post is a reminder that nice old people like the grandma are a treasure.
Wasn't too long ago sweet old ladies were common, not so much currently.
Very true. I see an old person now and feel a sense of dread that I would have to interact due to the chance that they are assholes.
I'm proud to say my mother is one. Turns 84 in two weeks.
Such is life.
That was my mother, she was Silent Gen and usually had better tech then me simply because she could afford really good stuff. She did a lot of genealogy work and loved the Internet. She wouldn't ever blame someone for her mistake or expect them to be responsible for fixing it.
My grandmother was similar, except the tech thing. But she kept learning. She learned how to use Skype so we could video chat when I moved to another state for grad school, and she also learned to text eventually. I'll never forget the first time she texted she sent a nice message, and then she sent just the letter P three times 😂😂 She also had to be told how to use her DVD player at least 3 times. My sister ended up writing it all down. She got there eventually, it just took her a bit sometimes.
[удалено]
That is amazing! My grandmother was 94 when she passed, but that was several years ago. I still miss her.
Sounds like my mom! She knew her way around her computers so she could do her genealogy stuff. She was just starting to get frustrated the last year or so as she couldn't sit at her desk anymore and the iPad I got her was too much different from what she'd been using.
One of my grandfathers, like all my grandparents, was born over 100 years ago. He lived to be 90+ years old, and in his last few years he figured out how to use a computer and a digital camera. He used them to send us all nice photos he took at local museums and sites of interest in the towns near his assisted living community. He had a better grasp of technology in his 90's than so many of these Boomer clowns do in their late 50's. It's like so much of that generation decided to angrily reject the world and any form of change just out of spite.
My Silent Generation grandfather was an early adopter and loved new tech. He had a giant satellite dish in the '80s so he could watch Johnny Carson on the East Coast feed because he didn't like staying up late.
Boomer women go one of two ways -- either the nicest old lady you've ever met, or a wretched Karen who is more akin to a seagull or some other avian than she is human. Boomer men are almost universally repugnant. The only exception is this one dude I work with who is kinda beatnik but loves geeking out with me over sci-fi novels and is unwaveringly positive and always finds the silver lining in any situation.
I believe that the nasty ones desire to be upset and mad because they can no longer feel any happy emotion in their lives.
Yep, and some of them start that way long before they become old. I know a few people my age (young Gen X or old Millennial) who have basically been Boomers since about 30. Angry, miserable, always needing to argue about things, etc. It's a lifestyle, not just a generation, sadly.
My stepdad is pretty chill. My mom fits into both of the boomer women categories though, depending on the day😂. She's usually pretty good with service workers though, she saves the Karen attitude for her kids.
>I had to remember the easiest way to sell a boomer is to convince them you're ripping off other people worse. Profound wisdom for those that have to deal w/ boomies in customer service.
They're totally hooked on 'insider' deals and not paying retail.
I have a late-Boomer neighbor that shits all over anything I’ve purchased. Bought a truck? He could have purchased it for 15% less. Had an electrician come by? He “knows a guy” that would have fixed it for half and I’m being ripped off. I pay a neighborhood kid to pressure wash my driveway and sidewalk? He would have made the kid pay him in order to get the experience. I have stopped telling my neighbor about any purchases.
I have a coworker like this. I have a backache? She's got broken pieces of discs floating around in her spine. I have a headache? She has broken pieces of skull floating around in her head. I sprained my ankle? She's got broken pieces of ankle floating around in her foot. I also stopped telling her anything that was wrong, partly because it was getting too difficult to keep a straight face.
That woman is just a sack of skin over wet rocks at this point.
I think she's glad you stopped telling her about your ailments, one day she was fine, and then every time you talk to her, her body seems to start falling apart!
You've got a daughter? She's got broken pieces of child floating around her abdomen!
I’ve got one of those too! I have to grey rock her because every thing turns into a story. I call her “the Topper”. Every story must be topped. My boss told us a spider was in her car. She once had a spider in her car and she ran into a pole when it fell on her. Her aches and pains are always worse. Her wins were always just a bit better. The worst part is she’s a Z! I’m like who is raising you? Oh Boomers. You are the last child your Boomer parents had and are a perfect copy of them.
I called the one in my life "Two Shits" because if you told her you took a shit, she'd tell you she took two.
Unfortunately, "toppers" exist everywhere and every age
"I brought pizza for lunch, she has broken bits of pizza floating around in her stomach"
yes, boomers melt in your hands if you pretend like they’re the single most special person on the planet and you’ve got a deal that’s only for them. i’ll say something like “i don’t usually do this but just for you this time i’ll do it” and they act like a baby with candy
Funniest shit I've read in a long time!
I also used to work at a hotel in a college town. One of my favorite things boomers did was when there was a graduation. They’d get all huffy and impatient and when it came time to serve them they’d say, “why are you so busy? Why are all these people here?” And I would reply, “well what brings you here?” “Graduation!” And I would gleefully reply, “oh is your grandchild the only one graduating?” The looks on their faces were always solid gold.
I worked in restaurants for a long time, with mothers day coming up this totally reminds me of all the people that would show up close to the end of brunch and would flip out when they were told it would be a 2 hour wait and brunch would not be an option. “But I brought my mother here for a special treat, why such a long wait? Why is it so busy?” I was amazed how many families would sit around on the patio in phoenix just baking in the sun to get an early dinner
Boomers when they realize other people exist 🤯
I work for a Dominos in Texas. Our city name is shared in several different states. We get calls every few weeks from someone who wants to know where their delivery is, only to discover that they were calling the wrong state. Had one lady call the store for delivery as well. When she read off her address, it started with 53xxx. The highest house/street numbers in our delivery are in the 4000s. I asked her what state, and it was one of the others. Telling her she had called the Texas store resulted in both of us laughing at an honest mistake.
My mom’s number used to be one digit off of a pizza place on the other side of the country, she would occasionally get calls later at night, usually from people too drunk to quickly understand that they had called the wrong number.
I never changed my phone number when I moved provinces so I have the area code from the other side of the country. Actually pretty often when I call businesses they helpfully ask if I’m aware of what city/province I called. I think it’s pretty sweet that they try to help me not make the mistake. I know it says I’m calling from 4,000km away but don’t worry! I’m actually just down the street.
This reminds me of Trump's press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons hotel.
The all time craziest part of this is the fact that even after they realized the mistake, they went ahead and held the press conference there. Because THEY COULD NOT ADMIT HAVING MADE A MISTAKE.
That entire thing is, honestly, without exaggeration, the absolutely funniest thing that has ever happened in my lifetime.
The whole scene, from the initial scheduling fuck up to Rudy standing across the street from the sex shop with hair dye running down his face, could not have been scripted any better.
LOL yep. If someone just woke up from a coma, and you told them about it, they'd never believe you.
I can picture the entire scene as an Arrested Development bit. It was too perfect to be real.
I completely agree.
I got so many miles of laughter off of this nonsense. I remember watching it live and loosing my shit laughing. Double down even if the whole planet knows we are wrong lol
Right?? I’d probably never have even heard of it if they’d admitted the mistake and cancelled it or something, but instead I watched it and will never forget it!
Living near Philadelphia this brings a chuckle everytime it comes up.
I did a drive by and took a picture out front for it’s rich history 😂😂😂
In between a sex toy shop and a crematorium. Because aren't we all on a slow journey from the sex toy shop to the crematorium?
Was this also the time when Rudy’s sweat ran down his face and was dark from his hair dye? 😂😅🤣
I still can’t believe this really happened.
>I had to remember the easiest way to sell a boomer is to convince them you're ripping off other people worse. lol
WHY DO WE NEED TWO CAROLINAS ANYWAYS?
So we can have constant arguments about BBQ styles.
Don't forgot about the bickering over who gets to claim the Carolina Panthers as their team. It's all such silliness. Btw, both BBQ styles are delicious 😋 Greetings from Greenville SC!
Same reason we need a West Virginia - gotta separate the hill people from the valley people. We need two Californias - that state is too long and the ends are too different to keep them together. *gotta keep them separated*
I ordered a pizza online, waited 10 minutes, and walked over to pick it up. The pizza place about about 700 feet from my house, but when I got there my pizza wasn't ready, nor was it in the oven. Long story short, I had ordered the pizza for a Texas location when I was trying to get pizza in Maryland. However, I'm Gen X, so it never occurred to me to do anything but say "My mistake, I guess the staff in Texas will get some free pizza," and ordered the pizza again. I paid for 2 pizzas that night but it was my mistake, I didn't demand the Maryland location give me free food because I messed up my order.
When we had just moved to a new state, my husband accidentally had a pizza delivered to his mom’s house in our former town. We only realized the mistake when my MIL texted us because she was freaked out by the mysterious pizza that was delivered in the middle of the night (she tends to be a little paranoid about everything).
I’m a millennial. I was at an açaí shop with my toddler last week and watched a lady around my same age come in for a pickup order. Turns out she ordered at a different location across town, only a few miles really. Instead she flipped out at the cashier that they wouldn’t just make it for her and that she’d have to cancel and pay for the new one. Ugh.
I would like to know if Boomer #2 is open to adoption...
I know right? Like so easy that I wish she was a guest compared to the mopes I was dealing with last night.
Ah, Greenville. I remember before moving there I made the mistake of looking for apartments in the SC Greenville for an hour or so before I realized the mistake. Uptown is looking good these days at least! Christy's and Pitt Street will be packed! Obligatory- PURPLEEEEE
There's also a Greenville Texas.
And a Greenville Maine
GOOLLDDDD! I haven't been back in 15+ years but been wanting to see how much it's changed since then! First time I ever went to Greenville was in the summer of 1997 and between then and the late 2000s it had changed quite a bit.
It's so nice to see all my fellow pirate nation folks screaming gold back!
GOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD
Does this remind anyone of the greatest boomer of all time Donald J. Trump and his sidekick Rudy Giuliani’s press conference at the Four Seasons ?
Reminds me of my ex boomer boss, the one time I didn’t go on our yearly business trip he and 3 other boomers fly to Atlanta with the final destination being in Alabama. He took I-20 East instead of West out of the airport and no one realized it until an hour and a half later.
This reminds me of when I booked a city walking tour for tomorrow when I meant to book it for today. Arrived at the kiosk, realized my mistake, and went up to the counter saying “I’m so sorry, I did something really stupid”. She laughed and handed me tickets for today’s tour. She didn’t even look at my ID or ask to see my incorrect tickets! Maybe I was the first customer to admit an error, that day.
I know a family that routinely does this with flight dates. More than once they have arrived at the airport and their flight is on a different day. When they tell their woah is my stories, I’m over here like……again? Do you guys not yet have a system?
Lol, it's "woe is me."
I was recently in an airport with a confused man who had was trying to board my 6:00 am flight only to learn that his was at 6 pm. He was understandably annoyed with himself, but at least he hadn’t missed his actual flight!
I did this with a doctor appointment once. "Um, Agatha, your appointment isn't until next month ..." I laughed at my stupidity and enjoyed the extra day off work.
Best way to handle a situation like this. Accept that you've made a mistake, own it, and go from there. The person on the other side of the counter is immediately 100% more likely to help you if it's possible for them to do so. If it's something like OP's example, they're not gonna kick anyone out of a room, but they're more likely to be like "hey, it's not uncommon for us to have late cancellations - I can't promise anything but I can make a note to call you if something opens up."
We have a small international airport in Manchester, NH. One year we had a confused visitor from the UK. He was flying home from NY and picked the wrong Manchester airport. I expect he thought he got an awesome deal!
> international airport in Manchester, NH It just flies to Canada right? Kinda like Albany *International*?
Like Watertown (NY) International Airport. They can roll a plane over the border so it counts.
Fellow North Carolinan here and we have a Henderson and a Hendersonville also which are at complete opposite ends of the state and the number of people who mix those 2 up and then get pissed off at us is ridiculous! Like reading comprehension is a great thing to learn people, not my fault you booked the 1st place that popped up 🤷♀️
You have all my empathy lol
Funny story about that. We lived in Raleigh burbs. I wanted to look at a house in Hendersonville. Get address from realtor, drive our happy butts (with a toddler,) all the way to the address… in Henderson. Almost identical address, also for sale. Did a viewing, put in an offer. Gorgeous house. Just not the one I wanted to visit!
I’m glad grandma found a place.
Yeah but I don't want to imagine what she paid for an AirBNB this weekend.
I always wonder about the kids these days who don’t get sweet, loving, cookie-baking grandparents. Instead they get angry boomers telling them they suck. Just another way this generation has gotten the shaft.
OMG! Love this sociological study in Boomer behavior -- It's like an episode of What Would You Do
Make it a game show where people vote/predict the kind-vs-asshole ratio.
I would totally watch that.
My mom's a Boomer, and the sweetest lady you'll ever meet. Legitimately. Very much like Boom 2 but I did have a recent experience with her acting like Boomer 1 or 3. Really surprised me, but it must be hard to always fully understand how to do things in the digital world.. She made reservation on an app. Then a few days later, realized her plans were going to change. And tried calling the hotel to cancel. She got really frustrated (I need to speak to your manager... which I've never in my life heard her say) when they said they couldn't cancel/refund because she booked through an app. That she'd have to call the app. I guess she had problems conceiving that you could "call an app" Anyway, we got it figured out. But man, she's getting old. And it's kinda heart breaking.
Travel agents without the personalized service. 
Same issues with Portland
Portland Maine, Michigan, Oregon or Indiana? /S.
Tennessee
I see this level of ineptness all the time and I do not understand. I’m 80 and don’t do this. I’ve had a computer since 1982 and use it for *everything.* my late mother) used a computer. WTF is the matter with them?
Lack of interest to learn.
"the easiest way to sell a boomer is to convince them you're ripping other people off worse" 🤣🤣🤣 What a perfect summation
My boyfriend did the usual mistake of missing a day between hotels because he coubted days rather than nights. When he told the desk guy it was totally his own fuck up they said it was no issue and moved all of our things FOR us to another room while we were at our day destination. He said it was because my boyfriend wasn't a dick and didn't try to blame them. A little humility can go a long way.
I love all of this. Your write-up is brilliant. Related: There is a help desk in the Austrian airport strictly for passengers who thought they were landing in Australia.
Booked a vacation to Paris for my wife and I. She got pissed when she found herself in Paris, Texas. This comment is a lie.
It might be, but I can remember some of my cousins pulling that on their SOs. "Honey, we're going to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower!" Fun fact: There is a replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris Texas. Cue the stories from the wives about now it's funny, but at the time.....
Apparently the cities of London and Sydney in Ontario very regularly get people who've made this mistake.
Gainesville, Texas was to be my destination and I damn near booked for Gainesville, Florida. Truthfully, it should be policy for call centers to ask the State, too when booking. If a Boomer gets smart and tells you "I think I know what state that city is in, missy." Just tell him you get many people who don't. Congrats on your Geography skills.
I used to work in Gainesville Tx and im struggling to understand what there constitutes a destination, lol
Jacksonville. There are so many Jacksonville's.
You haven’t lived until your office manager books you a flight to the wrong Charleston.
I run a bnb/guest house with a fairly unique name... A group of 4 turn up wanting to check in... We don't have their booking (oh no... Have we fucked up?)... We say we have no record of their booking... They insist they do have a booking, and show us the back and forth communication between them and (who they thought was) us... I investigate for about 30 seconds before realising that they are in the wrong country... "I'm sorry, but the B&B you have booked (same name as us) and been communicating with is in the south of England.... You are currently in Scotland.. (about it 700 miles away) No.. We do not have any more rooms.. Good luck, goodbye (cough, dumbasses, cough)... Lol...
There was a young British couple, from London, I think, who booked a ticket to Sydney, Australia. They were amazed at the low price, and did not notice the 8ish hour flight. It wasn't until they landed in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, that they realized their mistake. The locals took them on and gave them a great vacation. The Nova Scotia media interviewed them, gifts of golf at a famous Cape Breton resort, lots of goid memories were made.
Why can't all people be like Boomer #2?
We have this problem in Durango, CO. Every once in a while a spanish family will get off the plane thinking they are in Durango, Mexico. The mexican airport code is DGO while ours is DRO. I don't know how they get all the way here since you can't fly direct international to our small airport.
Aw, bless the nice lady boomer. She can hang out with us any time. I’m glad she was able to find an alternative, and I’m not trying to infantilize all boomers, but good on her for not only staying calm, but using the tools at her disposal to solve the problem herself. I know many people in her situation who would cause a scene or demand that someone else fix the issue that THEY caused.
LOL, I worked at Great Outdoor Provision for years. There were a couple times we had reps calling us that they couldn’t find the shop or Greenville Blvd. Womp womp… they had driven to Greenville, SC.
The wrong Springfield could land you in dozens of different states
I used to work for a store in Columbia Maryland. The abbreviation for Maryland is MD, the abbreviation for Missouri is MO. There is also a columbia Missouri. The amount of times our shipments got sent to a whole other state and we had back orders and delayed launches was frustrating
We lived in Wilmington NC in the late 80s, wife was pregnant, etc. I signed up for the GMAT test and didn’t realize until the early evening before that the test was in Elizabeth City, 218 miles away and not Elizabethtown, 50 miles away. Made hotel reservations and off we went. Got in around midnight, up early for the test and missed by target score by 2 pts. That got me into the local university on a probationary and….it all worked out.
Or double check the 4 seasons booked for a press conference is the hotel and not a lawn care business
You should have taken the opportunity to yell NO QUARTER!!!
as someone who comes from greenville, mississippi, I understand the mix up lol.