In the thick of the pandemic when both my girls were Remote Learning and my wife needed a little distance, I carved out some space in my home office and set up two computers, one for each of them. Both hand-me-down machines that I rebuilt/repurposed from hardware I’d once used for some other purpose, they are mostly used for playing Roblox and watching YouTube videos (of other people playing Roblox). Sometimes these computers stop working - as computers tend to do - and being the resident Computer Guy I’m called upon for tech support.
On one such occasion, my youngest hit me with “Daddy, my computer-box stopped working, can you buy me a new one?” (An interesting aside: children and other folks who aren’t overly familiar with computers tend to think of the monitor as being the computer itself. “Daddy, why do you have two computers?” “Sweetie, daddy has many computers…and two monitors.” …and so, my youngest doesn’t exactly know what the “computer-box” is for, but she knows that the “computer” won’t turn on if it isn’t working.)
But I digress. I surmised that she did not require a new computer-box. In fact, it just needed to be turned off and on again. But it put me in mind of a quote from Neil Gaiman, who said:
“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
I’m assuming he was talking about writing, but if I’d heard it without attribution to Gaiman I probably would’ve assumed it came from someone in IT. Having spent the last couple of decades in various support roles (both at home and at work), I can tell you that this duality - while hilarious - is the utter truth.