Did His Previous Full-Time Position Exclusively Involve Crayons?

My office brought in a consultant the other week — a former full-time employee — to help with a big project. I didn’t know anything about this person, but I was told that he “liked to work on paper” and was asked to “set him up with a computer so he can print things out.” This description already set off some of my alarms, but whatever.  

I got him set up by leaving a printed copy of the local username and password on the desk. I even taped a small copy to the monitor. Going even further, I downgraded the machine to Windows 7 and removed it from the domain, so that when he turned on the computer, there would be a big button with the username right in the middle. I thought I’d baby-proofed everything more than adequately.

Client: “When you get a minute, can you stop by and walk me through everything?”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Client: “I just need to know how to get to my email.”

Me: “How do you usually get your email at home? Do you use Outlook, webmail, your phone?”

He stared blankly at me. I swear I heard crickets.

Me: “Never mind. What is your email address?”

Client: “It’s [address].”

Me: “Oh, okay. Then you can just open Internet Explorer or Chrome and log in to webmail.”

Client: “Great! How do I do that?”

Long story short, he didn’t know the webmail address, wasn’t sure what his password was, and didn’t understand how to print anything. I had to remove everything from the taskbar and desktop except Chrome and set the homepage as his email provider’s login page. The next morning, he asked me to come back, complaining that he could no longer access his email.

The computer had auto-locked overnight, and he didn’t understand why the “little multicolored thing” was no longer at the bottom of the screen. Again, he used to work here. Full-time.