control C, control V, muthafucka!

I just got off the phone with a colleague (a superior, of sorts) of mine who contacted me for help attaching a Microsoft Word file to an email. This guy is a clinical psychologist in a private practice. I estimate that he makes well over $100,000 a year. After emailing me a half dozen times, he finally broke down and called me. Because I was too busy to explain it again, I told him to just copy and paste the information directly into an email. "How do I do that?" he asked.

I had an immediate flashback of the frustrations from my last job, in the six-figure nonprofit CEO proved daily that he was crazier than Margo Kidder off her meds. He was incapable of typing with more than 2 fingers. He didn't know how to use the CC: function on his email. He surely couldn't attach a file, no less understand where files went once you closed them. All of these tasks threw him into a screaming, swearing, sweating rage.

At another former job, my boss Mandy, was known throughout the agency as the woman who always had her legs up on her desk while playing Snood. She often screamed my name in a state of panic, calling me in to rescue her from various technological challenges. "Can you show me how to attach a file to this email?" This is a woman who was making more than $90,000 annually. Another time, she was frantic becuase she'd be searching for and reading about a White House attorney that she had a crush on and she was terrified that somehow her email would show up when he checked the White House web site to see who'd been reading it. WHAT?

Where do they get these people? How do they make it to the top? Today, I am feeling overqualified and underpaid.