From over 20 years of working in IT, I’ve learned these things:

1) Users don’t read. No matter what it is or how simple they won’t read it. And if they do read it, they won’t understand it.

2) Users won’t learn, or even try to learn. No matter how much it’d benefit them or save time, they simply will not.

3) Any users you force to learn will hate and resent you forever, and might even attempt to get you fired.

And note here that I am not talking about teaching a user to build a server or to design a network. That would be a fool’s errand. No, I mean actions such as trying to attempt to get the user to learn the name of the application they are actually using and have been using for 10+ years, or how to find the Start menu reliably. That’s all. Similar to teaching a new driver to locate the brake pedal.

Working in IT — and specifically on helpdesk — made me into much, much more of a misanthrope.