Having recently assisted my mother switch to Gmail and my father-in-law with a notebook wireless card, I've been thinking a lot about the technology divide between generations. However, that rumination grew into a full-fledged mental guffaw at this exchange with a PhD professor I previously worked with (age 50 or so).
As background, I produced some reference "finding aids" on a library project for him, which I then packaged in a CDR with a handy web interface (that automatically loads on CD insert). This hasn't prevented requests for the information I already gave him or this stunning misunderstanding of file extensions.
LJ: Could you email me a file with all the finding aides in them?
[It's really petty, but since he has a PhD, I really want to point out that an 'aid' is "a device that assists" whereas an 'aide' is an assistant - a person. I cannot email him an 'aide' unless Ted Stevens is right and the internet is really a series of tubes]
JFF: I've attached a zip file with all 25 finding aids [in pdf format]. If for some reason it doesn't come through, let me know. MB [LJ's student worker] also has the CD with all of the materials on it.
LJ: Could you please send the Finding Aids as a Word File?
[Okay, so he wants to actually be able to edit the files - no problem]
JFF: Attached. [zip file with .doc files included]
LJ: I don't use zip drives. Could you transfer the file to Word instead? Thanks.
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