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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 1:59 AM

    Drop-In Time is a time where I hang out in a room at the library with a big table and a lot of chairs and help people with their technology problems for two and a half hours. These are their stories. It was cold today so I was warming up some water for tea and by the time I got upstairs at three past the hour there were four people waiting for me. Whoops!

    Bob and Kathy had a Medicare prescription drug plan that wasn't going to be around next year so they needed help finding a new one.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 1:59 AM

    A friend of theirs who is a doctor recommended some website where they could comparison shop. They were stymied by it. Apparently one of the early steps is where you choose your local pharmacies. We have one local pharmacy, singular, so the website required them to scroll past a lot of white space to get to the continue button. Never considered a use case with ONLY ONE PHARMACY huh?

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:00 AM

    They then had to enter all their prescriptions but since they were decently tech savvy, they did it themselves and Kathy reading prescriptions to Bob who would type them in was background chatter for all of the rest of this.

    Linda got a text from "Apple" saying that she was logged in from five different places and if this was not the case to call this number ASAP. Linda called. Once they asked for her Apple ID she was like "Wait you told ME about the problem..." and hung up.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:00 AM

    She wanted to go over her texts from Apple with me to see which ones were scams (all of them?) and I showed her how to mark texts as junk. This was empowering for her!

    Steve had been waiting patiently this whole time but just kind of staring at me, patiently, but staring. He had a brand new smartphone and pre-paid minutes that he'd bought from the Dollar Store and needed help setting it up. He'd had a smartphone before but not in a while. He had a laptop but he barely used it.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:03 AM

    It was one of those cases--we just need to do something, not teach skills--where I did the typing. The minutes had a scratch off thing for the pin and the FUCKING NUMBERS SCRATCHED OFF.

    Steve didn't seem like he had $30 more to buy more minutes so we worked the problem. There were maybe three numbers I wasn't sure of. I figured we might be better off calling tech support. After a lot of me saying "Agent. Agent." to their AI, I talked to a human who guided us through it, but it was a 20 min slog

    A close up of a scratch-off thing which shows the silver part scratched off along with some of the numbers
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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:04 AM

    The phone was active, hooray! Now we needed to set up voice mail. I don't know if you've ever tried to set up voice mail with someone who is unused to following the standard audio prompts but it's tricky. Steve's first few "recorded names" were "What?" and "Hold on a sec, wait..." and "Hahaha" but we got it done. Steve has no email address and we were both tired so I told him we could set that up next week.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:04 AM

    Gary just wanted the notifications from the various PDF applications to stop. I mean, he didn't know that is what they were, only that he was trying to use his phone and he kept getting annoyingly interrupted by something that was talking about PDFs. Gary doesn't know what a PDF is. I deleted every scammy looking PDF app from his phone which seemed like a better option than disabling notifications.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:04 AM

    Ray wanted to know how to scan a QR code so he could get some introductory offer from a credit card company which only had a QR code as the way to get it. I showed him how his camera could be used as a QR code scanner and how to see what it was doing. He was able to do it on his own and was able to fill out the rest of the form on his phone.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:05 AM

    Last up was my friend Kevin who lost his job last week (he was also in last week because he'd gotten information on his severance package in a PDF that he couldn't open) who wanted to know if we could "get his Google password out of his phone." I said maybe, but if he was already logged in to his email why did he need it? He said something about needing to log in to the Vermont Department of Labor with his Gmail password.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:06 AM

    I talked him through how I did not *think* they would make you do that (but I've seen weirder VT tech things) so maybe show me? The vibe I got was that he may have been second-guessing if he was on a real VT website, or just had a use case in his head which was maybe not totally explicable. I said we could reset his password but he said maybe another day,

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:06 AM

    It was a long day but with more Ws than Ls, made tougher by the fact that the library is always underheated and I was so busy my tea got cold. I ran into a lot of friends at the library and stayed to chat because even though the library was cold, it was warmer than my house. I went home with a book of Billy Collins poetry and cranked my pellet stove up. EOM

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  • ragmanragman@jawns.club
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:19 AM

    @jessamyn Love this.

    I recently visited with some elderly relatives and the sheer amount of stress their technology was putting them through was hard to see.

    I did my best to help, but only so much I could do not living near them.

    Glad people like you are out there!

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  • Linda McIverlindamciver@aus.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 6:11 AM

    @jessamyn this is beautiful. I loved reading it. I love even more that you did it. Love your work!

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  • Duncan Lockduncanlock@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:27 AM

    @jessamyn Amazing community work, inspiring/infuriating (as a software dev) write-up! Was this a pre-existing thing, or did you start it yourself? I'm inspired to start one here!

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  • Frank Skorniafskornia@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:31 AM

    @jessamyn I wonder if the VT Dept of Labor site has a single sign-in option, which basically uses Google or Facebook or Apple logins as their login system. But there is usually an email login option that is better and more secure.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:11 AM

    @fskornia Yeah I was wondering that too. It may have also been that they have some login situation where your email address is your login but you need a *new* password for that site's unique login. I know it can be confusing for folks. Kevin's just five years older than me (and grew up in the same town in MA) but he's the youngest of five and I'm the oldest of two so we're practically different generations.

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  • 0xC0DEC0DE07EAc0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:28 AM

    @fskornia @jessamyn single sign-on technologies are weird if you’re not a tech person. It feels like you’re giving them (the other site) the credentials to your email provider, which are right up there with your banking credentials for sensitivity!

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  • David Ppewnack@aus.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 9:43 AM

    @jessamyn

    My housemate and her sister think that whenever they use their Gmail address to login to any website (not Google) the password must always be their actual Google Gmail password. I think because they assume - well it's "my Gmail address".

    I have tried to explain that's not the case (unless using Google's authentication) but they just don't or won't believe me.

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  • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:42 AM

    @jessamyn I'm really curious about this one. When QR codes started to become common, I installed an app called 'barcode reader' or something that could scan QR codes. At some point camera apps started to do this.

    But that was always surprising to me. My mental model of the 'camera' app is that it is an app that replicates the functionality of a stand-alone camera. I expect it to do things that cameras do: capture images, in a variety of ways that are increasingly complex but are all refinements over 'point camera at thing, photo / video of thing is saved somewhere'. Video is a generalisation of this because a video camera is another physical device that has been around for as long as I've been alive and so a thing calling itself a 'camera' might be one of those.

    I don't expect a camera app to be the 'do everything that involves processing the input of the phone's camera' app. I don't expect it to be the thing that recognises QR codes (but not bar codes) any more than than I expect it to be the thing that can tell me what traffic sign I've taken a photograph of or identify plants.

    Is that how normal humans think about these apps, or is that one person from your example the same kind of statistical outlier as me?

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  • bbbhltzbbbhltz@framapiaf.org
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:07 AM

    @jessamyn this one got my mom a few months back, they came pre-installed... 4 different PDF apps!

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  • Su_GSu_G@aus.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:37 AM

    @jessamyn
    Did the same for a friend who was also experiencing these bossy bullying intrusive ‘notifications’ from PDF applications. She was so frustrated that she kept stabbing her phone & thus loading other crap. Stuff like this should be outlawed.
    Great reading your real life stories of what real people need help dealing with! 😀🙏🏻

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:07 AM

    @steve Right?? I've been working with her for years and this is definitely progress.

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  • Nomdebnomdeb@mstdn.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 2:09 AM

    @jessamyn I log directly into Medicare for my MIL and we update her medications and we can sort by total cost (premium and co-pays) etc. I was so glad of that option. Which reminds me I have to remind her again to send me her updated medication list - just in case it has changed. Medicare of course knows what has been prescribed that has run through part D already for the current year.

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  • Jessamynjessamyn@glammr.us
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:06 AM

    @nomdeb Yeah I told them over and over "This is NOT a government website" but they were like "This is the one our doctor friend told us to use" and would not be dissuaded.

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  • Nomdebnomdeb@mstdn.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:14 AM

    @jessamyn Said doctor friend needs to be updated. :) I've actually been quite impressed with the Medicare Choices site. I didn't know about it until we dragged my MIL over to the senior center that had Medicare volunteers out. Once I realized they were just logging her into Medicare, we took over handling it each year for her.

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  • not ch1ccthon1c@kolektiva.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 6:54 AM

    @jessamyn VT lol, we’ve got zero pharmacies anyone would think of as local (but six definitely local libraries!)

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  • Jer 🚲jerzone@techhub.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:45 AM

    @jessamyn I got on medicare two years ago and each year have had to pick something new. First announced they no longer cover an expensive prescription. This year's company no longer covers our state. And the sub-chore of pharmacy qualification compounds the yearly process.
    What a wasteful churn.

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  • Scott Murray :neurodiversity:scott@sfba.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:26 AM

    @jessamyn I am not particularly religious but I think you may be an angel for demonstrating such patience and kindness for these folks.

    I hope that’s not creepy to say. 🤷‍♂️ I wish all libraries offered something like this.

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  • peoplearepowerpeoplearepower@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:43 AM

    @jessamyn My goodness, you are an angel. I live in a small country town & you wouldn't believe how many people still don't know how to do even the basics on a phone or PC. My partner is OK on a phone now but still won't do email or banking.

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  • 10 Cloverfield Layne 🎃glittercleric@corteximplant.com
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:45 AM

    @jessamyn we only got a designated tech help time at the public library I used to work at when I was leaving, but I've often helped folks while just out on the floor. It's exhausting, but also so rewarding. Thanks for sharing your stories! Always love to hear them.

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  • Jason McLarenjason@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 6:31 AM

    @jessamyn I love hearing about these afternoons and I hope you keep posting about them. Thank you for your service 🫡

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  • Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm:markwyner@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 7:04 AM

    @jessamyn okay, this is one of the coolest things I’ve heard about in a while. You’re cool.

    Can I steal your idea and do this at our library? What a gift to be able to help folks like this. And it sounds like you’re having quite the experience as well.

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  • BeeCyclingbeecycling@wandering.shop
    Oct 23, 2026, 8:33 AM

    @jessamyn Great and necessary work.

    I always end up doing a bit of this for an older relative I see once a month or so. She's perfectly sharp and on the ball, and uses her phone fine for most things. But there can be hiccups here and there. Last month I got the data use warning on android configured to her billing cycle and amount of data so it didn't keep giving her alarming warnings about running out of data - which she actually had plenty of.

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  • BeeCyclingbeecycling@wandering.shop
    Oct 23, 2026, 8:35 AM

    @jessamyn And we got her Facebook app set up so she could easily switch between her account and her late husband's, which she likes to look at sometimes.

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  • mightykanmightykan@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:29 AM

    @jessamyn Thank you, thank you very much for doing this. This is purely good. There are very few truly good deeds in this world anymore and this is surely one. Thank you.

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