Workplace tech trauma: Click here to cry

Thulaganyo Jankey | Wednesday October 22, 2025 06:00

That’s not just a skills gap—it’s a performance cliff. Innovation without education is like handing someone a spaceship and hoping they figure out the controls mid-flight. One manager once chilling said ‘half my team still thinks “the cloud” is just bad weather’. We are faced with situations where we celebrate someone who has just learnt how to mute himself on Zoom like they have cured polio. We need training initiatives that can help workers understand the tech they’re already two years behind on. This is in order for the workforce to confidently nod during meetings about quantum computing.

It might not be far-fetched after all for local universities to launch a degree in “Digital Catch-Up Studies,”, designed for the noble individual who consistently arrives late to the digital party.

Ever gotten into a government office and be met with that deflating ‘system is down’ retort? This is one of the biggest issues that government has to attend to even before the general lack of dramatic tension in this country (foreign journalists are reporting that life here is 'too smooth' and 'lacks gritty conflict.').

“System is down” usually signals the immediate cessation of all meaningful (and, let's be honest, non-meaningful too like Solitaire) activity. But over the years employees have developed ways to actually look busy when they are not.

You see officers staring at blank monitor screens with a look of deep, intellectual frustration. This maintains the illusion that if the system were available, they’d be hard at work and churning out desirable outcomes. And the upside of ‘system is down’? The brief, shimmering oasis of non-productivity, granted by a single ‘system is down’ message is the purest form of paid vacation known to the modern working world.

I once went to pitch at a prospective customer’s office and as I walked in there was a faint smell of freshly-printed paper and suspicion.

As I set up my presentation one of the employees came to report that there’s a paper jam. I had sent these documents digitally but they insisted on printing them out and having a hard copy. I felt sorry for the trees in the Amazon.

Before I started my Powerpoint presentation one of them ‘helpfully’ suggested ‘Why don’t you use the whiteboard. It never jams or loses network’.

Apparently the older, more conservative employees are the ones with the most resistance to technology and new innovations. The cohort that swears by faxes, believes Bluetooth is a dental condition and still prints emails would rather quit than be asked to embrace new technology.

My aunt used to work as a teacher in one of the schools. As part of the management team they were the first cohort to be introduced to computers.

Usually anything new and innovative in a school setting starts at the bewildered headmaster’s office and then trickles down to the equally petrified management team.

My aunt was suspicious of anything with a screen and one day I got a distress call from her ‘They want us to start using computers. I am retiring immediately’.

Then there is also the technologically-defiant ones like me at one point in my life. There was a time when the computer asks, 'Do you want to install updates now?' and I would treat it like a personal challenge. I always chose 'Remind Me Later,' believing I’d won a small victory against the machine.

I have a solution for those that do not want to embrace and leverage technology. They must be collected and bootcamped in a Technology Acceptance workshop or fired.

(For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) *Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email admin@ultimaxtraining.co.bw