Extra Mile Training - IC3 Courseware & Test Centre - Advanced Training for MS Office & MYOB

Lots of you have been telling us about your personal experiences with office technology. As a result we have decided to gather together your tales about the joys of using technology in the office and publish them on our website. We hope they will help other people realise that they aren't the only ones who are challenged by office technology.

If you have a story of your own to add to our collection please email it to

info@extramiletraining.co.nz.

Claire......

A secretary was typing a long document with automatic formatting? When she went back to check her work she found one bullet point was bigger than all the others. Whenever she tried to alter the size the formatting for the rest of the document went haywire. She wasted hours trying to solve the problem on her own because it was hard to admit that she didn't know how to put it right.

Simon......

A 50 yr old executive was having trouble understanding how to use his email programme. Too embarrassed to ask his much younger email savvy receptionist he kept making mistakes and wasting time until he surreptitiously took an intro email course.

Anne........

A super efficient 49-year-old office manager who was revered by her colleagues but suffered low self esteem because she didn't know how to use the shortcut keys on the word processing program.

Debra.......

Was typing a long document at speed. When she finished she looked at the screen and half the text had been gobbled up. She had hit the insert button and overwritten all her work.

Sarah........

Was using her email program when it asked her to auto archive her emails - I don't know!! Where do they go? Will I ever see them again?

Angela........

A younger colleague was showing me something on the computer and then told me to hit the space bar. I just stared at the keyboard. Which one was the space bar? None of the keys have "space bar" written on them!

Donna..........

Having learned to type on a golf ball typewriter I couldn't work out why the letters I typed on a computer looked different to other peoples. Then someone pointed out that I was pushing the enter key the way I used a return key on the typewriter.

Chris.............

I was at university taking a research paper and typed a 20-page report. Somehow, I hit a key that put all the sentences in alphabetical order by first letter. I cried, ripped my hair out, jumped up and down then spent hours cutting and pasting it back together. No one had told me about the undo button!