Im officially an old at work- overcoming tech awkwardness

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leaky_eddie@reddit

Ask them to get you a windows machine. It’s cheaper than a Mac and you’re way more efficient on it. No resources can replace years of muscle memory.

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mr_vestan_pance@reddit

Dude, Word for Mac is pretty much the same as Word on PC. C’mon!!!

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TheJokersChild@reddit

Unless they're making the OP use Pages. But even the, the differences are not that drastic.

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TheJokersChild@reddit

I sort by New and hadn't scrolled down to where they said that yet.

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flagrantstickfoul@reddit

I remember a time when you couldn’t open a Word doc on a Mac. At least they’ve gotten past that

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BaconToTheBaconPower@reddit

Email, MS Teams, text pages, phone calls, Jira. There are simply too many f-ing channels of communications anymore...

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Where I live, there are tech classes at the library that can help you with the basics. If I were you, I’d enlist the help of someone you know to teach you and be a “consultant” when you have questions until you get the hang of it. Stuff always comes up for me when I’m learning new tech (I’m 57) and it’s frustrating to not have an answer for my specific need. If you have any teachers in your friend group, many will likely be well versed in Mac

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shotsallover@reddit

Buy The Mac is not a Typewriter.

Outside of that, what special features of Word are they using?

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Not anything wild like macros. One example is that the ribbon is slightly different, so it took me a second to find a pretty common element. Another are things like strange formatting occurrences, and my inability to insert carats in a long, detailed doc. All very simple stuff, which makes it even more embarrassing.

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shotsallover@reddit

By carats do you mean ^ or ◊ or something else?

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

I might be using the wrong word. But on PC, you can use headings to create nested parts of a document, and once you apply a heading, word automatically gives it a little triangle that allows you to expand or collapse. As far as I can see from playing around and researching it online and asking coworkers, Mac doesnt have an equivalent of this.

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shotsallover@reddit

Are you working in outline mode on the PC?

Outside of that, yeah, the Mac version doesn’t have that.

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Initial_Run1632@reddit

Op is talking about applying a heading "style" in a word document. Don't have to be in outline mode.

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shotsallover@reddit

Ah. I haven’t used the Windows version of Word in a while. That sounds like both a weird and helpful feature.

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gabrielroth@reddit

AI search is really good for specific questions like “I’m used to Word on Windows. When I want to do x, I press the button with the wavy lines on it. Now I’m on a Mac and I don’t see the wavy-lines button.”

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Next-Cut-2996@reddit

I just had to get an office job after years of working with children in a school. I needed help creating a spreadsheet 🤦🏼‍♀️ I felt like such an idiot I cried on the way home lol. But I never really had to use them before! Luckily my coworker is ten years younger and very patient with me. 😂

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chompy_jr@reddit

I'm ALWAYS the oldest person in the room these days and my brother, get over yourself. I get it that change can be a challenge but seriously? Some menus are different, instead of CTRL+C it's Command+C.

I currently work in an academic setting where we lean towards Mac but we offer the option of a Windows laptop and I shit you not, every single person who has told me, "Oh, I'm just a windows user, Macs confuse me" has been the most high maintenance, needy users I've ever run across. Most folks don't know (and don't need to know) the difference between a .dll and a .dylib ya know?

Now, because you're Gen X and you'r not gonna let a dumb thing like the kind of computer you're using dictate your future happiness (or the ability to earn that pay check) Here's a few resources for you:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102323 <-good resource for common commands
https://youtu.be/9mDK3C2em7M?si=vryYpY0tpzg-W105 <- decent content

learn your terms:
Finder = File Explorer
Spotlight = Microsoft PowerToys Run
System Settings = Windows Settings

I wish you good luck and you have this.

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Finding_Way_@reddit

Everybody handles change and challenges differently. Sometimes it's not easy just to get over it.

But I agree that OP should do all they can to not let something like this impact their goal to become competent and happy at their job.

r/chomp_jr FYI, I'm in education as well and I'm always surprised by the number of faculty that have meltdowns when we get a new LMS system. One semester later there's still some grumbling, but everyone's able to get on board... Some with more help than others. Change is generally not insurmountable (though currently I'm having a bit of a meltdown about AI!)

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bene_gesserit_mitch@reddit

I find generally on the Mac side, if you think a thing should be able to be done, there are usually multiple ways of doing it, so try the way you think it will work, and it should. Apple has always been more into human interface than Microsquish. Having said that, you are working on an MS product, but made by the Mac team at MS. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I haven't worked on a Windows machine since the days of Windows 95.

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CatsCoffeeMakeup@reddit

My work moved me from a PC to a Mac a few years ago, and I had to google A LOT of things. How to find this, how to do that. Every time I googled something or learned something new, I put it on my list of "shortcuts" and referred to that list often until I felt comfortable without it.

And yes, Microsoft products are *just* different enough on Macs than PCs that it's super frustrating.

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jenorama_CA@reddit

Oh dear. This takes me back. Former Apple employee here and when I started back in 2001, I didn’t know anything about the Mac, but it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of things and let go of the notion that computers are hard to use.

Many years later we brought a guy on our team and I was in charge of training him. He was an older guy and from the Windows world. The things we were doing were stuff in the system setup like setting static IPs and system sharing which if you’ve ever done in Windows, you know isn’t a walk in the park but is pretty easy to do on the Mac.

I still remember walking him through the process of setting up a unit with a static IP and he was like, “That’s it?”

“Yep. It’s fairly straightforward.” For the rest of the time we worked together, “Fairly straightforward” was our watch word.

You’ll get it and then wonder how you operated in Windows for so long. We had some systems that had to run on Windows machines and I swear, M$ makes shit difficult on purpose just to be mean.

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AlfaNovember@reddit

Okay, but I still can’t navigate into a folder by hitting enter on the keyboard.

Cmd-down is fairly straightforward only for negative values of “fairly”.

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jenorama_CA@reddit

You’ll be a pro in no time. Plus you’ll be doing math in the search bar. Command + enter and then your math equation.

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Happy-Bluejay-3849@reddit

I worked in Mac environments for many years. Now I’m in a windows PC place. They keep telling me it is the same and won’t believe me when I say everything is way easier on a Mac. It may be the same software, but it definitely is not the same.

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jenorama_CA@reddit

The hoops you have to go through to do the simplest things on a PC!!

I do have a funny story though from when I was at AOL in the mid-90s. I was doing tech support for AOL on Windows at the call center in Albuquerque. My husband was a trainer there and I was one of the reps that opened that call center, so we were pretty tight with the rep support team, one of whom was our D&D dungeon master.

It came to be that they were going to open up a Mac queue at ABQ. This was in the days of System 7. No iMac, no OS 8, constant desktop rebuilding. They were asking for folks to volunteer to go over to the Mac queue and I was contemplating it, so I asked our RSA DM, should I do it. This is the guy that when you didn’t know the answer to the problem, you put the caller on hold and called him, so he knew a lot and I never had him be wrong.

He thought for a minute and then shook his head. “No, don’t do it. Mac users are really whiny and when it’s broken, it’s broken.”

So I stayed with the Windows queue, but yeah, eventually became one of those “whiny” Mac users!

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Ahkhira@reddit

You poor thing! Macs are hot garbage!

I unfortunately don't have any advice for you, but hang in there and try not to go crazy!

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Jimmy-the-Knuckle@reddit

The same process works for typing as does for running, dancing, and cooking: reps. Practice at home and use tutorials until you’ve gotten it down. Do not admit weakness to your boss.

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Simple_Style7968@reddit

rapaz eu carrego esse tdah nas costa ja faz um tempo que to nessa luta e te falo com propriedade que o problema ai nao e a idade e a tal da memoria muscular na minha epoca de escritorio de contabilidade a gente virava a noite digitando lancamento no sistema velho sem nem olhar pra tela a mao ia sozinha no teclado ai um belo dia a firma inventava de trocar o programa por um mais moderno e parecia que a gente tinha desaprendido a ler e escrever dava um branco total e a gente se sentia um dinossauro perante os moleque novo que ja chegava dominando tudo o seu chefe te chamar num canto nao foi pra te fazer passar vergonha foi porque o papel dele e fazer a firma dar lucro e andar rapido engole esse ego ai que machucou e encara a real o word do mac e o memo bicho so que com os botao escondido em outro lugar voce nao ta velho e devagar voce so ta querendo passar a marcha do fusca num carro automatico foca em pegar um post it anotar os cinco atalho principal do teclado e pregar na beirada da tela e larga mao de tentar adivinhar as coisa no mouse se essa pressao bater no peito e a vergonha de se sentir o tiozinho da firma comecar a te travar no servico da um google numa parada que eu uso direto chamada elo conexao que ajuda demais a quebrar essa neura emocional e resolver o abacaxi na base da pura logica mostrando que e so questao de treinar o dedo de novo e seguir o jogo me diz ai voce ja tentou ignorar esse mouse e focar so em decorar o teclado pra ver se a mao vai no automatico igual antigamente

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

This is great advice, thank you! There is the adhd subissue as well. I truly think ill build up speed the more I do this, i just know they need it sooner rather than later.

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Simple_Style7968@reddit

Tem outra coisa que faço muito! Não levo mais stress para casa. Vida de Pai de família, sem ter com que desabafar! Problemas do trabalho etc. Falar com a esposa, filhos... amigos então piorou... então uso o elo...

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ancientastronaut2@reddit

I am the oldest person at my job. It's a weird feeling.

But my husband bought me a macbook a few years back and I just learned its apps myself. It's not that different from ms office. The features are just located in slightly different places.

I also use google suite now, at my last two jobs, and learned all that by myself.

They're all pretty similar and intuitive. When you can't figure out something, there's always a YouTube video or you can ask chat gpt.

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Chicagoj1563@reddit

I’m in tech and I haven’t checked in a while, but office365 on a mac has caused major frustrations for some people switching from windows. It’s likely a matter of figuring out the mac way on certain tasks. But be ready in case it happens. Try not to get frustrated.

Other than that, just get offixe365 and start using it on a Mac. When you run into an issue, use AI to help. Copilot is built in now, so you can use that too.

Just do things like you normally would. And when something doesn’t work as expected, use ai to help you figure it out.

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mdervin@reddit

Jesus, what are you doing with Word?

It's the flower key vs. the ctrl key for copy/paste/bold/italics that should cover 95% of it.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Lol right?!?!

Theres a monday morning meeting where we run through this massive doc file to discuss everyone's workload. Im running the doc, meaning just scrolling, making changes, etc. Weird shit keeps happening, like something will randomly not highlight. Also the ribbon is slightly different so it did take me a second to find strike out (also i blame nerves being at the front and doing this shit publicly)

I attempted to organize the doc and include carats so we dont have to scroll so much, but the carats only work on PC, apparently! (I watched a bunch of YouTube to figure that out.)

Also the display menu updated at some point, and wouldnt show me mirroring anymore. I found a work around, but all this happened midmeeting.

I feel 300 years old.

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turfgrrl@reddit

It does sound like you have to relearn some muscle memory actions, but check to make sure that you have your Mac Word in print view and not web view. That may help. The other thing is, that yes, you will have to learn new ways of short cuts. Option+Command+G is one, the other is Option+arrow keys. The good news, is that once you spend some time finding then using the commands, you will be find yourself becoming faster. Be careful with those youtube videos, not only are some geared to windows versions, Microsoft changes things as well.

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mialunavita@reddit

Omg I feel your pain. I left a job after 22 years not realizing how true “old dog and new tricks” actually is. I’m 53 and it took me a long time to learn my new job. It IS way more difficult than my last job but I know I used to learn faster than this. That being said, YOUTUBE. I actually leaned a complex formula by watching YouTube that made my job a lot easier. Took some manual labor out of it which helped my accuracy. (I’m an accountant-went from manufacturing to public health contracts)

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whskytrsh@reddit

As a strategy to learn, what about using ChatGPT or Gemini, which is integrated into Google search and ask for a list of the main functional differences between Word on Mac and Word on PC. Then you have a list of gaps you need to bridge and will expedite your learning.

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turfgrrl@reddit

I’m wondering if you ever learned keyboard shortcuts or used a mouse to click on menu items to do things? Mac Word does pretty much most of what Windows word does. Here’s my go to list of places to learn Mac coming from a Windows environment.

Getting Started With a Mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/macbook-air/are-you-new-to-mac-apd1f14ec646/2025/mac/15

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/intro-to-continuity-mchl1d734309/mac

Keyboard SHortCuts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXTZekwMUas

How to Right Click on Your Mac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-ZcgkMKjQ

How To Dictate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H7-U444KhE

Coming From Windows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mDK3C2em7M

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Thank you so much for the links! I think its mostly silly muscle memory issues.

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mldyfox@reddit

Hey there, OP. I feel your pain with the technology learning curve. I'm working through a similar issue myself, in that my company wants us to use AI more after years of saying don't.

My advice would be to use your personal Mac device to practice in the Mac version of Word, so that you can apply the learning at work. I mean, don't use any proprietary documents to practice, but get a feel for it by making your own. The practice in the relaxed atmosphere of your own pace and time helps relieve some of the pressure of the learning.

We've been adopting new technologies, as a generation, since we were literal children. You can do it, it just might take some practice.

I drive some of my colleagues crazy because I hate using the keyboard shortcuts. To me they just aren't shortcuts, it's tough to remember them along with every thing else. I'll use a mouse and the menus thanks!

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Fluid_Anywhere_7015@reddit

The one resource that's been invaluable to me over the years has been Linked-in Learning. Their tutorials are all top-notch, and cover tons of apps and programs on multiple platforms.

Here are two links to other resources I've found to be helpful:

Word 2024 for Mac

10 Core Skills for Word on a Mac

It should be noted that I HATE MS Word. I think it's absolute dog shit. I do all of my word processing in Pages and export it as a Word document.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Thank you for the links! I use linkedin learning for a course I take, but this is so smart. Also, word sucks ass.

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saomonella@reddit

I don’t love AI, but it is good for stuff like this.

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Conscious_Crow_5465@reddit

There really is not much different between Mac Office Word and PC. The Mac version is actually has a bit less function. Curious if the issue is less about Mac v. PC than using the templating and collaboration tools that come with Word that didn’t exist when we started. Don’t let Mac cloud the issues. I’ve been 100% Mac at home and work until 2 months ago when I switched jobs that only uses PCs. Other than relearning ctrl v cmd and the windows button really haven’t noticed to much of a difference.

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kapshus@reddit

It's not that bad. I work on both for work and home. I bought my parents an Air and one for myself for more secure browsing. Plus it's way easier to help 80 year olds on Macs than PC. Much less goes wrong!

Mostly I would just use it and learn organically but there are youtubers out there with mac tips, etc. Mac is a closed system so it has a higher - it just works - factor. It does pen you in with fewer configuration choices but that is a good thing for most people. When things go wrong, terminal is often the best way to get real diagnostic information. Google and apple support is your friend there, but you should be able to punt those to your IT support staff.

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Dramatic_Channel52@reddit

Youtube …!!

Also, buy a Mac Neo …