Something shiny caught my attention as I walked past the working space of one office lady during lunch — a new 17-inch LCD computer monitor. (This was a few years ago.) I leaned in with an ooooooh to check out this hottie (the screen), and quickly noticed that the office lady was still using the old screen resolution from her last setting.
“This is a five-by-four screen,” I said. “You’re still using a four-by-three resolution on it.”
She blinked.
“You know? The ratio? Five… to… four,” I explained, accompanied with body motions that somewhat resembled the chicken dance.
Turns out when someone doesn’t speak your “language”, speaking slowly or doing the chicken dance doesn’t really help.
I grabbed her mouse as she continued to look at me in confusion. Minimise all, right click, click, click, click, click: 1280×1024; there, a correct screen resolution for a shiny new screen. I smiled, satisfied, and turned to walk away (casually noting the lingering confusion on the colleague’s face), giving myself a mental pat on the shoulder for an unpaid job well done.
“OH MY GOD!” A scream of terror.
I paused, thinking if I’d forgotten to apply the new screen resolution setting properly so the screen had automatically reverted back to 1024×768 while she’s admiring the sharper images. It didn’t.
“Why is everything so tiny? Why do I look so fat in the picture?!” She cried.
And then I cried too.
(She insisted on switching back to 1024×768. I undid my mental pat on the shoulder and complied.)
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