this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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A call for some support on Mac came in one day and I told the cx to go to the Finder. Cx said “Mac doesn’t have a ‘finder’. Sounds like windows talk to me. You sure you know what you are doing?” So I said “You called me. You see the icon on the dock with the smiley face? What name did you make up for it?” Cx said “Apple actually calls that the task master.” So I said “Sure they do. Click the task master.” Proceeded to fix cx’s issue for him (PEBKAC issue) and then got a one star customer survey back.
It's been a while since I used a mac but doesn't it literally say 'Finder' at the top of the screen when you open that?
You think all long time apple users know that the application name is up there, or that there is even a menu for the app at the top of the screen? No, sometimes telling people to click on the apple in the top left, so that they can go to restart, blows people's minds.
I honestly still find it such a weird UX decision to decouple the menu from the application window. Especially when you have multiple windows open on a large screen, the menu is on the opposite corner of the screen. Makes no sense
it's a really interesting decision because while it makes the menu positioning consistent, it also creates a hard link between the active window and the desktop, which means that things like "hover to focus" and "click button in background window" fundamentally cannot work.
Huh? Both hover to focus and click button in background work in macOS, though hover to focus usually requires an external application. There used to be a focus follows mouse that you could enable via a terminal command, but Apple removed it.
The top menu bar kind of seems to be more of a result of historical happenstance, and maybe some different philosophies regarding Fitts law.
Bill Atkinson, who designed the UX for the Apple Lisa recounts that part of the decision was to avoid the problem of menu items being possibly obscured. If the window of some application is near the bottom or partially off the desktop, the menu bar of individual windows can become obscured and inaccessible.
Historically the menu bar would've been easier for normal people to learn due to consistency, and also helped with limited screen estate.
Memories of Lisa - CHM - https://computerhistory.org/blog/memories-of-lisa/
it's been a few years since my last mac but i remember that clicking on things in background windows would bring them forward rather than trigger the action, so you needed a second click to actually do the thing. i did enable focus on hover and it wreaked havoc on the window management so i had to turn it off. can't remember the details though.
yes
It sure does.
Oh, the Master Control Program?
The mainframe. When you click it you have to say “I’m in”.
I'm guessing that the user did eventually figure out it's labelled as "finder" and got pissy at you for being all pedantic and not just calling it what they call it because really, is the correct name so important?
(Or is your standard-issue "read customers' thoughts to know what exactly they mean" device broken? Really, how can you call yourself support without crucial equipment to spare customers from having to be clear?)
What is cx and what is PEBKAC?
Cx = customer/caller. PEBKAC = problem exists between keyboard and chair (user is problem)
Oh, that one was new for me. In Denmark we something similar. We call it Error 40.
Another one I know is the ID-10-T error. Spells idiot.
Nice haha, also a new one for me.
Hmm, how approximate?