familial tech support screams

so - my mother's been having difficulty getting her mail working from her iphone, which i mentioned last week. yesterday afternoon we tried again.

we were talking over skype, and i was giving instructions and waiting for her responses before continuing. after a few minutes, though, something didn't seem right and i began to suspect that we weren't on the same page. every time i asked her a question she'd talk over me, or outright ignore me. then she'd say "yes", or "okay", and i'd have no clue what she was responding to.

aaaaand that's when tension rose. i was frustrated, because when i'm trying to help and i'm feeling like i'm talking to myself while hearing the other side doing the wrong things because they're taking my silence for confirmation i might not become the calmest person in the world. when she heard me get angry, she got angry, and then suddenly i was obviously uninterested in being helpful. which i found even more frustrating.

realizing that we weren't actually talking to each other, i hung up and skype-called her landline. result! only a bit too late. we got everything (mostly) sorted out, but the bitterness remained and i'm still irritated just thinking about it.