Escape Pod Dreams - 82
Created | Updated Aug 26, 2004
Escape Pod Dreams, The Stupid Issue
Stupored suggests that one might wake up from it.
Stupid suggests that one might not.
I'm going to depart from the usual format today in order to bring you this public service anecdote.
I was in the library a couple of days ago, goofing around with some friends at the reference desk. Now, these brave people are sitting targets all day long for any individual or gang to phone in with a query or walk up to the desk and ask a question. They have to restrain themselves on an almost hourly basis from telling people just exactly what they think of their questions. Do you know how they restrain themselves? With the mind-drumming fact that there are a lot of these people with ignorant questions. Not stupid questions, just ignorant.
There is everything good about an ignorant person attempting to assuage a void in their knowledge with a question to a qualified person. I mean, these people did manage to find the library or the library's phone number. That in itself constitutes a Mensa gold star in my part of the planet.
No, the problem starts when they get the answer to their question. That's when the stupidity kicks in.
Witness this:
Idiot: Hello, I wonder if you could help me?
Librarian: Yes, what can I do for you?
Idiot: I need to find out what George Washington fed his horse and what his horse's names were.
Librarian: Okay. I will show you to where the biographies of George Washington are.
Idiot: Can you look up the horse's names for me?
Librarian: No. I can show you where the books on George Washinton are and you can see if they have anything about his horses in them.
Idiot: You are a librarian, I'm not. I don't know how to find stuff like this.
Librarian: You check the index at the back of each book and see if it has a listing for 'horse' and then a name. Or, you look at the citation in the book itself and see if a name is mentioned.
Idiot: Can you help me with that?
Librarian: I can write down the call numbers for the books and you can go and look through them.
Idiot: I don't know how to find a book in a library. The numbers confuse me.
Librarian: Okay. If you will sit at that table right there, I will go and get them and bring them to you.
Idiot: Wait a second, you have a computer right there in front of you. Why don't you do a search?
Librarian: I can sign you up to use the library online computers. You can do the search, then, yourself.
Idiot: Why can't you do it right now?
Librarian: Because there are other patrons behind you and I need to see how I can help them. Do you want the books or do you want to be signed up to use the Internet?
Idiot: If you're going to be rude, then I'll just ask that other librarian.
Librarian: Trust me, buddy, she's even more rude. She would have given you half the time I have and since she's been listening to the entire conversation we've been having, she's very likely to become either intensely non-verbal or equally intensely vice versa. Good luck to you. Next!
