Run-ins with Morons

I'm sorry, I know this might be mean, but some people are really, really.. stupid. I don't think that really means I look down on them, but sometime their stupidity is quite humorous. It comes with the territory in customer service.

Just now, a person is in here at work using our copier machine. I hear her make a couple of copies, then she looks up at me, holding up one of the copies to show me. She's holding it in landscape (on it's side) and the copied text is in portrait (straight up), which means it cut off a good portion of what she wanted. Then she asks “Do you know how to get this to not cut off the edges?” Genius. Yeah, turn the paper you're copying the other way. There are markings on the copy glass which show you the direction to put the paper, even. She's like the 3rd or 4th person in the last couple weeks with this exact same “problem”, too. Aye carumba.

Another lady came in earlier this morning, about 9:15 AM. We're super dead around here, so I was rebuilding the public computers, meaning they weren't usable. I told her our computers wouldn't be available till about 10 AM. She semi-freaked, because she had a resume on the disk that she needed to print out for a 10 AM interview. I told her I would print it on my computer. Who on earth prints up their resume not even an hour before an interview? Hello, we're prepared.

My first final tonight.. woo hoo.

Flu, fever, and acheyness all suck.

❦

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published December 11, 2002

Responses

Sheryl – December 11, 2002
Aww. :-( It stinks that you're not feeling well still. *hug*

bryan – December 11, 2002
i don't know what's going on with my xanga. i get sheryl's updates and pretty much everyone else's, but never yours. and yet your entry in my profile is all right. hmm.

anyway, i too am in the customer service industry/business and this is how i handle it: 1st, many people do dumb things not becuz they are dumb, but becuz they are in a hurry and don't take the time to read instructions, etc. it's probably business and a little laziness rather than stupidity in most cases. this is what i think is going on with the portrait/landscape people. so if they're in that big of a hurry, just help them go faster by being cool with them about what looks like stupidity.

however, the resume 45 minutes b4 an interview is a little bizarre. maybe she lost it or got something yucky on it and so had to REprint it? and anyway, don't they usually ALREADY HAVE your resume by the time they grant you an interview? isn't that how they normally in part decide whether to give you an interview in the first place? that is kind of weird. but same as b4, she is in a situation and so it's good to help people get out of situations no matter what we think about how they got into them. i think it was way cool of you to offer to print it on your computer, dude.

mattie – December 11, 2002
yeah, read my sister's third to latest entry...
www.xanga.com/bekah_jean
it's funny. those people are REALLY stupid. :-D

daniel – December 12, 2002
i hear ya man. stupid people are so stupid sometimes.

middleageguy – December 12, 2002
Technology.....even simple things like copiers.....really throw some people for a loop. An Example: I sent out a message recently with a word doc attached. I received a call from one of the people on the distribution list who stayed that he “couldn't read the words on the document”. He was talking about the little word graphic that shows on the email indicating there is a word file attached. I explained that you were supposed to double click on it, not actually try to read the graphic symbol.....

Sheryl – December 12, 2002
I work in tech support... I'm glad that most of our people are at least a little computer literate. The only problem is that you don't know what level they're on. What's funny is that usually they think they know more than they do.

cafelatte – December 13, 2002
scary...i wonder how many people have commented on their web sites the dumb things i do...eeeep!