2004-05-18 | 4:49 p.m.
It's time for a visit from the Vocabulary Nazi. And yes, that is proper diction. If you keep getting this wrong, I WILL KILL YOU. I may not have the finances or the politcal backing to throw you into a concentration camp and set you on fire, but baseball bats are cheap, and I know where you live, or will shortly.

Back to the purpose of this rant, I wish to discuss the difference between stupidity and ignorance. Or, to be more precise, I wish to discuss how people who aren't at all stupid can annoy me despite themselves.

If you've been paying any attention you know I work phone technical support, and I feel a need to bitch about something that's been pissing me off lately. Specifically people who say to me while I'm attempting to help them with a problem, "I bet you deal with stupid people like me all day." Or something similar.

The thing that pisses me off is, what exactly do these people expect me to say? Contrary to accepted myth, most of the people who call for technical support are not, in fact, stupid. Most of them are simply ignorant of computers.

I am not prejudiced against the ignorant as I am against the stupid. I believe the stupid should be put in special communities where no stupid people can go to kill them and take out our frustrations, while also purifying the gene pool.

I treat ignorant people like children. They have the capability to learn, but they should not be allowed to use a complex device like a computer unsupervised. If you don't know what you're doing, that's fine, as long as you know you don't know what you're doing, and you're only pestering me so you can learn. If you're willing and able to learn, I may loathe the fact you felt the need to call me, but I won't slaughter you indiscrimiately, you at least deserve a chance.

But this still leaves me with a problem. What the hell exactly am I suppose to say when you refer to how stupid you are? If I just say, no, you're not stupid, or it's okay, or something like that, I sound insincere and pandering, like I'm kissing your ass, as if I'd dare. I mean, I've never seen your ass, I don't know if it's kissable or not, or even how clean you keep it, so I'm not just gonna kiss it out of the blue.

Metaphors aside, I'm not an inherent asskisser. I lack the necessary concern for my position that results in such things. And I can't just agree with you, because most of the time, you aren't stupid, you just don't know what you're doing.

Unless, of course you are stupid. Then what am I supposed to say? "Yes, yes you are. I'm glad you've realized that. I no longer feel the need to talk to you. Please cancel your service, return our equipment and never, ever touch a computer, or for that matter any piece of equipment more complicated than the knife you should be using to castrate yourself, again."

Unfortunately, I do work for a corporation, and while Comcast isn't as bad as most of corporate america when it comes to shoving it's hand up the ass of it's employees and muppeteering them, I'm still not allowed to make comments like that to customers.

It just annoys me no end when people say these kinds of things and leave me with no good way to respond. And will then complain if I don't laugh at their little joke. Fuck them, and fuck anyone who doesn't know the difference between stupidity and ignorance.

recent...
2004-05-18 - Dictiontator.
2004-04-29 - Forever Lament.
2004-04-28 - Still hiring.
2004-04-24 - I'm done!
2004-04-23 - Rampant stupidity.


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