Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Stupid People

The last few days I have been plauged by a rash of:
stupid people on the web, at the bank, on the street, and at the office.... seriously, is it a full moon or something?

I guess thats it's not that they are exclusivley stupid, it's that they wont listen to anything you tell them no matter how simply you lay it out. I can accept that my argument may be wrong, but shutup for a minute and hear it.

I just had it out with a bank Manager and the Manager at a UHAUL at lunch. The bank manager didnt want me to deposit a check a certain way. I have my own freelance business and it complicates my banking alittle. Today was the 333rd deposit I made this way at this Bank for my business. What was different about all those transactions and this one? He was. He followed the letter of the law rather than the spirit. He wanted me to know that he was in charge. I told him what I thought of him, walked 2 blocks to the next branch and deposited it the way I wanted to with a smiling young girl.

Why dont people think about getting things done instead of getting in the way? Why be the hall monitor? Do they really feel glory in that? Cash my freaking check, numbnuts, I look better in a suit than you do....

I have like 5 examples of this over the last 2 days, and I pissed about it
Grrrrr..........

3 comments:

steakbellie said...

i do almost all of my banking online, at ATM's or at strip clubs. ok, so one of those isnt true, but it just sorta worked as a cool statement...

I'm not going to write the letter because I really dont think it'll make any difference...and will only get me all worked up....

d.K. said...

Today was our just-turned 20 year old intern's last day. A sweet, sweet kid. He had a chance to tour the White House this morning, so I told him to go and by all means, take his camera. He quietly returned around noon, and 15 minutes later, came to sheepishly tell me that he had lost his camera. He said he had passed the first security station outside on the White House grounds. At the second station, the guard said "no cameras." And, there was no place to check it. So, he got out of line, hid it under a bush, and went through the second checkpoint. At the end of the tour, after exiting the front doors of the White House, he walked back to the guards, and asked if he could enter the first checkpoint again to fetch the camera he had stashed, explaining to them that the other station had not let him pass with a camera. They said "no."
I told him to go back there (it's 10 minutes from where I work) and ask to speak with the guard's boss, which he did, and if that didn't work, to call me and I'd join him to make the case. The boss let him in (of course), walked with him to where he had stashed his camera, and he was back in the office 25 minutes later, all smiles.
These guards had told him "no" without even listening to him. How stupid. The "no" was mechanical, and involved no processing of what was being asked of them. Soooo annoying.

steakbellie said...

I think the root cause is mental laziness. If they just apply the rule without thinking, they wont have to expend and energy down the line defending their actions. "You cant be upset with me, I followed the rules!"

I'm dealing with situations like this at work. Business Systems are failing and I'm in charge of fixing and upgrading them. I'm behind the curve because I dont fully understand all of the processes yet, and have to rely on the day to day people to explain each aspect to me.

As I piece the puzzle together I'm realizing that many of the people were aware of the impending failure of these mission critical systems, but did nothing to avert the damage soley because they were confident that the blame would not be placed on them.