Concerning "STUPID" People

I totally envy stupid people. Most of the stupid people that I know are also some of the happiest people I know.

Stupid people are amazing. They manage to get born, loved and raised by families like the rest of us, but the only real difference is that they are stupid. We all go to school with these stupid people, we graduate with them, and we enter the work force with them. Stupid men and women marry our sons and daughters, and perpetuate themselves by raising families of their own, and then we often end up working for them.

You cannot recognize a stupid person in a casual passing or with a quick glance. You have to actually encounter them, try to reason with them, or work for them.

The single most remarkable thing about stupid people is that they do not know that they are stupid. It seems amazing how many stupid people hold well paying, highly responsible positions. Clearly the most stupid people can be found on the fast track to the very top of a Corporations success ladder. Give a stupid person the least little bit of power and watch how fast a stupid person can make the simplest of a bad situation worse. Glorified private security/parking attendants are among the worse of the stupid people.

If you have not really noticed the stupid people it is probably because you have been so busy dealing with all the havoc that stupid people manage to create, or you could actually be one of the stupid people. Stupid people never recognize themselves in any situation regardless of how clear it is to everyone else. If a stupid person actually read this particular article and took the subsequent quiz there would be absolutely no doubt that they would fail to see themselves as one of the stupid people.

Stupid people end up in some seemingly dead end jobs. All too often the seemingly dead end job is the job that is the first line of communication with the public. For example, have you ever had occasion to call a major credit card company? Stupidity transcends race, gender, and creed. Stupid people can read. Stupid people will follow a script provided to be recited verbatim by these major credit card companies that were obviously started by a stupid person. (Have you ever heard of a minor credit card company? Point made!) Yet, day after day of repeating a script hundreds of times, stupid people never comprehend with any clarity the meaning of that which they have been tasked with to impart to a caller.

Scenario #:

And the caller finally gets to speak to a real person after 5 minutes of navagating the telephone key pad at the appropriate automated prompts.

CALLER: "I would like to report that our credit cards have been stolen."

STUPID PERSON: "So, you want to make a payment on your account today?"

CALLER: "No, I wanted to advise you that our credit cards have been stolen!"

STUPID PERSON: "Do you realize that you can make your payment using our automated system. Would you like me to transfer you there now?"

CALLER (louder, slower & more deliberate):
"NO, I WANT TO NOTIFY YOU, XYZ CREDIT CARD COMPANY, THAT OUR CREDIT CARDS HAVE BEEN STOLEN."

STUPID PERSON: "You don't have to yell. I am just trying to gather the necessary information to help you. What is the name of the primary credit card holder?"

CALLER: "MR. TOOCUTEFORWORDS"

STUPID PERSON: "And your name?"

CALLER: "I just went through this with 6 people before they transferred me to you. Do you think for just one blessed minute that you could respond to the fact that I am trying to report our credit cards as stolen so that I know that I am not speaking to a recording."

STUPIDPERSON: "May I place you on hold?"

Six months from now this particular stupidindividual will be on the fast track to becoming the CEO of this major credit card company, and I have no doubt that he will remember my name, and cancel all my accounts. I have a picture in my mind of all of these stupid people sitting at these major credit card company phones with a little notebook in which they write down all the names of all the account holders that ever even slightly raised their voices to them. I realized this during the 10 minutes that I am on hold waiting for this individual stupid person to return to the conversation so that I can report that our credit cards have been stolen.

Scenario #2:

Takes place in a very small town post office. I am in line behind a lady that has lost the receipt for a money order that she purchased at that particular post office. After about 10 minutes of listening I stepped out of line to watch this transaction unfold, because I just knew that this was going to be a prime example of how the stupid people manage the bureaucracy of the United States Postal Service. The woman had just purchased the money order the day before, she knew the clerk she had purchased the money order from, and the exact amount of the money order. The woman went on to explain that the receipt had blown out of her car window, and she was not going to risk her life just to try to recover it.

The postal clerk spent 45 minutes explaining to the woman that it would be impossible to know which money order was the one she purchased as the money orders are only entered into the ledger by number but not by name.

As the woman started to leave, I stopped her and explained my plan. I would buy a money order to send to one of my eternally needy grown children, and when the postal clerk gets out the money order ledger how much would she be willing to bet that the receipt copy would be the one directly above the one that I was just about to purchase. The woman was so tired and disgusted that she didn't see the harm in my little scheme.

Well, as it turned out, in this very small town United States of America Postal Service office, there it was in all its glory. The woman stood beside me and copied the receipt number on a scrap of paper as I keep the postal clerk preoccupied. We stepped out into the lobby with all of the mailboxes. The woman looked at me a little perplexed and thanked me, but said she still needed a copy of the receipt. I asked her to wait as I took the paper with the numbers back to the counter and explained that I had bought a money order just the day before and needed a copy of the receipt. I gave the postal clerk the paper with the money order receipt numbers written on it, she dutifully looked it up in the money order receipt book, and made me a copy which I proudly marched right out into the lobby and gave to the woman who had been obviously mistreated by one of the many stupid people employed by the United States Postal Service.

I absolutely live for moments like the one told in scenario #2. This particular scheme would not have worked in a large busy post office. I have no doubt that that mail clerk in that obsecure out-of-the-way small town post office will certainly end up being the Post Master General in the very near future.

To be continued...