Have you ever dealt with someone totally clueless? Sure you have; we all have. I'll allow that sometimes people don’t "get" something because it’s new and unfamiliar, but sometimes, just sometimes, they simply can’t seem to wrap their minds around incredibly simple concepts.
I blame MTV for this inability to have an attention span longer than it takes a fruit fly to mate.
Let me give you an example. Let's call the clueless girl "Bubbles". Now if your name is Bubbles and you are not clueless, please do not take offense. All females named Bubbles may not be total bubbleheads, but I have worked with "Bubbles" and she was this bad. Let's take a look at what I mean.
Bubbles: "I wanted to heat up this can of soup, but it didn't work right."
Me: "Well, you just pour the soup and one can of water in a pot and put it on the stove......"
Bubbles: "I did that, but it didn't get hot."
Me: "Did you turn on the burner?"
Bubbles: "Um, what's that?"
Me, trying to figure out how somebody out of diapers could be this clueless: "Did you see the knobs on the stove? Turn one of those to the right and see which burner comes on. Put the pot on that burner and the soup will get hot."
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An hour goes by.
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.
Bubbles (on the phone): "I got the burner to turn on, but the soup didn't get hot."
Me: "You put the pot with the soup and water in it on the lit burner and it didn't get hot?"
Bubbles, sheepishly: "Oh, the soup has to be in the pot that goes on the burner? I'll call you back in a bit."
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The next day Bubbles comes into the kitchen with a French cookbook.
Bubbles: "I'm going to figure this soup thing out. I got a recipe book, but I can't decipher the directions. For instance, what's a TSP?"
Me: "You know, you really don't need to worry about a cookbook. The instructions on the can tell you everything you need to know."
Bubbles: "Well, I need to understand why the soup has to be mixed with water and how it gets hot on that 'stove' thing."
Me, resigned to at least trying keep her from badly scalding herself:"OK. A TSP is a teaspoon. It's a measurement of volume." The realization dawns that I just said too much.....
Bubbles: "Oh, I get it. So how many teaspoons are in a pound?"
Me: "It's not a weight measurement, it's a volume measurement. Look at your coffee spoon. It's about the right size. The amount of sugar it holds leveled off is a Teaspoon."
Bubbles: "So a Teaspoon is the same as a sugar cube. Got it." And she heads out the door.
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The next day Bubbles walks into the kitchen.
Bubbles: "I don't think you were right about the sugar cube thing. I made some soup, but it was too sweet to drink, plus it was cold."
Me, really glad I don't have a knife in my hands: "Look, just stick with the directions on the can. Making soup from scratch takes years of training."
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Wait a month and then repeat the exact same conversation.
Friday, July 25, 2008
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33 comments:
This is a fictional story right? Because if it's not that is the scariest thing ever. Even a seven year old can make soup from a CAN!! :)
Yes please say this is a joke!!
Is the soup a metaphor for something else? There is NO WAY this really happened. . . is there?
Sadly, while this precise conversation never took place, this level of cluelessness is completely true. And, far more common than I think most of us are willing to admit. In fact, Bubbles was smarter than a number of other folks in the group.
This may be one reason I am more cynical than many of the bloggers. When you encounter this kind of stupidity, cluelessness, ineptitude, whatever you want to call it, on a regular basis, you realize that all the grand plans for "everyone can learn to change" are simply fantasies. :(
I hear you. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with someone who I didn't previously lump within the clueless. The conversation involved her "stimulus check" which she knew she was "supposed to spend" and whether it would be all right to put it in the bank while she and her husband decided how they were each going to spend their $300. Arrrgh.
I so have a comment but am afraid of starting a riot - wish I could email you.
Let's see if I can be circumspect: They don't 'really' teach history in schools anymore - young folks miss the impact of the past on the present.
~Mad
OK... take 5 of Bubbles, add 5 "jocks," 5 nerds, 5 normal kids, and 5 class clowns. You now have one of my classes.
Fortunately, they're not all like that.
However, once, discussing fossil fuels, a "bright" student suggested that we should all carpool to school and how cool it would be to have a big car that could pick up our whole class. I said... "we have that, it's the bus..."
I still rememember my roommate who used to burn ramen noodles. "Why do the noodles always burn?" "Well, you might want to turn the heat down on the stove once you get the water boiling." "But I always do it that way." "..."
I'm pretty dyslexic sometimes. At the moment my main problem seems to be finding light switches when I get home in the evening. After that I can think about the soup.
OMG - you are too funny!!!
Things like that are just... sad. :(
Whoa, that level of cluelessness is frightening. The worst I came across was a lady who worked in the same clothes store I did when I was a university student. When someone brought her two items of clothing - one from the 10% off rack and one from the 20% off rack, she gave them 30% off both. This was the manager, I kid you not.
I resisted the urge to stick a fork in my eye as I read this post. Thank goodness that girl isn't real. Recently I went to the grocery store and handed the bagger my cloth shopping bags. He started bagging everything in plastic. Politely, I told him that I only wanted to use the cloth bags. He tried to put the items already bagged in plastic into the cloth bags. I told him again, oly cloth, no plastic. So he removes the plastic bagged groceries out of the cloth bags and says, so you only want to use the cloth and no plastic?
I have met people with that level of cluelessness, but then they tend to amaze me with something I am not too good at (often handiwork). I am a very judgemental person, but I try not to be too much.
But I think you're a bit too patient though. There is no way I would be this tolerant.
First off, where do you know Bubbles from? Please don't tell me the board room of Enron or a White House intern. (Ha Ha.)
And second, does this person get behind the wheel of a car?
Yes but did "bubbles" have shapely legs and fantastic tata's? That's the only way she is gonna get by in this world!
This reminds me of something that happened to a family friend years ago. He was cooking a can of soup. The soup exploded, the fire department was called. Apparently the directions on the can do not explicitly state that you have to open the can and pour the contents in to the pot.
Yep....one does meet the "Bubbles" of this world...I try to remind myself that I mustnt condemn them or karma could "bite my backside" and I could come back as a "Bubbles" in my next life - 2 braincells to rub together as I put it. But then I remember I'm not going to reincarnate if I can possibly help it anyways - so its back to "D.....n Bubbles - how stupid is that?" I manage to refrain most of the time - its just when they are someone I'm buying some goods or services off when my temper lets fly when I realise I am dealing with a "Bubbles".
I'm having the same sort of disconnect with folks about wood stoves. Everyone suggests pellet stoves.
Let's see... works with electricity (so you freeze your butt off if the power goes out when you really need the heat). Takes pellets which are a by-product of the construction industry which is in freefall and not building, i.e. no pellets.
*facepalm*
I think the next person who says I should get a pellet stove might get something else very, very rude from me.
Then there's the whole cutting, splitting, stacking wood is too hard bit. Last time I checked, even though I claim to be a princess, work won't kill me. Or you. (collective you)
One of my teachers was moving house and couldn't get the bolts on the bed undone....you can see this coming.... he was trying to turn them the wrong way and never thought to try the reverse. He was a good teacher too, just clueless practically.
viv in nz
I have met Bubbles in the workplace, in volunteer jobs, and in casual encounters, such as banks, post offices, or retail stores. Bubbles has been male and female, young and old, pretty and not. The most difficult to handle are those you must work with, day in and day out. You have to have patience and cannot tell them how stupid they are acting.
Judgmental? Yes. However, repeatedly encountering such cluelessness, often from the same person, has to really make you wonder what the heck is going on. Are humans getting dumber? Are TV, cell phones, and the Internet ruining critical thinking and problem solving? Are people too lazy to bother to learn? It simply boggles my mind to encounter this, and hear your stories, too.
Mad - I agree about the history, but, then again, even older generations keep repeating the same dumb mistakes. Sorry my email isn't public.
Abbie - I considered working with kids at one point in my life. Thank goodness I did volunteer work and discovered it would not be a wise career choice. ;-)
annawolfsong - yeah, that one puzzles me, too.
Thank you all for sharing stories of encountering your own "Bubbles".
I work with a couple of "Bubbles" and the scariest part is that they are RNs!
Is this about my babysitter?
I have a story to share. My grandmother recently had a large bee infestation in her house and as a result the walls were dripping with honey. My mother told people at work about this and one girl said "but who would put all that honey in there" my mother politely tells her the bees made it and she responds with " Bees make honey!!!" true story I kid you not.
I think technological devices such as TV, cell phones, and internet don't change the fundamental nature of a person.
For instance, you and I use the internet to connect, to learn, etc. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to Internet University, I've learned so much in the past year from the internet. For people like us, the internet is a wonderful resource that allows us access to vast amounts of information at our fingertips.
Other people use that same technology so they never have to flex their brain muscles. But even in pre-internet days that person would have been dumb. We just might not have known quite so many of them since technology puts us in closer contact with more and more people.
That's my theory anyway.
Oh my god. I don't know how anyone can be that stupid. Although, one year my dad had the flu, and he wanted soup. He walks into the living room with the can and asks me how to make it. I told him to read the directions on the can. Luckily he does know how to operate a stove.
Funny post and comments. This is a story about being astonished to find the opposite--an actually helpful young person: last week I was looking for running shoes for my son that were in the local department store's ad. Well, the shoes weren't on the shelf. I went to the service counter and got the *usual these days* snotty look and reply that "I'll call someone over there"--from the front end supervisor no less.
Well, the young woman (~17yo) that came to help me was apologetic that the shoes weren't on the shelf yet, called another store to get the product number and then actually found a pair of the shoes in the back. The whole process took 10 minutes of me waiting. Now, I could've been angry to have to wait 10 minutes but to the contrary I was DELIGHTED to have this intelligent, nice, helpful young woman help me out. She never even sneered at me!
I'm *only* 37 and I have to say that my surprise at being treated so well really tells me something about the current state of our culture! I'm not a frequent shopper at dept. stores or malls, but I guess I've gotten used to really rude service at them.
I wish now I would've gotten that girl's name and written to her manager with complimens.
Lisa, that's great. On the rare occasions where I've run into great service like that, I always tell them how much I appreciate it. Used to be the norm, now it's unusual.
Funny but pathetic. Imagine the poor dolts with this sort of incompetence yrying to maneuver through life.
WOW. Even if it is fictitious, that's not too far off for some...
An acquaintance of ours apparently now works as a prison guard in the mental wing, and had no idea what 5150 meant (involuntary psychiatric hold).
Do you know my friend?
Here's clueless: I'm a stay-at-home mom and my hubby makes $30,000 a year, but we save about $6,000. His friend makes $55,000 a year, yet he and his wife have to put small purchases on the credit card because they don't have cash reserves.
Yet this friend mocks us for not making as much as he does. Um, dude, WE HAVE MORE MONEY THAN YOU.
Chile!
I am so embarrassed... Now you've gone and told the whole interweb.
I thought the cooking lessons were going to be our little secret!
I am cancelling my plans to have you teach me laundry...
:)
It boggles the mind to think about how these folks make it from one day to the next, doesn't it?
Katie, was that cluelessness or poor training?
LOL, Krista, yes, I think I do! ;-)
Leslie, sorry to spill the beans, er, soup. We'll work on laundry next month. You'll need to gather up some dirty clothes first. No, not from other people... your own.
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