Sunday, February 20, 2005

Dumb and Dumber

So, I have been working at Radio Shack for about two weeks now. I have learned the job fairly well in this time and have gotten to know the clientele for the most part also. One thing I can say, with almost solid certainty is that the general public is stupid. Not really stupid, and not everywhere, but here in Pensacola I’d say the general I.Q. is somewhere in the low 90’s.

I am writing this because I was berated blithely tonight by this woman and her friend who wanted to buy a cell phone and after I had just about finished the sale I had figured out that the plan they had asked me for was not what they meant. This woman kept calling a PRE-PAY plan by another name. When I figured this out and tried to confirm that she actually wanted something else she belittled me with her friend and insisted that I was an idiot. I just smiled and rung up their damned phone and got them out of my store, but I was pissed.

My point is that I talk to people every day that don’t know their ass from their elbows about anything electronic but will argue with me when I tell them the facts about a cell phone plan. Or people who couldn’t figure out how to hook up a VCR to a TV. I’m not even talking about people who are older than the products we carry. I can understand if an eighty year old can’t figure out how to hook a DVD player up to a receiver, however he should know how to plug a phone into a wall outlet. I just grew up with the notion that everyone was intelligent enough that they could read an instruction manual and get the desired results.

We have displays in R.S. that can tell you how to do something or what you need to get for... but I swear I spend most of my time trying to explain these simple things to people who don’t want to, or can’t put two and two together.

My grandparents are in their 70’s and have a computer to surf the net, DVD’s, cell phones, and lots of other high end electronics. Yeah, they got some help learning how to operate some of it but I’ll be damned if my grandfather didn’t open up his CPU and replace or install some hardware recently on his own. This is the environment I grew up in. If you can, figure it out for yourself; if not then have it explained…once. I just can’t understand how so many people down here function on as few brain cells as they must have.

Maybe I’m being unfair. I don’t think so though. I guess I just had a large misconception of the American public’s intellectual levels. Still, as I sit here and write this I can’t help but wonder who is truly dumber the people coming into my store or me for serving them?

1 comment:

Singularity said...

As much as I would love to call you dumber I would have to say it's teh general public. This is why I ran from retail the second I had the chance. It is amazing how little people do for themselves anymore. America is such a service run country that people DON'T have to do for themselves anymore. Thats why when I meet a someone with half a brain in there head I just about shit myself with amazement.