Stoopid. With two ‘O’s.
Life September 18th, 2002 |In working on the job submission tool I’m involved with at my job, it keeps amazing me just how many complaints and/or comments we’re getting from customers that they wouldn’t have if they would read the information on the page. But they don’t, and they whine, which forces us to attempt to dumb it down even further. I’m convinced that the lowest common denominator is sinking minute by minute.
Then I realize that I’m working in a place where there are signs posted on all the soda machines — which are free, and marked as such — explaining in four steps how to get your free soda from the machine.
- Select and push button of desired soda.
- Allow soda to drop.
- Remove soda from cooler.
- Please remove only one soda at a time.
As my dad once told me, “you will never lose betting on human stupidity.”
[See also: Seems simple to me | Duck! The food’s shooting back! | Two digits, thousands of votes | Avi Rubin vs. Diebold | Antici… ]
Mapa Mielno
Charles
Góry
Crackerwax
Scott Weeks
September 18th, 2002 at 3:27 pm
Your dad’s quote is going on my wall at work. It is a high and esteemed place to be, right next to examples of bad design, quotes by Gandhi, and the occasional salon or onion story.
Note to Mr. Hanscom (sr) - if you haven’t seen the article God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule from the Sept 26, 2001 issue of theonion.com I think you would really enjoy it.
On the off note - Salon is running a great series this week called ‘Love in the Age of Irony,’ compiled by Cary Tennis. Lots of letters from gen ‘x’ers about what it is like for young people to live/love in our time and in the shadow of baby boomers. If you follow the link make sure to go to the ‘sex’ main page - a new part of the series will be published each day this week.
September 19th, 2002 at 2:49 pm
Sounds like your dad read H.L. Mencken! He once wrote, “Nobody ever went broke under estimating the intelligence of the American people.”
September 19th, 2002 at 11:22 pm
Kirsten —
That Onion issue is definitely worth reading…some of the best stuff I’ve seen them come up with (worth mentioning multiple times, even!
).
Mark —
It’s entirely possible, dad’s read a lot of stuff (and I’m working on getting there). Both the name Mencken and that particular quote sound very familiar, too. Kinda wondering if I may have stumbled across that at some point in the past. Not sure, though. Hrm….
September 20th, 2002 at 2:42 pm
ha - that’s right, i originally followed the link from your site…
does that mean that you can trackback to yourself on this one??
on yet another of my ‘off-notes’ - this smiley :-$ looks like he is swishing something back and forth in his mouth and that he’s afraid someone will catch him. You could come up with all sorts of wierd little stories for that.
September 20th, 2002 at 2:44 pm
nar!
not that smiley, this one… :-s