Miss Information can not answer your question. Please die.
Tuesdays are usually stressful. Miss Information works a split shift and spends the afternoon at school. On top of that she is exhausted from last night's 7-hour turf war with her cat over who gets to stick whose foot in whose face tonight. She is still pulling fur from her teeth.School involved a review for next week’s midterm. The professor had helpfully generated a list of key concepts as a study aid. Not only did Miss Information not recognize any of them from the course, she wasn’t even sure they were English words. And she’s been to all the classes and kept up with the reading. She might need to go over some things.
At work it was one baffling conversation after another. This is the one that crushed her spirit.
Woman: Is there a computer where I can use my USB stick?
Miss Information: The word processing computers can do that.
Woman: Oh. I don’t like using my USB stick except at home but the file’s on my e-mail. Where can I open an attachment?
Miss Information: The word processing computers can do that.
Woman: Oh. Can’t I just use a regular Internet computer?
Miss Information: Sometimes they can’t open attachments.
Woman: I opened my attachment on one yesterday. I’ll just use that one again.
Why is Miss Information even involved in this conversation? Her presence didn’t seem necessary.
The rest of the shift was a struggle not to answer every question with “who the hell knows?”
For the record, Miss Information does not know the answer to the following questions:
Where can I buy used books about printed circuit boards?
What does my son need to know to pass the college math entrance exam?
Should I read this book or that book?
Can I get into university if I don’t have proper documentation from my home country?
Have I read this book before?
When will that overdue book be returned?
Miss Information hopes tomorrow will be better.
5 Comments:
Let me take a stab at answering some of those "who the hell knows?" questions. Those people are just evidence that Mother Nature needs to hire more people to take out the trash:
1. For the used books, why not try a little place called a bookstore. This is a library. We lend them, not sell them.
2. Oh, I don't know, some math?
3. Read both.
4. Hmm, an interesting question. Let me get in touch with the INS and Homeland Security. I am sure they would be delighted to chat with you about it.
5. Nope, so go ahead and read it.
6. It will be returned when it actually gets here.
Damn morons. As for the woman, well, obviously yet another reason to promote eugenics.
I got one of these the other day.
"what is the telephone number for Uzbekistan?"
I didn' t know the whole country shared one phone.
Home country or home planet?
I would have said "Yes, you did read that one. And you hated it."
Maybe you mean "we should let natural selection take it's course instead of protecting the terminally stupid." Instead of eugenics, you racist.
Oh yes, the "how the hell should I know" response comes freqently to mind these days. I just have to grit my teeth and smile...
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