The Stupidity Surplus

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present our most abundant resource - STUPIDITY! Trust me, there is enough stupidity to circle the globe many times over and still have some left to spare. Of course, it helps that the supply of stupidity is directly proportional with the world's population. With seven billion humans roaming the land, there's no shortage of stupidity, if only ! Please let me clarify what I mean by stupidity. I'm not referring to those of us who are slow or suffer from learning disabilities or other ailments. These individuals were born with such limitations, to no fault of their own. They endure insufferable ostracization because they are misplaced and under utilized by society. When I say stupid, I'm referring to the dumdums of this world. Those who are too lazy, too indifferent or too selfish to do better. Those who are fully aware of the correct way to behave, yet freely elect to remain stupid and do as they please with a complete disregard to others. Those who repeatedly refuse to learn despite numerous eye-rolling  scorns and stares of contempt. I have often wondered if these individuals are truly oblivious to the magnitude of their stupidity until I notice a slight change in their demeanor as I visibly reach the tipping point of my dumdum tolerance. They fleetly retreat and correct course, thus I am reminded that these people are stupid by choice. 

To further illustrate, let me give you a for instance,

1. The dumdums who always make a right turn at the red lights, blatantly ignoring pedestrians and the "No Right on Red" signs, unless of course there's a patrol car in sight 
2. The dumdums who loudly converse on their phones in public places. Yet, they lower their voices and even cup their free hand over their mouths when communicating embarrassing occurrences.
3. The dumdums who sing along to their iTunes while walking down the street. Belting out the lyrics, terribly I might add, as if they were auditioning for American Ideal
4. Everyone between 13 and 27 years old
5. The dumdums who continue to chitchat even when you stop engaging in the conversation and only contributes constipated ums and nodes
6. The dumdums who talk back to the screen at movie theaters and act as if they are streaming the film on Netflix in their living rooms
7. The dumdums who leave their coffee pods in the communal coffee machine and never refill the water tank
8. The dumdums who never flush the toilet after use
9. The dumdums who talk on the phone while in a public toilet stall
10. The dumdums who always tweet pictures without adding meaningful captions. Instagram, dude! 

The list can go on and on, but I digress. The most guilty of all dumdums, besides multi-offenders, are the idiots who still think of IT professionals as "The Computer Guy". Those who solicit unwarranted technology counseling from unsuspecting IT people on the elevator. FYI - that's so not okay. I understand that there are some people who don't realize their faux pas - again no shortage of stupidity. So to all of you out there who don't know better, here are a few words of advice,

• IT professions are as many and diverse as doctors. There are the general practitioners of helpdesk and Genus barkeepers, the specialists server administrators, DBAs and software developers, and finally the cardiologists and brain surgeons of information security, business analysts, and project managers. Unless you let Dr. Bob who prescribes anti-fungal creme for you scaly feet extract molars and remove your gallbladder, don't expect all IT professionals to know everything about "computers".
• Guess what dumdum, you are the expert in MS Office not us, because you use it everyday. So, no, it's not okay to casually ask us how to sort an excel sheet in an ascending order and then smirk when we don't tell you the answer.
• Working in IT is not cool. Let me repeat this for the benefit of those dumdums who don't believe me. WORKING IN IT IS NOT COOL. We are cooped up indoors for 10 hours a day. We have bad posture from sitting all day. We have bad eye sight from staring at a monitor all day. So uncool !
• We hate the soul-sucking meetings and conference calls we have to attend.
• It is a thankless job. When anything, and I do mean anything, goes wrong, IT is always to blame or looked upon to solve the issue. Toilet clogged? Call IT! We are very very busy cleaning up other people's shit, so please when that very important document doesn't print, make sure the printer is turned on before shooting a ticket at your helpdesk.
• Yes, we think that all non-technical people are stupid idiots who could not find their asses if they weren't parked on the seats underneath them. Please prove us wrong.

This too shall laugh

In Egypt, students have to stand in line before morning classes, kind of like the military. The surrounding grounds are divided into sections for each stage, and each section is divided into areas for each class. The students from each class stand in a line of ascending order of height. Being 5' 2", I was always among the first few students in line. These lineups last for about 30 minutes each morning. We salute the flag and sing our national anthem, and the school makes important announcements. The best part of this daily routine is the school broadcast. Every morning a group of kids present news items and stories pertaining to a certain subject. Sundays are for the Arabic broadcast, Mondays are for the English broadcast, and so on.

During high school, I became in charge of the English broadcast. Together with a group of colleagues, I'd prepare our weekly program. We'd always try to make each show entertaining as well as informational. On Mondays, I would stand in front of the entire student body with a microphone in hand, my voice being broadcasted out of two megaphones positioned on the highest point of our school house, and deliver our show. I became a minor celebrity of sorts. I'd always end the program with the same sign off, "With this we come to end of our English broadcast. Until we meet again, this is Amira Shawkey, wishing you a happy day." I loved it when students would come up to me during lunch break to share how much they enjoyed certain segments or suggest future topics. It meant that they were listening attentively to our show and interested in what we had to say. For the first time I understood how it felt to be proud of something I did. No matter the weather, sun or rain, I always showed up on our broadcast days.

In 1991, we had a political segment to talk about the now infamous referendums president Mubarak had every six years to see if the Egyptian people wanted him to continue for another term. Of course the results were always an astounding 99.9% for yes, despite the fact that almost no one went to the polls. The objective of the segment was to introduce the word "referendum" and its meaning. As I was presenting the various forms of the word, singular and plural, I said plulal instead. I immediately realized my mistake, smiled, took a deep breath and repeated the sentence, "And the plulal form of referendum is referenda." As if I suffered from a temporary bout of Tourettes, every time I opened my mouth, all that came out was "Plulal" "Plulal" "Plulal". Our principle, who taught High School English back in the day, came closer and whispered to me, "It is pronounced plural." By this time, the entire student body and most of the faculty were laughing. I surrendered to the fact that I will never be able to say the word plural out loud again. I shook my head and said that no one is perfect. That day, after the broadcast ended, the crowd applauded a little bit more enthusiastically than usual. Later people came up to say how brave I was to admit my mistake and move on. Others said I should have ignored it all together and proceed as if nothing went wrong. I really didn't think much about how silly I appeared at the time this was happening. My only concern was making sure that I didn't ruin the segment and the program didn't exceed its 15 minute allotment. Needless to say, I was very embarrassed after the fact. My confident and cocky ego was appalled that I couldn't properly pronounce a simple word like "plural" (I can't say "comfortably" either). The fact the people laughed about the whole incident made me realized that it wasn't the end of the world.

I like to share this story with my friends and colleague who have a difficult time presenting their work or engaging in public speaking. I always tell them to image the worst possible thing that could happen. They'll trip and fall down. They'll mix up words. They'll make a fool of themselves! So what? Who cares? Most likely, people will laugh and soon enough forget the whole thing. With any work we put forward, we always do our best. We try our hardest to ensure the work is perfect. We practice over and over. We ask for other people's opinion. But shit happens! We can't control the universe and we can't control people's reception of our work. As long as we know and believe that it's not the end of the world, everything will be okay. Even if people mercilessly tease us for a bad performance, always remember a 15 year old girl regurgitating the word "Plulal" "Plulal" "Plulal" in front of a thousand people and tell ourselves "This too shall laugh!"