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The old stereotype of a man’s inability to ask for directions, like most stereotypes, has its basis in reality. Most men will cop to it with a wink and a grin, and woman will swear by it as though it was gospel, but it is as close as you can get to being a fact.
In these computer days and nights leaving home for a new destination without directions is rare. With places like Mapquest and Yahoo Driving Directions just a mouse click away you would be foolish not to utilize them. These sites can give you directions to someplace a couple of blocks away or across the country. You would have to be one stubborn male not to use it if for no other reason than to avoid hearing the question “Do you know where you are going?” from your significant other.
These sites are not completely without fault and therefore they carry a little warning that you should do a reality check before embarking on your journey. But if we did, it would almost be like asking for directions. So forget about it. Let the fuzzy dice roll, I mean how far off could they be anyway? If you do get lost you can always blame the computer.
With the way things are in the world today, good luck finding somebody to give you directions if you do get lost. The gas stations of today, as we all know, are not exactly staffed with the friendliest and most knowledgeable human beings on the planet.
With automated gas pumps, the only time you even see a human being is when you enter the mini-mart section of the station. While the person behind the counter can give you excellent directions to the lottery kiosk, good luck in getting directions to any place outside of the gas station property.
The fact of the matter is, in today’s world, asking for help or a question is kind of a crapshoot at best or at times completely pointless. Most people who work in the food, customer service, and retail industries, give you the impression that you are bothering them or they have an agenda when asked a question.
Again, maybe it’s a guy thing, but I have to really be desperate to ask for information from a person in any retail environment. The only time I attempt this is when I am in a rush and getting frustrated because I can’t find something. When I mentioned crapshoot, no place is a better example than Home Depot, whose commercials tout the amazing amount of knowledge their employees have.
It is either feast or famine depending on whom you talk to. Part of the problem is that first you have to find someone to ask the question, then you have to hope that the person you are talking to took the crash course on that topic, or is one of those guys who is a jack of all trades.
Unfortunately for me I seem to be draw to the wrong people. When I stop one of the orange smock wearing guys or girls in the garden department, I have to assume that they have at least a minimum knowledge of plants and the accoutrements. This has not been the case. I went in and asked a question pertaining to plant food to a person who didn’t know plants from fruit trees. Then he led me like a some stoned out fucking zombie to the grass seed section.
Then there was the guy whom I assumed was working in the lumber department, because silly me, that’s where I found him. When I asked him to cut some wood for me, he looked at me as if I was inconveniencing him, told me that they didn’t do that, and then vanished. I found this odd because of the presence of the massive saws at the end of the aisle where I found him. I rolled the dice again, asking somebody else who immediately said yes and cut my lumber. I guess the other guy was either an imposter or wandered over from the garden department.
Eating out is an arena where my wife and I differ. She likes to ask a question that drives me crazy. She asks the waiter what is good on the menu or what he or she recommends. To me, based on what I have been told by a friend of mine who is a four star chef, and by numerous others who have worked as waiters over the years, this process is an exercise in futility.
Without exception they have all told me, especially if in a high end restaurant, the recommendation that you will get will not be coming from the server, it will be coming from the head chef or restaurant manager. Generally it is not based on what’s best on the menu, but what the chef has the most of, and tells his wait staff what to try to sell up on.
My wife doesn’t believe this deception exists. So every time we go to a restaurant and she can’t make a decision on what to order, we go down this road. This, I think, is why I have been gravitating more and more towards buffets. I can see what I am about to eat before it shows up and if I don’t like it I can dump it and try again. That, plus I don’t have to listen to a bunch of bullshit as to how wonderful the boiled liver with the peanut butter and cactus salsa is.
Computer stores or computer departments in stores like Best Buy are another of my favorites as a fountain of misinformation when asking one of their undereducated employees questions. The last time I went in search for a specific type of printer cable I was led on a wild goose chase by Compusa and Best Buy. Basically they told me that what I was asking for didn’t even exist in the computer world. In reality it’s because their fragile egos are too fucking lazy to ask someone else.
It was only in a last ditch effort of going to Circuit City, and the stroke of luck in just asking the right person, that I found what I was looking for. Folks, to find a simple computer cable shouldn’t require that much work. I suppose it is too much to ask for companies to give their employees some basic training or have them at least admit that they don’t know and check with somebody else before blowing you off based on their limited knowledge.
It’s just another sad commentary as to the world we live in today. One where more people than not, don’t take pride in what they do. They do what they do because they either have to or because they are told to. Long gone are the days of checking your oil or washing your windows when you pull in for gas, for an employee in a specialty store to actually know the products, or for a waiter to give an opinion on a dish that he has actually tasted.
Over the last few decades the press has relished in giving each generation a cute little moniker to describe the mindset of the population. The “We and Us Generations” pop to mind, but they haven’t attached one to this decade yet and we are already more than halfway through it.
I guess the “Why Ask Generation” seems appropriate.
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