WILL UNWOUND #21: “Hammerhead was Right – I am a Moron” by Will Manley
February 10, 2010All of you public services librarians out there, pay attention! Today’s story provides you a teachable moment about people who are on the wrong side of the digital divide.
You all know that clueless library patron who walks up to the reference desk and says, “I can’t find the any key!”
You respond, “Sir, what are you talking about?”
Then he says, “It says on your computer over there that to start the library’s catalog you should push any key. Well…I can’t find the any key.”
That clueless loser is me. I really didn’t want to go into my technical ineptitude to any great degree but I knew deep down inside it would eventually surface. When people who know me found out that I had started a blog, they pretty much freaked. “What’s next?” one of them asked, “will the Pope worship at a Buddhist temple?”
People who know me well, know that my idea of an edgy technology is going from the “full pump” fountain pen to the one with insertable cartridges. I have a big fountain pen collection and recently bought a quill pen at an antiques store. I use my pens all the time, and found that the quill pen has some advantages over the standard fountain pen. It’s actually more flexible in adjusting the flow of ink. When you want to bold face something, the quill pen is the way to go. Just think of John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration of Independence. He could never have pulled that off with a standard fountain pen.
It’s not that I don’t like computers, I do. It’s just that I’m afraid of pushing the wrong button. I’m afraid everything will go haywire. I feel the same way about cars. I don’t understand them, but I can see their advantages over horse and buggy technology. In the car, I’m also always afraid of pushing the wrong button. Will the driver’s side air bag deploy?
If you must know, my son Dave set this blog up for me. He has an advanced degree in computer engineering from Stanford. He has primarily my wife’s genes. He’s also a very patient man, who suffered my stupid questions with dignity and patience. He basically held my hand throughout the whole blog launch process. After about a week, though, he asked me a funny question: “How come you’re not approving any of the reader comments that you’ve been getting .” I had no idea what he was talking about, so I shrugged my shoulders and said I’d do it when I had time.
My son Stephen who has a computer engineering degree from Harvard (again, my wife’s genes at work), also started bugging me about the comments. He had sent me several and wondered why I hadn’t “approved” them. Again I basically ignored his question since I didn’t want to reveal my ignorance.
Then, yesterday, after I posted my blog#20 –“Will, You are a Moron” in which I stated that I really wanted to get reader feedback in the form of comments, I began to get a bunch of emails from librarians that all basically said the same thing: “Will, I sent you a comment but you didn’t approve it, so how can you say you welcome comments?”
Then I bumped into Stephen and diffidently asked him what “approving” a comment means. “Are you a complete moron?” he responded. “It means you approve the comment for posting under your blog.” I was beginning to see the light a little when he started to lecture me. “What in the heck do you think a blog is? It’s supposed to be interactive. You blog and people comment. It’s a give and take. Often times the comments are more interesting than the original text. When Hammerhead called you a moron in his comment, he wanted you to approve and post it. And you know what…HAMMERHEAD WAS RIGHT!” Then he paused, took a deep breath, counted to ten and asked : “So….what did you do with all the comments you received?”
I scratched my head and said, I wrote e-mails to the people and then deleted them. He shook his head as though I was hopeless. When I got home I saw a brand new comment from someone named “LibraryBob” so I hit the approve button and presto… it magically appeared under blog #19.
Cool. I’m getting edgy!
I’m honest enough to appreciate your computer struggles. And I bet there are still a very large number of librarians who may have managed to master their library software, and a how to find a few sites on the internet who know deep down they know nada. It may make you feel better to know I’m learning a lot more about blogs reading your blog!
I wonder if computers scare others like they scare me. Push the wrong key and everything disappears forever. That’s what I’m afraid of.
You make me smile every day. Thanks
Thanks. You just made me smile!
Will, thank you for starting my day with laughter.
Thanks for making my day.
I can sympathize with the person who couldn’t find the key. I’m old enough to have trained on mechanical and electric typewriters, and the “Return” button on the electric typewriter is where the “Enter” button is on the modern keyboard. I still refer to it as the “Return” button sometimes, which confuses everyone under 45 years old.
But then, I confuse most peopel anyway!
Today I was in an antique store and saw a Smith Corona typewriter. For the first 40 years of my life, my Smith Corona was one of my closest companions. Does this mean I’m an antique too?
Now I don’t feel so bad about the new technology. Sorry, better you than me I guess. Comment on ink pens. Great if you are right handed but don’t work well for those of us who are lefties!
Never thought of that until I tried it five minutes ago. Now I’ve got ink all over my left sleeve, and it’s indelible.
I have always enjoyed your column. Glad to see you are still writing.
Thanks. I’ve really enjoyed writing all my columns, but blogging is definitely more fun!
Don’t sell yourself short, Will. A professor at my institution has had students blogging with students at another university. It was originally planned as homework but the entire class meets in a lab once a week to blog because the “tech savvy” students don’t know what they’re doing and can’t remember how to do their work from one week to the next.
Do the tech savvy students know how to write simple declarative sentences?
One interesting fact. If you go to dictionary.com, they list 22 synonyms for “moron”. For their listed antonym of “moron” – “brain” – there are a mere 13 synonyms. What does it say about us that we’re nearly twice as effective at describing stupidity as intelligence?
By the way, “addlepate” was my favorite synonym for “moron”.
Does this mean that there are twice as many stupid people in the world than intelligent ones?