1997-01-11 03:44 (Sat) Freeman Lake
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I was working on a image map GIF of some models in a lawyers case,
and was confronted by the need to Explain The Concept to someone.
It went kind of like this (by analogy) ...
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Wiz: 	That will be a difficult knot to unravel.
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Newbie: What is a "knot"?
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Wiz: 	Something that you use to tie things together.
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Newbie: "tie things" ???
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Wiz: 	Well, for example, if you had two pieces of string, and you
	wanted to make one longer piece of string, you would 
	TIE A KNOT between the start of one piece and the end of
	the other one.
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Newbie: What a novel concept!! When else might one wish to 
	"tie a knot"?
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Wiz: 	Uh ... to tie the laces on your shoes so they don't fall off.
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Newbie: And what are "shoes"?
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Wiz: 	Things that you wear on your feet.
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Newbie: "feet" ???
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Anywho, it wasn't quite that bad, but nearly as painful. :-)
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This is why I am not good as a "customer service representative",
a short-term, part-time position that does not appear on my resume,
since no one who was there for my brief tenure is still in their
employment, either!
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As one co-worker once remarked to me, "You do not suffer fools
gladly." That is my greatest fault ... I cannot face an "anal
orifice" but that I must call him such to his face, for I would 
not speak it of him behind his back, except to confirm that it be the
general opinion of him.
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(Woof! I've been watching too much Shakespeare lately! :-)
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I would now warn the Gentle Reader that what is to follow may
be offensive to some, and I have thus far saved you from the
vulgarities of the Unwashed Masses, but this is the way I heard
it in a Stallone movie ...
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Cop #1:	Let it go.
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Cop #2:	But he's an ass-hole!!
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Cop #1: That's right, he's an ass-hole. But he's also a POWERFUL
	ass-hole, and that makes him Dangerous!
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Well, I'm the guy who never learned how to keep his mouth shut
when confonted by the ... "lesser man", as I can best describe
those people who fall on The Other Side of that bell-shaped
I.Q. curve ... the "Forest Gumps" of the world. 
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("An God *must've* loved 'em, 'cause He made so *many* of 'em!")
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I can't deal with 'em so well myself, and I try to avoid places
where they congregate.
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Much as I try to remember the time when all of this was new to me, and as
often as I tell a newbie, "Don't worry ... there was a time when
I didn't know as much about this stuff as you do now," I just
can't get past the learning curve of the Slow Ones, the Ones Not
Clear On The Concept, the vast majority who are not in my corner
of the bell-shaped curve.
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I just don't know how to help them, and I guess it's that feeling of
helplessness that I can only vent externally ... at the immediate
source of my pain ... that makes me tell them to drop out of the
class and get a boy-friend or a pet, because they have no aptitude
for the material. (Yeah, I did that to someone I was supposed to
be tutoring in college, 20 years ago!)
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Well ... this has been cathartic! I don't know why I had this need
to vent my spleen, but I feel Much Better now. :-)
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That is all I have to say.  -=DAH=-  1997-01-11