Another little rave on stupid

One of the things I have seen that stupid people do is to ruin things for the rest of us.

I was listening to a story a shipmate told me about getting back to his homeport.

It was a reasonably simple process involving a couple of short cab rides and a pair of train rides.

He had called the office and they started making arrangements for him and gave him a lot of time to spare in case there was a hitch. The office handled everything, which in a way isn't a bad deal, but in the process he lost a lot of time and there was a lot more hassle than there had to be.

At one time I was on the unofficial list of good boys that could be expected to take care of themselves, but some sissy that couldn't take care of himself complained that it wasn't fair so they threw out the list, so to speak, but I digress.

What happened to my shipmate is that he had to get the office to make him train reservations and cab arrangements.

No biggie in itself, but cabs can be somewhat unreliable and if one shows up late the whole process can get thrown out of kilter.

The time and hassle the office had to go through is to be considered, too. They had to make calls and arrangements and get tickets. There is always a chance something could get lost in translation and the arrangements would get screwed up somewhere along the line.

Often times the easiest and best thing to do is simply tell the employee to get home on his own, save his reciepts and turn them in for reemburstment.

The SMART employee will generally make out better because he can take advantage of what ever situation is handed to him.

If he gets somewhere a little early can snag an earlier ride. He will, of course, presuming he has half a brain, provided it is no great difference in cost.

If he is running a little late, he can reschedule for a later ride.

The company will generally make out pretty good also because it will save them the time and hassle of setting things up and having to reschedule the whole thing if something goes awry.

Enter stupid.

This is the entire reason good things go away.

Telling a stupid person to get home on his own is a recipe for disaster.

Stupid people will do stupid things.

One such chooch hopped into a cab in Bridgeport, Connecticut and told the driver to take him to the Philadelphia office resulting in a whopping cab fare that the office was expected to pay. It should be carefully noted that the man picked up the cab about a ten minute ride from the local train station.

Another idiot decided that he simply couldn't wait ten minutes for the next train and boarded some special train and the ride cost an extra hundred bucks or so.

Then there was the guy that had well under the required half of a brain that found himself somewhere in New York and simply called the office and told them he was lost and wanted to know what to do. That sent the entire office into panic because Lord knows what kind of trouble he was going to encounter alone in the big city.

The office told him to hop into the first cab he could find and have the cabbie take him straight to Grand Central Station and then call. It was then that the dumbass told the office he didn't have cab fare.

The office then had to call around and find a cab company willing to drive the jerk to Grand Central Station and send the company a bill. Done.

The office people were sharp enough to have the cabbie hand this clod written directions to call them as soon as he got to Grand Central where they had to explain to him how to go to the service desk and pick up his ticket. They also told him to call when he got to where he had to change trains to make damned good and sure he got on the right train and got to the home port. There a supervisor had to pick him up at the train station.

It should be carefully noted that this hillbilly had llived his entire life in Philadelphia. He wasn't some roughshod hayshaker from the boonies. He was a city kid and should have had at least some idea.

It is interesting to note that one crewman I worked with really was a hillbilly from some jerkwater place a quarter-mile west of BFE. He was one of those people that probably had gone to school barefoot, yet he could easily get around anywhere on earth. The reason for this is that he had at least the necessary half a brain required to be able to think.

One time I was told to make sure a certain deck hand off of one of the tugs got back to the homeport OK.

I had planned on taking the cab of the arriving crewmen to the train station, but I found that they had let the cab go at the entrance of the tank farm. Ouch.

A quick word with the dockman told me thaat cabs took forever to arrive and that the fastest way to go was to catch the bus that ran just outside the main gate.

The deckhand seemed lost. He wanted to know what we were going to do and I looked at him and told him simply that we were going home. Of course, he was worried and said so. I was irritable at the time and told him, "Follow me. I'm infantry."

We caught the bus and it took us a couple blocks from the train station. Then he wanted to know how we were going to get to the train station and I told him we were going to walk. When he asked how far, I told him that it was three or four miles and he said he 'wasn't going to walk no three or four miles'.

At which point I told him he was on his own and started to walk the couple of blocks. He followed me like a puppy and we boarded the train almost instantly and arrived in Philly a couple of hours later. Yeah, I was probably rude, but the truth is that I was plain sick and tired of dopey people that got panicky over nothing.

You have to stop and think for a minute. There is a transportation system set up in this world that can take a person anywhere he wants to go. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know where most of the stations and depots are, but at least I know enough to simply be able to ask someone. In fact with Google it is easier yet.

Yet the world still has stupid people in it that are either too lazy or stupid to be able to take care of themselves and because of that the people in the various offices will have no shortage of employment taking care of these less than mental giants.

On the other hand, those of us that can shift for ourselves are going to have to deal with the inconveniences of not being able to take care of ourselves because the system has to be dumbed down to make sure the stupid are cared for.

It sometimes make you want to become a total Darwinist and throw the dummies of this world to the wolves.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/