Yesterday, one of my slightly strange (ok..not just slightly...WAAAY strange) co-workers came to me with a question. He had been working on a task I had assigned to him, with the specific instruction to refer to the software manual because it described in detail how use that particular piece of software.
So he comes to me and tells me that he opened the file but it didn't do anything.
I told him that the software doesn't do anything initially when the file is opened - you still have to select the data that you want to view. Opening the file doesn't extract all the data that's in the database. It's all detailed in the manual, I reminded him.
He left and all was well, I thought.
That's what I get for thinking.
Ten minutes later, he's back. He proceeded to tell me how he went back to his desk, and spent ten minutes exploring the menus and trying different "things". And finally he tried something that didn't seem like it would work, but it worked.
Again, I asked him if he referred to the manual, which detailed exactly what he needed to do in a step-by-step fashion. "No," he replied, "I thought I'd try to figure it out for myself first."
*smacks forehead against his desk repeatedly*
WHY???? WHY???? Why do people make things more difficult than they need to be?
*****
Earlier in the week, the same strange co-worker comes in the lunchroom while I'm talking to Jason. Jason was talking about how he saw a Hallmark movie over the weekend in which the sun was going to supernova and people had to figure out how to survive.
I said something like I had read a book or seen a movie once that was LIKE Armageddon but it wasn't Armageddon, where some apocalyptic event was going to occur, and people had to determine who to send into space to keep the human race from becoming extinct. I said I couldn't remember the name of the book or the movie, but the French had built underground bunkers, and the Japanese had an undersea colony...
Well, strange co-worker then blurts out, "yeah...there's a movie like that called Armageddon, where there's this comet...."
He had been listening but apparently not FOLLOWING the conversation I was having....
I told him it was LIKE Armageddon, but it wasn't Armageddon...
"No, no...the movie has Bruce Willis in it..." he insists.
"It's NOT Armageddon," I insisted back, "it's NOT Armageddon"....
How many times do I have to say it??? Sheeesh. Obviously there is some sort of a disconnect.
Ex-coworker buddy - where are you??? It's times like these where I really miss ya....Heh.
Posted by adinar at September 21, 2005 05:22 PM