Tuesday, June 12, 2007

That's why you seem familiar...

If you were a 'Non-Traditional Student' attending a certain university in the 'center' of Missouri around the time I was, I apologize to you for what I am about to say.
You ruined every class I ever had with you.
The other four to 100 students in the class were able to listen to the lecture and take their notes without interrupting to ask an inane question about a frivolous sub-point of the lecture. Why couldn't you? No one else felt the need to fill the first twelve minutes of the class period with asinine stories of their children, their pets, their children's pets.
I'm glad that you took the time to go back to school and get your education. I realize that you must have been very proud of yourself. But did you have to interrupt the class all of the time? Seriously?

This type of person came into my mind again, recently, when a new person was hired at our office. I am the youngest person in the office, four and a half years younger than than my boss, the eldest. All four of us are, in varying degrees, computer savvy. The new lady might well have babysat for any of us in the office, had she had the chance.
Her resume was impressive. Several years with a major credit card company as a high level executive assistant, among other solid positions with solid companies. The staffing company reported an above average skill in the MS Office Suite, which she would be using daily in her new position. She was warm and friendly in the two interviews she attended. She looked to be a perfect fit.
Then she arrived for work.
It was not long before I realized she was going to get on my nerves. I tried to chalk it up to 'First Day Jitters,' nervous about making new friends. (And to her credit, it would be extremely intimidating, being the junior member by tenure, and the senior member by years) But then she wasted the first five minutes of the staff meeting with a story about her cat getting into the garbage. An amusing story, true, but one more suited for the break room than the conference room.
The rest of the week, she wasted no less than three hours of my time, while I tried to help her do (what her Excel Skills Tests would indicate to be) average tasks in Excel. (Auto-filter, Date formating. Hiding rows and columns) She even managed to update each of us on the status of her cat's daily struggle with staying away from the garbage.
By Wednesday, I knew why I disliked her. She was the Non-Trad. Ruining work for me.
She was gone by the end of Monday, Day 6. She saved a file, her entire day's work, to a temporary internet folder. She never found that folder again. I'll probably never see her again.

6 comments:

Heather K said...

In grad school, my friend Chris referred to these people as 're-treads.'


We of course were not re-treads because we were in grad school, but yeah. I hate those motherfuckers.

Jim said...

I think she might have lied on her application.

Robyn said...

Hee hee, I joke to Joe that if he went back to school, he couldn't be a frat boy anymore, cause he'd be a non-trad.

Anyone remember "When I was in high school" guy? That's on the opposite end of the spectrum, but nearly as bad.

-al said...

Yeah, seriously, what the hell was Microsoft thinking?
Why? Why save it in a completely inaccessible file? And I've been guilty of it too, when i'm in a hurry, or something. But I also am usually able to find it, myself. Or just download it again.
That's also why I love my mozilla and other open source products.
And my Kubuntu distro. I'm still having a blast with that.
(But having screen issues. i think they're old laptop related, not kubuntu.)

Heather K said...

Dude Al, when did you get so computer nerdy? I totally missed that.

Margaret said...

I know you all remember when Dave would take off his glasses, sigh, and rub his eyes with the other hand. Ah, Debbie. :

On the other hand, as a grad student at UMKC, I was one of the youngest students. The rules change in grad school.

Computer tawk: I have the default for downloads set to my desktop. I can always find it there! Then I either move it or delete it when I'm done.