Dumb people get more respect than us

Post Reply New Topic

This has happened many times with me.

I will be in some sort of customer service line. The person before me will be slow, dumb, and unable to convey what he wants. The cusomer service person will be smiling and polite to this person. I walk up and speak clearly and to the point. The customer service person will be unfriendly to me.


I have a feeling it is because being a dumb neurtotypical is more accepted. Not sure though. It does drive me crazy.

It also might be possible I am misinterpreting the customer service person's reactions. I am not sure.

Has this happend to anyone else?

Could be something non-verbal that you're missing. I've worked customer service/support for 4 years for electronic equipment and trust me, there are some dumb people out there buying stuff they have no reason to be around. Not sure what could be the issue . . . now that i think about it, most people in retail hate the informed customer since, most often, informed NTs will try to get away with something (had this happen a few times . . . thank god i like pissing people off with what is/isn't). Otherwise, who can say what the issue is . . .

Dumb customers are easy to deal with. Makes the customer service workers feel good that they're helping someone who really needs it. Of course, exceptionally dumb people are annoying.

Someone who knows more than they do makes customer service workers uneasy. Keeps them on thier toes too much. They'd much prefer the easy questions with scripted answers.

I assume they are more familiar with women than I am.

Most of the time, the customer service people are as stupid as the dumb customers who just practically assume they need this and that when all they really need is one simple thing.

In a way. Why does this usualy happen in the express check out? Is it just me? I noticed this with some people who take longer to pull out and complete their payment method, because they want to be "polight by being social". I don't think it's that they are poor at handling money. It's the fact that their mind is fixed on looking like a nice person. More girls than guys do that to. It always happens when someone's descretly hurrying behind them.

I just assumed the employee was a smidge frustrated, and felt they could relax a tiny bit with my seemingly quiet likeness.

Well, people aren't necessarily dumb, even if they may seem so to you. They might just be different. Perhaps a person that seems to be dumb or slow is a pleasant person who just communicates in a different way than you do. Maybe the customer service staff perceive their manner to be polite and nice when they ask for advice?

I should start a new thread: You might be dumb if . . . It takes 30 min to explain to you "Red to red, white to white, yellow to yellow" when hooking up your VHS/DVD player. Trust me, there are dumb people out there, and they're dumb because they expect other people to do their thinking for them. How else do you think the acronym RTFM came about (means READ THE F'IN MANUAL!!).

OK, so maybe logic isn't some people's forte. But how about respecting and showing kindness to people regardless of their being dumb? People may very well be kind and deserving of respect even if they can't hook up a DVD player to save their life.

They are not necessarily dumb, but could be trying to make somebody else work for them. That's taking advantage of seeming a social person. There is one way to counter it, just ask a huge amount of money for your services
Unfortunately that does not work for a lot of stores.

Pardon the bluntness of it all, but if someone doesn't read a manual to properly handle something, that's being dumb and self-centered in my book. If you don't know what you're buying, you have no business getting it in the first place. I've seen people buying computers and returning them saying that it won't turn on . . . I ask them to show me exactly what they did. I'm sorry, but pushing the CD tray eject button does NOT turn a computer on. Returning a game that has been mishandled/scratched up all to hell doesn't hold water with me either. In the words of Ron White, "You can't fix stupid." Dumb people are allowed to get away with stuff because they tend to make a scene (ie, screaming kid in the store routine).

ps, sorry for the truth of it all, but 4 years in retail leaves scars.

And I'm sorry, but I won't just let this go. In my book dumb does NOT equal worthy of less respect. Not being able to properly understand a manual does not equal dumb either, and it certainly does not warrant less respect or that people has the right to look down their nose at you. There are many ways of being intelligent, and people may very well be pleasant, smart and a great customer even though they can't read a manual. If people make an unpleasant scene when they don't get their way, that's something else.

My mother has a bachelor's degree, and yet is completely technologically incapable. She can barely use a VCR or a computer, and needs me or my brother to assist her with most things.

Thankfully she doesn't need to do all that much in depth with computers for her line of work or her degree field.

Question, am I dumb if I have difficulty understanding the manual because it wasn't clear enough or because I couldn't comprehend what I was reading? I mostly blame it on my learning disability. I guess I have no business in using things huh? Am I not allowed to learn? I've done lot of dumb stuff and I go "Oh, stupid me."

But some stuff you had listed really shocked me people can be that stupid I would think if they were just messing with me.
As for returning damaged games, they are just trying to get a free replacement so they misuse the customer service. I bet some people will buy a game and beat it within a few days and then damage it just to return it and say how it came like that just so they get their money back and wa la, they basically had the game for free. That's not being dumb, that's just being dishonest and maybe a cheapskate I should say.

Again, sorry for my previous harshness. As far as the manual bit, I highlighted. I can respect customers that attempt to read the manuals, because a lot of them do need clarification (the manuals that is) . . . I respect people that put effort into it. It's the ones who come to you without reading it that REALLY upset me because, to me, they're saying, "I cannot/do not have the capacity to understand this without someone doing it for me." Now, if there was some reading disability (which i may not catch), I can understand . . . but with the average person, I don't think that's a valid excuse. Just my opinion.

maybe the fact you got right to the point didn't go down well. or maybe the customer before u was a friend of the service person. no idea.