By Dick McCullough

An Honest Man

Have you ever seen one of those timelines of human development laid out like a long yardstick? Over there on the left end, man walks upright. About halfway through, he picks up a club and hits something. Over on the far right, nearest current time, the event line is amazingly crowded with all of the discoveries we are familiar with: Arabic numerals, heliocentricity, gravity, electricity, etc. Mankind is getting smarter and smarter, faster and faster. Indisputably.

Then why do I constantly run in to such profound idiots?

I once had a travel agent book me on a flight to Minneapolis, Minn. I also asked her to book me a hotel room in Bloomington, which is a suburb of Minneapolis. She sent me tickets and a hotel confirmation number. When I arrived at the hotel, I found I had no reservation. They had no rooms. I showed the confirmation number. They told me I had a room reserved in Bloomington, Indiana.

My secretary, former secretary, was a bright young woman fresh from college. Very pleasant. And someone had bestowed upon her a college degree. She, more than once, faxed documents upside down so that the blank side was read by the optical scanner.

I asked her to send some materials to a client in Montreal whose first name was Joanne (I provided both names to the secretary). She sent them to a client named Joanne in New Jersey. Unfortunately, we were currently doing a project for the New Jersey Joanne that was top secret. New Jersey Joanne had expressed concern over our ability to maintain security. Her confidence did not increase when she received a few yogurt packages and a note from me explaining how pertinent they were to her situation. She was in the telecommunications industry.

I had a receptionist who, for her entire tenure with me, could never recognize my voice on the phone. But a senior member of my company got even worse treatment.

“Good morning, ABC Company.”

“Hello, Alice.This is Colin. Do I have any messages?”

“Colin’s not here.”

“Alice, this is Colin.”

“He’s not in. Can I take a message for him?”

Sigh. “Sure, tell him I called.”

The ultimate Alice story (and these are all, unfortunately, true events) was when Colin asked her to assist him in a small mass mailing. He needed to send a packet to 40 or 50 clients. The packet included an individually addressed cover letter and several documents. Alice was asked to attach a cover letter to the documents, place the entire packet in a large envelope and place an addressed mailing label on the envelope. Alice diligently worked at the assigned task.

Halfway through, Colin comes by her desk and asks how its going.

“Fine, I guess. Just one question. Do you want the name on the mailing label to match the name on the letter or does it matter?”

We may soon discover the nature of dark matter, even the mysteries at the bottom of a black hole, but will we ever solve the mystery of the average human mind?

McCullough is a Los Altos resident. Send comments to him at the Town Crier or e-mail directly at dick@macroinc.com.