I don't know if this is funny, or just plain sad. So at my job, I sometimes have to direct potential law enforcement recruits to the offices of a certain agency that I won't mention. I will say that by the time they are granted access into the building to continue the screening process, they've already had to pass a massively difficult written exam that is supposed to measure their intelligence level.
I say "supposed to" because from what I've seen, less than half of these individuals are barely functional. And after over three years of dealing with such individuals, I finally had enough. This morning, I get a guy who is old enough to know better, or at least should...
I get it. When cellphones first came out, folks had no clue what the proper etiquette was in using cellphones while also engaged in conversation with a person standing right in front of them. That was right around the early 1990s though. It's 2017.
Recruit walks in. Asks me where he needs to go for orientation. Then sticks out his smartphone right towards me. This happens a lot! I wasn't in the mood today. So I ask him how old he is. He seems a bit confused and says "24." Okay.... and yet he still hasn't learned on his own (and apparently his father didn't bother to teach him either) that as an adult, when you need to relay information on your phone to another adult, you read what's on your phone and then wait to get an answer from the person in front of you.
What you don't do is turn your phone around so the screen faces the person trying to help you and then hold it out in front of you so they can read what's on it. Not only is that rude, but childish. It's literally what a child does. Mommy left a note on the table. Little Timmy can barely read and write. So when daddy asks what the note says, Timmy turns it around and holds it out for daddy to read. Which is fine. Since Timmy actually is a child. That's why he keeps falling down that darn well, and Lassie has to go get help from adults who apparently understand her perfectly.
I wish some of the recruits I deal with had the intelligence of a dog. Would make my job easier. So this time, for the first time, I pointed out to this 24 year-old "man" why adults don't do such a childish thing, and how adults convey information stored on their phone to others. Yup, you actually have to speak the information. (Hey! What a concept! It's just crazy enough to work.) Even dogs know how to speak.
So after I was done teaching/parenting this adult, he wasn't too happy. I pointed out that he should be grateful since the rather scary individuals upstairs who'd be his supervisors if he passed the rest of his tests, have been known to get very upset when someone does that childish nonsense to one of them. THEY have a tendency to rip up a recruit's application before kicking them out of the building! Considering how many of these recruits I process at the desk during the last two hours of my shift, I'd say NYC is full of men who have fathered children. But not done even a barely decent job of parenting them.
"Who's your daddy?"
Apparently I am because I have to be. Since their real fathers didn't bother.
I say "supposed to" because from what I've seen, less than half of these individuals are barely functional. And after over three years of dealing with such individuals, I finally had enough. This morning, I get a guy who is old enough to know better, or at least should...
I get it. When cellphones first came out, folks had no clue what the proper etiquette was in using cellphones while also engaged in conversation with a person standing right in front of them. That was right around the early 1990s though. It's 2017.
Recruit walks in. Asks me where he needs to go for orientation. Then sticks out his smartphone right towards me. This happens a lot! I wasn't in the mood today. So I ask him how old he is. He seems a bit confused and says "24." Okay.... and yet he still hasn't learned on his own (and apparently his father didn't bother to teach him either) that as an adult, when you need to relay information on your phone to another adult, you read what's on your phone and then wait to get an answer from the person in front of you.
What you don't do is turn your phone around so the screen faces the person trying to help you and then hold it out in front of you so they can read what's on it. Not only is that rude, but childish. It's literally what a child does. Mommy left a note on the table. Little Timmy can barely read and write. So when daddy asks what the note says, Timmy turns it around and holds it out for daddy to read. Which is fine. Since Timmy actually is a child. That's why he keeps falling down that darn well, and Lassie has to go get help from adults who apparently understand her perfectly.
I wish some of the recruits I deal with had the intelligence of a dog. Would make my job easier. So this time, for the first time, I pointed out to this 24 year-old "man" why adults don't do such a childish thing, and how adults convey information stored on their phone to others. Yup, you actually have to speak the information. (Hey! What a concept! It's just crazy enough to work.) Even dogs know how to speak.
So after I was done teaching/parenting this adult, he wasn't too happy. I pointed out that he should be grateful since the rather scary individuals upstairs who'd be his supervisors if he passed the rest of his tests, have been known to get very upset when someone does that childish nonsense to one of them. THEY have a tendency to rip up a recruit's application before kicking them out of the building! Considering how many of these recruits I process at the desk during the last two hours of my shift, I'd say NYC is full of men who have fathered children. But not done even a barely decent job of parenting them.
"Who's your daddy?"
Apparently I am because I have to be. Since their real fathers didn't bother.