There
are people that think I’m naïve.
There
are really only two reasons to make such an assumption.
First,
you’ve made a mistake.
It’s
possible.
I
do tend to approach several things from a naïve point of
view. Not because I’m naïve, but because I find in areas
where I have no advance understanding of what’s happening, if
I try to gather some of the details early on with the allowances
of patience and forgiveness, united with a splash of not wanting
to prejudge anything, it usually provides me with one of two fantastic
results. Number one: A much deeper and significantly more complete
understanding of the situation. Number two: If something is unable
pass the sniff test when being given overly charitable allowances
for defending itself, then it truly is some first-class crap.
Either
way, in the end, I’m good. But if you jump ahead and judge me
naïve, well, could happen.
Second,
you’re an idiot and I just don’t have any time to deal with your
stupidity and ignorance. (And that’s me being kind in my description
of your situation.)
This
reason usually means that I’m keeping my mouth shut and not engaging
with you mainly because it’s not worth it. You go on being the
loud clown, I’ll be the one over here enjoying something worthwhile.
You interpret my silence as lacking in knowledge and possibly
ability. I view it differently.
The
difficulty is, not many people can accept those two descriptions
without some specifics to explain a bit more. They can grasp what
I’m trying to say. They might even chuckle a bit at the moments
where I’m trying to be humorous. But they’re still left with that
lovely result that they don’t know for certain if I’m being funny
or serious, or what I mean about ignorance and stupidity.
So,
how about some history?
Roughly
three decades ago, the A&W restaurant chain decided to launch
a product battle against McDonald’s. And everything appeared to
be on their side.
Every
group and investigation session they ran resulted in their hamburger
being judged as superior. Taste tests. Product descriptions. Any
and every way it could be better, the results were overwhelmingly
showing their burger was better.
The
product size. They were taking on the Quarter Pounder. So, they
decided to increase the size of their patty and start with one-third
of a pound.
And,
they even had price. They were going to offer a third-pounder
for the same price as the quarter-pounder.
Taste,
value and satisfaction. Check, check and check.
It
was a no brainer.
It
was also a disaster. A&W got their product launch slammed
back at them.
But
how? Why? They decided to do some investigation.
Ready
for the results? (Sit down. This is true and you can look it up.)
They
found that burger lovers are idiots. (Ok, not really. But what
they did find was that you can’t account for the reaction of idiots.)
The
information and conclusions that came back involved person after
person saying they didn’t like being ripped off. Even though in
reality one-third of a pound is larger than one-fourth of a pound,
a large number of respondents believed that since four is bigger
than three the third-pounder had to be smaller than a quarter-pounder
and should cost less.
So,
before you judge me naïve, you might want to pause for a
moment and evaluate whether or not you’re an idiot. I’m not saying
you are. In fact, chances are good that if we meet, I’ll even
buy the first round (while tossing a third-pounder on the grill).
More
importantly, understand that there are idiots out there. You can’t
change their mind with accuracy or facts. (Hopefully they’ll get
tired soon, but don’t expect smarts like that to suddenly become
sensible and intelligent.)