People are stupid.
Nov. 5th, 2001 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetSo this morning I went to the CVS to fill a prescription. There were two women ahead of me; one was being helped by a pharmacist who was calling around to other CVS locations to see if they had the meds she needed, while the other stood by sulkily. At length another pharmacist said, "May I help who's next?" Ms. Sulky did not react in any way. I started to step up to the counter, and she looked over at me. "Are you next?" I asked politely. "Yes," she snapped; "I've only been waiting here twenty minutes." I started to point out to her that a pharmacist was ready to wait on her when he repeated, "May I help who's next?" "Finally!" she exclaimed. "It's only been twenty minutes!" (I wonder how many other cues
she missed in that time...) "What can I do for you?" "I have two prescriptions to fill!" she said, incredulously. "Okay," he said.
"What do you need?" She, with no prescription forms in evidence, said, "Well, is there somewhere else private we can go so I don't have to broadcast my problems all over the place?" (Too late!) The pharmacist apparently didn't have a more private location for them to talk, and she demanded to see the manager. She went off and blathered on at the manager about how no one had helped her for twenty whole minutes, etc., while the pharmacist took my prescription. Angry Woman was still rather audible, and so at one point the pharmacist felt the need to interject, "It's called waiting in line," which didn't help her mood at all. Eventually she went
away, having (no doubt to her mind) kicked ass and taken names.
My prescription filled, I walked down to the office here. My co-worker David told me that I'd missed some excitement: the police came in and said, "Is your name David?" D.'s first irrational thought was that it was somehow connected to the boss's paranoia earlier this morning over some files of mine that were in the wrong place (they had been used by Clara, another co-worker, and not returned to my desk; the boss apparently feared someone had come into the office and rifled through them, as if a stolen copy of, say, an as-yet-unpublished one-page review of W. Hübner's 1998 edition of Ptolemy's "Tetrabiblos" might be just the thing to further some criminal scheme).
But it turns out the matter was more irrational than that: The police had gotten a call that a Mysterious and Shady Middle Eastern Man was wandering around the building with a plastic bag, asking for David by full name.
It was, of course, the photocopier repairman we've been expecting.
In other news, I succeeded in whittling down the abstract but didn't get through the German yesterday.
she missed in that time...) "What can I do for you?" "I have two prescriptions to fill!" she said, incredulously. "Okay," he said.
"What do you need?" She, with no prescription forms in evidence, said, "Well, is there somewhere else private we can go so I don't have to broadcast my problems all over the place?" (Too late!) The pharmacist apparently didn't have a more private location for them to talk, and she demanded to see the manager. She went off and blathered on at the manager about how no one had helped her for twenty whole minutes, etc., while the pharmacist took my prescription. Angry Woman was still rather audible, and so at one point the pharmacist felt the need to interject, "It's called waiting in line," which didn't help her mood at all. Eventually she went
away, having (no doubt to her mind) kicked ass and taken names.
My prescription filled, I walked down to the office here. My co-worker David told me that I'd missed some excitement: the police came in and said, "Is your name David?" D.'s first irrational thought was that it was somehow connected to the boss's paranoia earlier this morning over some files of mine that were in the wrong place (they had been used by Clara, another co-worker, and not returned to my desk; the boss apparently feared someone had come into the office and rifled through them, as if a stolen copy of, say, an as-yet-unpublished one-page review of W. Hübner's 1998 edition of Ptolemy's "Tetrabiblos" might be just the thing to further some criminal scheme).
But it turns out the matter was more irrational than that: The police had gotten a call that a Mysterious and Shady Middle Eastern Man was wandering around the building with a plastic bag, asking for David by full name.
It was, of course, the photocopier repairman we've been expecting.
In other news, I succeeded in whittling down the abstract but didn't get through the German yesterday.
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no subject
Date: 2001-11-05 09:34 am (UTC)Then police start chasing down photocopier repair men (or threaten librarians), and I wonder how far away we are from 1984.
It's all verging on mass hysteria. Do you see parallels to this in history (all I can think of right now are witch-hunts)? Has there ever been a reaction like this (overzealous and inappropriate law enforcement, irrational ideations of persecution by an unknown foe) to a calamity on such a large scale?
I hate what this is doing to me. I hate being the kind of person who gets a cold sore and thinks it's anthrax.
no subject
Date: 2001-11-05 12:08 pm (UTC)The emperor Nero rounded up Christians (well, had his soldiers do it) and threw them into the arena as scapegoats for That Big Fire. Of course, this was said to be for distracting attention from rumors that Nero started the fire himself, though 1st-century Christians had few fans, people thought the authorities went a bit overboard here.
The Jews were in many places in 14th-century Europe blamed for the Black Death. (Not to mention, much later, being blamed for Germany's decline after WWI.) And Japanese-Americans certainly found themselves less welcome in the US after Pearl Harbor.
Scapegoating and witch-hunting is all a part of our great human heritage, either in direct reaction to some calamity or atrocity or for less obvious, more ideological reasons.