The Pink Shoe Diaries

When I was in school, I noticed that in every class there was at least one of the following types of people:

The Inane Question Asker, whose sole purpose in the class is to ask extremely specific questions about topics no one in the class is interested in, and that had little to do with the topic at hand. This person may also save all questions for the last minute of class when the professor asks "Any questions?" and speak as slowly as possible, so as to lengthen class time by about 10 minutes.

The Self Important Contributer, an induvidual who has nothing intelligent to say about the topic at hand so brings up something Not Related, especially if it alludes to something that can be talked about snottily like traveling abroad, interpreting art, or the fact that he or she already has a degree.

I often wondered, what would become of these people after college. How can people with no firm grasp of appropriate question-asking ever contribute anything to society other than making normal people late for their next class?

The answer is: after college they show up at workshops and meetings, pulling the exact shit they probably pulled in college.

You know what I am talking about. The coworker who used some other kind of application at their old job and will NOT shut the fuck up about it at meetings even though we never have and never will use that application. Or the person who used this specific document storage company and even though we use the one we use for very good reasons, stills feel the need to draw comparisons aloud every time anyone mentions storing anything. Or the person who want the advanced Excel workshop put on hold while they are explained to step-by-step how to send a meeting request in Outlook.

And it doesn't stop there. At my Weight Watchers meeting there is a woman who, without fail, will take up 1/2 the meeting time just asking specifically how many points certain foods have in them even though you are given a booklet with all this information in it. "If I put Splenda in my coffee instead of sugar how many points will I save? What about 1/2 teaspoon Splenda and 1/2 teaspoon sugar? What about just sugar but no cream?".

I want to ask "How many points will I burn if I kick this woman to the brink of unconciousness?".

My point isn't about people asking questions. I like questions and I usually have a few. It's people who ask TOTALLY irelevant questions constantly and who have no respect for other people's time. If I was the only person in a meeting not really understanding what was going on, I would wait until after and then say something. I would not ask a billion super specific questions, or say something intelligent about another topic just to show that I can contribute. That is not Contributing. It is annoying.

And basically what has happened here is no one has ever taken a stand to these people. There are too many professors and meeting leaders and workshop coordinators who can't just say "That's more of a specific concern, let's address it after the class/meeting". Maybe they don't want to stay late. Maybe they don't want to be alone with someone who it's pretty obvious is irritating as hell. I can understand that, but where will it end?

Probably in a retirement home years from now when someone has heard one of these people ask one too many times "How come we use blue chips at Bingo? At my old retirement home we used red chips and they were far superior", and throws a shoe at them.

It's a good thing I wore boots that are annoying to take off today, that's all I'm saying.