11:29 p.m. | 2003-09-10 Oh, The Power Of My Stupidity, It�s Stupendous! Had an interesting conversation with Colleague today. Here�s some of that. (CI:) This is Cruel-Irony. (C:) Hi. I just wanted to follow up on that call I transferred to you. Were you able to answer Professional Guy�s (PG) question? (CI:) Uh, no. It was a really embarrassing conversation. (C:) Oh, I�m sorry. (Colleague�s wife has taught him chick-speak; he�s not apologizing, he�s sympathizing.) (CI:) He asked me what such-and-such was, and I told him that frankly, I had no idea. (C:) What�d he say? (CI:) Uh, nothin�. I think the apparent vastness of my ignorance left him speechless. And, I have to say that I really didn�t have the energy or desire to even attempt to assuage his intellect detector. I tried this new approach � the one of unbridled stupidity. (C:) Speechless? Wow. That�s new. I don�t think I�ve ever seen him speechless before. (CI:) I told him that I�d just inherited the file and hadn�t even read it. As a consolation, I did tell him that it was on my desk, right in front of me. (Like I can earn some mysterious Brownie points for actually having pulled the file and placed it on my desk.) (C:) He was probably easier on you once he realized that it wasn�t originally your file. (CI:) I�m not really sure about that. See, I then continued with my stupidity by asking him if this was the file that did such-and-such. He quickly told me that it wasn�t. That file was this other one. Which, of course, is another file I recently inherited. (C:) Oh, no! Was he really tough on you? (CI:) No. Actually, embarrassment aside, it was perhaps the most pleasant conversation I�ve ever had with him. I finally acted as stupid as he thinks I am, and amazingly, that appeared to neutralize his normal arrogant, condescending and nasty nature. (C:) What was the resolution? (CI:) He said he�d call someone else and see if they know what such and such is. It was actually kind of funny. I mean, neither one of us knew the answer to the question, so it really wasn�t so much an intellectual battle � it was more of an ignorance problem. Do you know what such and such is? (C:) No, I don�t. PG is quite arrogant, nasty, condescending and rude. But, in his mind, that�s okay because he�s smart. In fact, I�ll guarantee you that he believes he�s smarter than all of you put together. Squared. Then cubed. And, you all would still come up on the short end of the intellectual ruler. However, I don�t personally believe that an ability to memorize every tiny morsel of trivia makes a person smart. I think it makes a person really, really good at memorization. I used to be one of those people. Now though, I can�t remember what I said two seconds ago much less the exact time of day that World War II started. More ironically though, is that I think I �outranked� PG in law school. I think this because, when he asked me my ranking, he had a really surprised and startled look on his face. He can do math in his head; I can�t. He then started talking to my chest. Mind you, my methods may not be scientific, but they�re tried and true. But, don�t forget� I�m dumber than dirt. your thoughts? seed flower