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Updates on Monday and Wednesday, with additional updates on an entirely irregular basis.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Ignorance Vs. Stupidity

Ignorance (n) lack of knowledge, education, or awareness 

Stupidity (n) the quality or state of being stupid 

Stupid (adj) - slow of mind : obtuse 

Tech Support humor has a lot of references to "stupid users" - but usually your customers aren't stupid. They're ignorant in the classic sense - they don't know and in many cases they don't even know that they don't know (remember Competency Level 1?)  We bandy the word "stupid" around, applying it to anyone who isn't as knowledgeable as we are, forgetting that we spend hours up to our elbows in the products we support. 

"Ignorance" is a weighted word, but it's more accurate in most cases than "stupid" - most people don't like to be called either. Fortunately, most people take "it's all right, you didn't know"... which is, of course, the definition of "ignorance". And then they're no longer ignorant. 

1 comment:

  1. I agree.. but I've heard stories of people calling tech support, only to find out that they simply just didn't plug their device in. Now that's just stupid, lol

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