Cluelessness

[bunn]

To expand: People who say that they are clueless because they are female are irritating. The 'clue' is not stored on the Y chromasome.

Nobody fought for you to have the vote so you could giggle and say you are 'blonde' or 'a girl', as though that was some sort of disability that prevented you from learning or doing things well. 

Also:  it's fine to be clueless about any particular subject.  Stop apologising and putting yourself down!    If you are clueless about every subject, or refuse to learn, that's not so good, but nobody is a universal expert!  That's why you can buy expertise in most subjects from people who have spent extra time getting good. 

It would be lovely if everyone knew enormous amounts about everything and just bought in work that they didn't have time to do or didn't enjoy doing, but let's face it, there are far too many possible skills and far too much information for anyone to be able to manage that. 

In conclusion:
 - People who feel they have to know everything, stop pretending you do. We all know you don't really. 

-  Other people, who feel they have to know everything, stop apologising for the fact that you don't.  We are all like you.

-  People who sell expertise: stop assuming people are idiots because they don't know as much as you on your special subject.  If everyone is expected to know this stuff, then who will hire you?

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

While I do agree with you, I have to shamefully admit that I do play the dumb female card occasionally, much as I hate myself for doing it. If some chap rings the bell and tries to bully me into changing electricity supplier, I say, "I'm sorry, but my husband deals with this and he's at work at the moment." *hangs head in shame*

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Might I suggest the possibly mendacious but equally effective "I'm sorry, but my landlady deals with this and she's in Kazakhstan at the moment"?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

You or I would say that (I am rather proud of having told a double glazing salesperson that we have NO windows...)

But I bet LoA would find it utterly impossible, she is strangely honest for someone whose degree was in History... :-D

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

told a double glazing salesperson that we have NO windows

like

You are one of the very people who could possibly get away with that!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I told them the house was underground and had a glass roof. I think they believed me as well.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm disappointed. I'd assumed you'd done it do a salesman standing at your door. That would have been a definite 20 on the bluff roll.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

LOL, no - people can rarely find our door, so we don't get a lot of door to door sales!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Actually I have regular attacks of self-defeating honesty, but our electricity bill really is in the landlady's name and she really was in Kazakhstan the last time the front door lock needed fixing!

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Having just read the comments things are clear to me now, but at first I had visions of you brazenly telling a double glazing salesman who had come to your *door* that you had no windows, staring him straight in the eye while he gestured helplessly to those glass-fronted gaps in your house. I suggest that for your encore.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

OK, that mental image is a classic. 'glass fronted gaps', I shall remember that one...

I *need* a doubleglazing salesperson to call at my house now so that I can try this! Why is my house so remote and hard to get to???

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

This has reminded me of an old tale. Many years ago a (now ex-) colleague of mine one answered the door to a double-glazing salesman. Upon hearing the pitch he told the salesman: "We've already got double glazing."
"No you haven't," replied the salesman, "that's single glazing, I can tell."
"It's being fitted at the moment," says my colleague.
"No it's not," says the salesman, "there's nobody here."
"They started round the back 20 minutes ago." comes the reply.
They had too, the van was parked down the road. :-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Given it's you, then I'm guessing that is the truth rather than a convenient lie. There is, after all, no reason that you should be the one to look after the electricity bill or make that particular decision. (Mark does our electricity & phone actually. I look after gas and internet...)

What I think would be a bad thing would be if you said it in such a way as to suggest that you are *incapable* of doing such a thing because of your sex, or even worse, said it in a way that suggested that nobody who is female could reasonably decide on an electricity supplier for themselves.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

So now I'm trying to work out which one of you is Archer... ;-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

LOL, I thought that!

Mark does water & sewage, so I fear that might make him Erskine, though I am sure he would rather be Archer.

I want to be Hathaway...

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Pretty much any card is acceptable to play to get rid of door to door sales people trying to bully the householder into doing anything.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I still, at 29, sometimes open the door to sales people to be asked "Is your mum or dad at home?" and I confess I sometimes do just respond "No, they're not." and shut the door.