"Delusions of adequacy" I call it--we get fifty resumes a week full of it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael D. Porter [mailto:mporter@zianet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 5:00 AM
To: Bill Babcock
Cc: 'fot@autox.team.net '
Subject: Re: Fuel Regulator
Bill Babcock wrote:
> Had a funny incident at the track though. A guy came by to look over
> my shoulder while I was feverishly working on some things unrelated to
> the chain (unfortunately) and started pointing out all the important
> facets of the Radical to me and his wife. Out of roughly twenty things
> he said he didn't get a single one right--or even close. Now that's
> talent. He decided my Kawasaki motor was a Honda--and nothing I said
> to the contrary registered at all. What reminded me of him was the
> subject line for this email--he started his tirade by explaining that
> the fuel regulator was very clever because it was from a gas barbeque.
>
> Normally I enjoy the folks who come by the paddock, but lately I've
> been getting a lot of nuts. Is there something going on with the moon,
> or is it my cologne?
Nah, not the cologne. Probably not the phase of the moon, either. It's
mostly the wide distribution of information which
people largely don't understand. In 2001, while I was trying to do an
inspection of a TR7 at the VTR for the supposed
introduction of the daily driver award named for John Macartney's father,
someone walked up and announced to his fellow
show-goer, "that engine was originally a GM design." I abjured, and
suggested that perhaps he had confused it with the
B-O-P aluminum v-8 that Rover and Triumph licensed from GM. "NO! That's a
GM design." Umm, I said, perhaps if you look
at the cam cover and compare that to the Stag v-8, which was a
British-Leyland design, and, the engine was licensed by
British-Leyland to Saab. If what he asserted was the case, why didn't the
original licensing come from GM? The answer?
"Look, I'm not arguing with someone who doesn't know what he's talking
about. I won't waste my time on this...." And, he
stomped off with his acquaintance in tow, in high dudgeon at having been
possibly contradicted.
I thought about this some, and did some web searches, thinking I was
wrong, and finally had to conclude that this idiot
saw a TR7, thought it was a TR8, and without knowing (or recognizing) that
it was a TR7 with a 4-cylinder, assumed that
the engine in it was the B-O-P 215 ci GM-based engine, which he'd probably
never seen in his life (but had vaguely heard
of), since he looked to be many years younger than the cars GM put that
engine into....
From that, I can only conclude that either the TR7 engine was so bad,
even compared to the loathsome Chevette engine,
that GM has refused to acknowledge its parentage, or that I'd met just
another asshole from this country, which has been
raising more than its fair share of assholes lately.
I don't think it's altogether bad manners to tell an insistently arrogant
and stupid asshole he doesn't have a clue. The
other option is to simply hand the interloper the wrench, and say, "okay,
smartass, your turn. Go to it."
I think this phenomenon is a reflection of how many people in this country
have gotten away with lying on their resumes.
It's gone to their heads. *smile*
Cheers.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM
[mailto:mporter@zianet.com]
Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking
distance.
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