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No smart remarks please this is important
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I was wondering if someone tells you the following because you do not know something :
"It is incredible a second grader would be able to do it, it is so easy"
Then the person would tell you:
"I thought you were coming from far" (sorry it was in French but I think I got the translations correctly).
Would that be insulting to you?
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This is clearly some weird idiomatic expression, because it does not come off as insulting in English.
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Well looks like I've found my go-to insult for the next few months....
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Mankind's only chance is to harness the power of stupid.
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"It is incredible a second grader would be able to do it, it is so easy"
That's the same as saying:
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45/47
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Originally Posted by Monique
I was wondering if someone tells you the following because you do not know something :
"It is incredible a second grader would be able to do it, it is so easy"
Then the person would tell you:
"I thought you were coming from far" (sorry it was in French but I think I got the translations correctly).
Would that be insulting to you?
Post what was said in French Monique. Sometimes me (an Englishman who lives in France) and my wife (a French woman) translate things differently to and from English and French.
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babel fish English to French (babel fish reverse translation are not even close to what was originally translated)
Il est incroyable une deuxième niveleuse pourrait le faire, il est si facile
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45/47
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Originally Posted by mattyb
Post what was said in French Monique. Sometimes me (an Englishman who lives in France) and my wife (a French woman) translate things differently to and from English and French.
Je ne suis pas tellement bonne en math et il y avait une formule que je n'étais pas capable de faire. À la place de m'aider la personne m'a dit c'est abhérant un enfant de 2e année serait capable de faire ça; tu viens de loin.
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Originally Posted by Kerrigan
Why is this "important?"
Because the person who told me that is a supervisor.
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<snarky comments deleted>
But I am interested also in the factual aspect of the expression's meaning and the attitude that it conveys.
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Originally Posted by The Godfather
<snarky comments deleted>
But I am interested also in the factual aspect of the expression's meaning and the attitude that it conveys.
Let's see you are an accountant and there is a new form, that you have difficulties understanding you ask for help; instead of helping you your supervisor tells you that you are no better than a second grader because you do not understand it.
Is this an insult on your intelligence?
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Posting Junkie
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This is one of those ones thats more about how its said than what it means. If someone says it with a smile on their face and then proceeds to explain how the new form should be used (from your accountancy example) then it might be intended to put you at ease in case you were over thinking the complexity of the form. If this response was made in a dismissive fashion with no attempt to help you solve your problem of not understanding the form, then I would say its inappropriate and frankly unprofessional and yes, it would also be considered an insult under such circumstances.
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I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
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Originally Posted by Monique
Je ne suis pas tellement bonne en math et il y avait une formule que je n'étais pas capable de faire. À la place de m'aider la personne m'a dit c'est abhérant un enfant de 2e année serait capable de faire ça; tu viens de loin.
Bon, si c'est ton chef tu ne peux rien dire. Dit lui que c'est juste parce que c'est quelque chose de nouveau. Il faut s'habituer.
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Originally Posted by Monique
No smart remarks please this is important
Okay, I’ll only give dumb remarks then.
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A supervisor who assumes that someone should understand something new as being trivially obvious, and then berates that person for not seeing the new thing as obvious is not qualified to be a supervisor. He/she is also a bad human being. This is an example of a particular kind of fallacy (I forget the formal name for it), but it reasons out to "if I think it's simple and someone else doesn't, then I'm much smarter than they are." Which is patently false on its face, and illustrates a level of egoism that is above and beyond self confidence.
An approach that can defuse this problem is to say "I will need to explain the details of this form to others (because I need to get their data, because I need them to complete it too, because it isn't my form and I'm just the messenger, etc.), so having detailed instructions will save time that you, as a supervisor, are paying for." If that fails, go to the supervisor's boss and explain that your work is being hampered by your supervisor giving you new work without training you, and belittling you in the process. Eventually someone above the jerk your supervisor will see that this is counterproductive and do something to correct it. It may take a while for the correction to be made, and it is not guaranteed to be painless for you. Sorry.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Originally Posted by Tiresias
Somewhat similar, but in this sort of thing the erroneous assumption comes from the assumer's ego bias. They honestly think "if it was something I could understand, everyone should be able to understand it," and they tend to ignore the time and effort their understanding required. There is also a potential element of the assumer reflecting on what they perceive as the other person's aptitude and intelligence (one manifestation of this is the professor/doctor "talking down" to people in technical issues because they underestimate the other person's intelligence).
I may be a bit biased in this subject because of my experience as an instructor and teacher, but I was successful in that endeavor by NOT assuming either high or low levels of intelligence/aptitude/interest. I had to build the subject matter from foundations of basic concepts to eventually ensure that the student both understood and could explain major facets of the subject (always quite technical stuff in electronics). So whether I thought a student was barely above moron level or I thought he/she was a genius, I always presented the material exactly the same way. As a clinician, I explain health issues similarly, always being careful to establish a baseline level of understanding from which to begin my points. It works because I never assume. I think of it as practiced intellectual humility (having seen a few very bright people completely humiliate themselves by underestimating someone else's intelligence and experience, I vowed to not let that happen to me!).
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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