Tag: capability

For those who remember the comedy sketch show Little Britain, what I am about to share with you will be familiar and for those who haven’t but have had to deal with a smiling and unhelpful person sitting behind a computer, this will also sound familiar. Little Britain was an outrages show depicting us Brits at our worst. They are thinking of bringing it back, it ended about ten years ago, but the people behind it have admitted that in todays cultural climate they would never have been able to make the same jokes were it realised for the first time now. The fake disability claimant; the working class female chav; the only gay in the village; and I’m sure there are more but I can’t remember. There was one sketch though with a female travel agent whose catchphrase when she couldn’t find the desired holiday or provide any help but wouldn’t go out of her way or try to think out of the box, and doing all this with a painfully fake friendliness and smile was “Computer says no”. It became quite a well known catchphrase for a bit as everyone had seemingly experienced this type of person. Tonight was my turn.

I went to pay for the kickboxing class and the woman behind the computer told me it was full. I explained that I had just driven half an hour and that there was always space, I knew the coach wouldn’t have a problem with it and the idea that the class could be full seemed utterly ludicrous. She went back to her computer and then proceeded to tell me there was nothing she could do because the class was full. I was interacting with a brick wall, and an annoyingly smily one with a friendly tone of voice to go with it. She told me to wait to the side while she dealt with the other people clearly in the hope I would just go away. Thank fully in a moment which proved how stupid the whole situation was; the coach walked past, I explained the situation, he said “no problem I’ll just move some things around, there’s always space”. Of course there’s always space, and of course something can always be done. All of a sudden the computer said yes.

In these moments it seems to be unclear whether the person involved either can’t or won’t think out of the box. Both are incredibly frustrating but one is an attitude and the other a capability. If someone is unable to think, realise, or see that there is always a solution then fair enough, they’re either victims of their own limitations or of societies conditioned shackles. If they won’t help you out, when they always can if they wanted to, then they are simply part of the problem for those not trying to be unnecessarily difficult on a daily basis. We can all be dicks but it always just seems like far more effort than just being kind and helpful to each other. Sometimes, perhaps it shouldn’t matter what the computer says, maybe just use those cognitive abilities in a new and profound way. It may just be a little easier the next time and who knows one day that smile and tone could even turn out to be genuine.