The computer I use at work has a very short list of fonts and designs that we use in our job. All the designs and fonts are printed out in hard copy and available for browsing. On the computer you need to click on a category (sports, animals) and then are given a box that shows all the degigns in that category. Takes two seconds, two keystrokes.
There is one category that is not available in hard copy at all…no idea why, because it would be popular…zodiacs. At a previous location we had produced our own “hard copy” to display, and used it frequently. But no one here has done that, and I’ve been too busy with other stuff to notice.
Today I was reading the owner’s manual for our engraver because I had left my book at home and need to learn the maintenance routine for this particular machine. In the owner’s manual was a print-out of the zodiac designs! Delighted, I made copies to have to show customers, and I eagerly showed them to my co-worker, a 21-year-old girl. She said, “I didn’t know we had zodiac designs!” I dragged her over to the computer and showed her the drop-down menu that says “Zodiac” and said, “Didn’t you ever wonder what that was and click on it?”
She said, “No, I’m not the curious type. My mom is nosy and would be looking in every file, but I just don’t do that. I saw it there but didn’t know what it was, so I never opened it.”
We’re talking a menu that has about 20 categories, most of which we open daily, so it’s not like she never scrolled down to the end of the list…one of the most popular options is right above it! She’s worked here a year! This explains why she didn’t know what was in the cupboard under the computer. She never had to go into it for anything, so she never looked in there.
I have never met anyone with less curiousity? Tell me your stories about the curiousity impaired!
I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone (that I can remember, anyway) with a noticeable lack of curiosity. Not like the woman you’ve described anyway. But I just wanted to say that I loved your thread title!
I’m like that in some ways. I rarely explore the city, because I’m always going somewhere when I walk about it. I always forget to ask for gossip when I meet people.
But that is staggering. In Larry Niven’s Ringworld books, there’s a throwaway line about the aliens, the Kzin, not really havign curiousity, but it didn’t even seem possible.
Well, it gets worse. Today three of us were working, and I jokingly told the other manager that “MissThing” didn’t know we have zodiac designs, and she said “we do?” I had to show her. I’m almost older than the two of them put together. What’s with kids these days? It’s not like you had to search to find this…it’s right below our most popular font!
In a related development, another 19-year-old co-worker once complained about having to go to a check-cashing place to cash her paycheck because she didn’t like depositing it thru the ATM and she got off work too late to go to her local branch. I suggested she run out during lunch (I told her we’d give her extra time if she picked up some change) to the branch by the mall. She said she didn’t know where the branch was. I told her she has driven by it twice a day for the last 6 months, and didn’t she ever look around to check out what was on her route, like which fast food places?
She said, “no, I don’t look at anything when I drive. I have a hard enough time just driving.” I thought that was amazing until the manager at that store also agreed and said she had no idea what stores were on that road either. I keep a running count in my head…“today let’s see how many pet stores are on this section of Ridge Rd” or “how many dance studios” or “how many funeral homes” because it’s a very dense area with many similar stores. I count the bakeries, the comic book shops, the auto parts stores, the music stores…actually, I don’t numerically count them, but I notice them. These girls were amazed when I told them what they were missing in just the last mile of our commute!
And what else do these four women have in common? None of them reads. Not even the one with the degree in sociology.
I’m generally a very curious person, who often finds myself muttering "Interesting . . . " but I confess, I don’t know all that much about Hooterville (midwestern town where I’m currently exiled). I am more curious than these ladies you mention, though, because I want to get around and do things. I want to know where the good bookstores are, and if there is a good place with veggie sushi, where the art supplies are, and so forth. So I guess I’m not that non-curious. It’s just that I don’t “explore” as much. Because, I dunno, I don’t care. This is not a bad place, by any means, but I don’t care either way.
I love to explore other places, though. I love to go on road trips out of town and see what’s going on there. But in the town? Not so much. Don’t care. Strange, huh?
A little bit more general, but your driving comment made me think of this. I live on a street that, due to a three year closure of part of a freeway, has become a reversible lane street. IOW, it was one lane for each direction of travel, with a left turn lane in the middle. Now it is two lanes inbound in the morning and two lanes outbound in the evening, with huge steel fixtures hanging over the street every 50 yards that indicate the status of the lanes. There are signs explaining this. The street signs are LED signs whose message changes with the time of day.
We’re now about five months into the changes, and it’s obvious that a significant portion of the driving public is absolutely oblivious to signage.
In the computer world there are two polar opposites of users.
Those that click every button to “see what happens”, obliviously cofident that it won’t be something bad.
Those who won’t click anything they haven’t been taught for fear of “blowing up the computer”.
I wonder if your cow-orker is a type 2? that has little to do with curiosity and more to do with attitudes towards authority and uncertainty, as well as their overall level of computer-comfort.
On the topic of driving, there is a bunch of reputable research to indicate that men & women store & process geographic / spatial information very differently. As a gross generalization, men tend to store a map-like 2-D view from above, while women store a linear tunnel- or traintrack-like route from A to B. The former supports better generalization, where getting a little off track doesn’r result in being totally lost, whereas the latter provides better hooks for storing detailed landmarks along the way.
Caricature: On Mapquest / Yahoo maps, the men print the maps and pitch the directions, while the women pitch the maps and print the directions.
With my wife I find that if she rides while I drive on a new route, she can’t remember anything of the various landmarks (intersections, hills, shops, etc) along the way. but if she drives it herself once, she can pretty well list everything lining both sides of the route from end to end. So merely paying attention is a lot of it.