Get Your Hali-facts Straight
(It is May of 1980 and four students from our west coast college have traveled to Halifax for a national student conference. Classes are over, so we are put up in one of the dorm towers – a modern concrete structure with tiny shared rooms with weird windows, about twelve inches wide by about five feet tall. Three of us are arts students; the fourth is a very cocky business administration student. When we get to the rooms he starts gushing.)
Business Student: “This is great. I love the history of this city!”
Us: *tired after a long flight* “Yeah, whatever.”
Business Student: “I can’t believe we’re staying in such a historic old building!”
Me: “What?”
Business Student: “Just look at those windows. They were built that way so that the settlers could shoot at the Indians without getting arrows shot back at them.”
Me: *a history major* “I think the fortifications in Halifax had more to do with repelling the French, and then the Americans after 1776. And since when did anyone have to worry about arrows on the tenth floor of a concrete tower?”
Business Student: “You’re full of s***. Those windows were meant as a defense against attack.”
Other Student: “Those pioneers were smart to put elevators in their fortress.”
Business Student: “I’m telling you, this building is at least 200 years old. I know this stuff!”
Other Student: “Let me know what business you wind up running so I don’t accidentally invest in it.”
Business Student: “I’m telling you…” *and it went on and on and on*
(I moved to Halifax years later, and even conducted historical tours of the real fortifications there. Though I dealt with honestly ignorant questions, I never came across someone as stubbornly stupid as that fellow student from British Columbia.)
Question of the Week
Tell us your story about a customer who couldn't understand the most simple concept.
