A failure of technology or the understanding of it? - Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday, I've got two stories about people misunderstanding how "high tech" things work. The first one is about a fellow I met while I was working for the U. S. Geological Survey at the national headquarters in Reston, VA. I wasn't a big shot. I was just a new, very green engineer right out of college who worked in the instrumentation group of the Water Resources Division. It was a huge building and there was an army of people needed to maintain and clean the building. The Survey was a very friendly place to work and the cleaning people, although they worked for a private contractor, hung around to talk with the scientists, engineers and administrators during their break time. Many of them took a real interest in what we were doing and how we were doing it. Our lab, with all its electronic parts, was an especially appealling place to many of them.

I remember one old fellow always saying hello and asking how things worked and he seemed to enjoy new projects as much as we did. He didn't speak very well and he may have had a learning deficiency but he didn't have a curiosity deficiency. One day, though, he came in with a small plastic container that looked like the microphone from a Citizen's Band radio. It was even called "Good Buddy After Shave". CB Radios were all the rage in the mid 1970's. He asked if I could make it work for him. He acted like he was 90% of the way there already. All I had to do was fill in the missing pieces. When I tried to make him understand that I couldn't do it, he misunderstood and thought I just didn't want to do it. He pointed to all the electronic parts we had and truly looked disappointed that his simple request couldn't be fulfilled. I got the impression that he'd already told his friends that he'd be coming back with a working radio. He never stopped by our lab again after that. It wouldn't be the first time I had to tell someone that something they'd requested wasn't possible or practical. But telling people the hard truth has never gotten easier.