Wow, IS students have low EQ?
In my entire three years of being in SMU, I’ve never come across something quite as ridiculous as what you are about to see.
Lemme’ fill you in on some background information.
First of all, this took place during a particular e-Marketing class which my two friends were in. (Thank goodness I wasn’t in that class because I would have hurled right on the spot.) Their required project involved identifying a specific group in the market, create a product or a service targeted to the chosen market and basically, ’sell’ it to the whole class in the form of a presentation.
In one of them presentations, a particular group chose to target us. Information Systems students.
Apparently, these snits think IS students have a LOW EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT.
Picture credit to Liz.
Yep, that little flier was part of their marketing campaign. I can’t believe they actually had the audacity to present such a stereotype to the entire class, especially when it is not even true.
Low emotional quotient? Whatthefuck?
In fact, the act of even assuming that IS students have a low EQ suggests that the creators of said poster do not have any EQ themselves, plus their lacking ability to think rationally.
Look. IS is not about sitting in front of a square monitor and programming the whole day.
We have numerous GROUP projects, and every single computing/computer science/IS student out there will know how important it is for such projects to be managed well. (Project management, hello?)
Working on an IS project together requires a lot of coordination, understanding each other’s abilities and shortcomings, and helping each other develop certain skills.
I should know. Thanks to SMU’s Information Systems program, I’ve been put through a total of 8 major group projects that require the development of some system. Throughout all these projects, especially Software Engineering, my group members and I have managed to bond like never before.
Having to sit around, burning the midnight oil just to get a module running, tempers are sure to flare. Instead, we encouraged each other, guided each other, and basically egged each other on throughout the struggle to stay awake and come up with a full working code at the same time.
Tight deadlines make us hit the ceiling, but this is the time where we work even harder, working together to ensure that whatever needs to be done gets done.
And of course - occasionally, we have members that don’t work. However, due to the highly tedious nature of IS projects, it is imperative that everyone works, otherwise the rest of the group suffers. This means that we need to know how to cope with such conflict.
Did you think we managed to survive all these without any form of emotional intelligence, huh?
In fact, the ‘high endurance’ mentioned in the flier shown above can’t even materialize if we do not have one another’s support. People don’t do individual work in a group, you know? We work AS A GROUP. Cohesion. Hello?
For the love of mankind. Just because we are geeks doesn’t mean that we do not know how to feel for people. Geeks are not like what you envisioned, living in their own world where their best friend is their computer. Geeks are not people who, just because of their time spent on the virtual world, means that they do not know how to deal with people and face reality.
In fact, the tedious and brain-roasting nature of our course is the reason why the entire IS faculty is so tightly-knit. Everyone knows that they can count on each other for anything, and we hold cross-group discussions for common projects to share knowledge and stuff like that.
Basically, my reason for stating all of the above is to emphasize that IS students HAVE EQ, and not a low one as suggested.
And to that e-marketing group that incurred the wrath of the growing number of IS students so far - next time, THINK before you open that BIG GAPING HOLE of yours - about the potential negative impact of your sweeping stereotype, the truthfulness of your claims, and whether what you’re about to say will make you look like the idiotic dimwits that you are.
Ignorance, ignorance, ignorance.Considering the lack of English education foodstall handlers have, trying to talk to them is a real pain in the ass.
Even more so when you have a food allergy, and you have to attempt explaining to that auntie behind the stall why you don’t want this or that in your food while she stares at you with a perplexed (and annoyed) expression, as if implying that I’m a picky person.
Take today for instance.
Lotus Thai Viet - was the stall’s name, at the food court at the top floor of Tampines Mall. Yours truly was craving fried olive rice, and thus placed my order with this blank-faced auntie at the stall.
I watched her garnish the dishes ordered before me, and noticed that she had sprinkled crushed peanuts over most dishes. That was when alarm bells started ringing in my head, and I quickly informed her that when she came to my olive rice, I strictly did not want any crushed peanuts over it.
No response from her.
I reiterated everything in Chinese and she seemed to understand - well, at least that’s what I thought. Because she nodded.
Eight minutes later (which is quite a long wait for a food court), my olive rice finally emerged from the kitchen behind the stall and said auntie began garnishing it. Before I could react, she had flung an entire spoonful of crushed peanuts all over my food.
That was when I yelped.
“Noooo, didn’t I tell you not to add any peanuts?”
She stared at me, blankly. I began to hastily convert everything into Chinese.
”
我不能吃 err … peanuts! I have an allergy to peanuts! 我对 peanuts 有过敏!”
It’s rather obvious that this auntie was clueless about food allergies, since she only seemed to understand the first part of my sentence where I mentioned that I did not want peanuts. She then proceeded to scrape the peanuts off the top layer of my rice using the same spoon which was previously dipped into the bowl of crushed peanuts which still had peanut crumbs all over it. There was still quite a lot of peanuts (which was more difficult to remove) on the rice when she was done.
“Nah. Like that, can or not?”
I felt like screaming. I have a fucking allergy! Didn’t she understand? Is she like, dense or what? Little or a lot, it does not change the fact that the damn rice still has peanuts on it.
“I HAVE AN ALLERGY, DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? 我吃 peanuts 会死的!”
(The last sentence translates into: I might die if I ingest peanuts.)
Another lady who happened to be standing next to me at the foodstall understood my plight and she too, tried to (unsuccessfully) convey the seriousness of the situation to the still bewildered looking foodstall auntie who was still waving my plate around in mid-air (yes, with peanuts intact).
We spoke to her in English, to no avail. We tried translating everything in Chinese and still, we couldn’t wipe out that blank look on her face.
Is a food allergy such a difficult concept to understand?
It’s hard to miss considering how there is much emphasis on allergies splattered all over the newspapers these days. Ignorant fool.
The good Samaritan lady then offered to take my original plate of peanut-contaminated olive rice on my behalf since she intended to place an order for that as well, while she ordered the foodstall auntie to whip up another plate for me, peanut-free this time.
I was too flustered to thank her properly. Can’t remember her face either, since my head was seriously pounding at the ridiculousness of the situation (and the foodstall auntie’s stupidity) to concentrate on anything. But whoever she is, wherever she may be - a middle aged, medium height lady with short curly hair, wears spectacles and a white t-shirt, thank you so very much for your help.
Seriously, I am not the only individual with multiple food-allergies (especially peanuts) in Singapore - and I sympathise with any other person with the same condition as me.
Likewise, I doubt she’s the only ignorant idiot in the whole island of Singapore - there’s bound to be many more, which means that everyone else with multiple allergies are at risk of bumping into idiots like her (and struggle to make him/her understand how potentially severe food allergies are).
Allergies are not meant to be taken lightly. Even a couple of peanut crumbs is liable to set anyone with a more severe form of peanut allergy into a full-blown anaphylaxis shock.
I’m still fuming over the whole incident even now.
Ignorance is not an excuse. If someone suffered or dies from an allergy shock due to your negligence (i.e. your lack of knowledge about allergies, or any other medical condition that has food restrictions), it doesn’t change the fact that you’re still answerable and liable to the affected and his/her family members.
Protected: Unfortunately, my dad is the only one who will ever appreciate my smarts.