Chain of command

Fresh thread for your Thursday flame war. ...

This is just a guess. I don't know what you do for a living or how well you do it, so all I can do is guess.

I'm guessing that your immediate supervisor, your boss, knows what you do and how well you do it. If you have any work-related callouses, then I'd also guess that she knows how to do your job and could do it well herself. If you don't, then I'd guess that she doesn't and probably couldn't.

Her boss -- your boss's boss -- probably doesn't know what you do or how it is done, but he might still be able to tell whether or not it's being done well. In a pinch, he might even be able to fill in for you, but your customers would notice the difference.

His boss -- your boss's boss's boss -- has no idea what you do and, I'm guessing, wouldn't be able to do it if you gave him a highlighted and underlined copy of Your Job for Dummies.

If your company is large enough that that guy has a boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss -- then not only does he not know what you do or how it's done, but he cannot see any difference between its being done well and its being done poorly. And since he can't see that difference, he doubts your customers would be able to tell either. So if he has yet another boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss -- then he is probably right now thinking that he could make that boss happy by saving all of the time and money he figures you must be wasting trying to do whatever it is you do well.

As I said, this is only a guess. Am I close?

Comments

[hapax]

My boss's boss's boss's boss is the taxpayer, who doesn't know that I exist or that my boss exists

the taxpayers are MY ultimate bosses too, except that I meet and interact with them every day, and they have definite and vocal opinions (some positive -- today a patron brought us donuts, wheee! -- and some negative --- I've really got to call back on the messages sizzling on my phone line)

what's the deal with most libraries requiring a masters in Library science to be anything other than a page? In my experience (and, fwiw, I was once one of those encylopedias of random knowledge at giant bookstore), there's very little that's done at the local librarian level that couldn't be done by someone who's very familiar with literature or the literature related to various fields. So what don't I get?

Pretty much everything we go to library school to learn. The difference between data, information, and knowledge. How data, information, and knowledge can be best organized and accessed. How to figure out the precise data, information, or knowledge a querent is seeking, and how to best connect it to the querent. The difference between seeking, wanting, and needing particular data, information, and knowledge. How to communicate the availability of, and inspire the desire for, particuar kinds of data, information, and knowledge. How to analyze the types of data, information, and knowledge in general that an entire community will seek, need or want. How to prioritize access to these with the resources available. How to get more resources in order to get more access.

Incidentally, also how to make budgets, presentations, manage a large organization, face down mentally ill criminals, bandage wounds, repair computers, fix copiers, and unclog plumbing.

"Knowing stuff" is the TRIVIAL part of being a librarian. Connecting that stuff that you know -- and that you don't know -- to real live people is the important part.

[Mark]

"If your company is large enough that that guy has a boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss -- then not only does he not know what you do or how it's done, but he cannot see any difference between its being done well and its being done poorly. And since he can't see that difference, he doubts your customers would be able to tell either. So if he has yet another boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss -- then he is probably right now thinking that he could make that boss happy by saving all of the time and money he figures you must be wasting trying to do whatever it is you do well."

Rowan WIlliams could appease The Queen by firing me? IIf that doesn't give me ideas above my station I don't know what will.

[Dorothy]

Oh man, this is a sore topic here in SE Michigan. Just avert your eyes and pass on by, saying "there but for the grace of god..."

[hapax]

Rowan WIlliams could appease The Queen by firing me?

If you were a gay American bishop, he could.

[Robb]

A good librarian has to be able to assist an eight-year-old researching butterflies AND a historian who wants to know about local eighteenth-century marriages. That's what the Master's is for.
and
How to figure out the precise data, information, or knowledge a querent is seeking, and how to best connect it to the querent. The difference between seeking, wanting, and needing particular data, information, and knowledge. How to communicate the availability of, and inspire the desire for, particuar kinds of data, information, and knowledge. How to analyze the types of data, information, and knowledge in general that an entire community will seek, need or want. How to prioritize access to these with the resources available. How to get more resources in order to get more access.

Hmm... I agree that good librarians can do that, but as I said, I've seen very competent bookstore clerks do the same, to some extent. Indeed, in many cases, bookstore employees were/are far more knowledgable on the literature that was/is actually available & accessible on a topic (even if they weren't selling it) as opposed to knowledge on the topic itself. Meanwhile, I've dealt with many librarians that were (and this is my experience, not a sterotype I'm deferring to) old ladies who were (and in some cases in my local library system, are) hopelessly out of touch with literature & history in all current forms, but seem to have a firm grasp on the Dewey decimal system.

I'm just confused on how an education in Library sciences makes one a master of esoterica*, because it seems to me that the most competant librarians are those that have acquired their working knowledge of books & info through education & experience other than an MLS - indeed, some of my favs don't even have an MLS.

* Band name alert?

[PurpleGirl]

I work in fundraising for a 501c3 organization. My boss (the VP of External Affairs) and the big boss (the President) can both do parts of my job. They could research and write grants and reports and such but they couldn't do parts of it involving getting the related materials (lists of donors, the 501c3 letter, board list, etc.) together as quickly as I can. This is the stuff that I follow and update as income comes in, people change, etc. The other thing is I've been with the organization for 15 years now and I'm the institutional memory of many things. There are also several other people in the development group who handle other aspects of the effort, like media/communications relationships, planning special events, lots of writing, and researching sources of potential income.

[hapax]

Robb. I've been a bookstore clerk. I've been a librarian. It isn't the same.

Let's see if I can put this in very simple terms.

The purpose of a bookstore clerk is to sell the books in the store to customers, and thus make money for the store.

The purpose of a librarian is to connect inquirers with the data, information, and/or knowledge that they seek/want/need.

Individual clerks and librarians may be good or bad at the particular job. That makes no difference to the purpose of their job.

Individual clerks and librarians might be good at THE OTHER's job. That does not necessarily translate to being good at their own job.

Your anecdotal experience with the relative competence of Awesome Clerks and Hopeless Little Old Lady Librarians leads me to believe one of two things -- either the bookstores in your area must pay hella better wages than the libraries, or that your interactions with both were extremely limited and narrow in scope. Neither would particularly surprise me.

[Apsalar]

My boss had the same job as me many years ago, but I doubt she'd be up to these days.

My boss's boss I think has an idea of what my job is, and could probably describe it, but would in no way be able to do it.

My boss's boss's boss is in a similar position.

My boss's boss's boss's boss has no idea that I exist, or what I do, or how well I do it.

[Belisarius]

I'm a high school Latin and Greek teacher. No one else in the school knows how to do my job. : )

[cjmr]

Belisarius FTW!

[twig]

Robb;

I have no doubt you'd make an excellent librarian. But colleges have to sell you those pieces of paper to prove you can do what you already know you can do.

I don't know why. It keeps the world turning.

[Spherical Time]

Using Jesurgislac's post as a template:

My immediate boss: knows what I do, check, knows how well I do it, check, knows how to do my job, check, and could do it well himself, check.

My boss's boss: has some idea of what I do, check, has some idea of how well I do it, check, and is perfectly capable of doing it himself, probably as good as I can do it.

My boss's boss's boss: knows some of what I do, check, is possibly aware of how well it is being done but is certainly more aware of any mistakes, and probably doesn't know how to do my job and couldn't do it herself, check.

My boss's boss's boss's boss: knows that a position like mine must exist but doesn't know me personally, doesn't know or care whether it is being done well or badly as long as it is being done, and probably does not know how to do my job.

Thankfully, in my current position, that's where the chain ends.

I've had jobs though where my bosses boss did not know how to do my job or even have a clear idea of what I did. Thankfully, in that position it was completely untenable to fire me without a replacement.

[Richard Hershberger]

Regarding librarians, it seems to me there is a de facto divide between librarians in research libraries (often, but not necessarily academic libraries: big downtown main branch city libraries count too) and local or branch libraries.

I live in a town with a pretty good local library. The people there are helpful and perfectly competent with the resources they have on hand. But I don't go to them for the obscure stuff. A while back I had a biographical question about an obscure 19th century American engraver. I called the downtown city library and worked my way to the librarian at the desk in the right department, and had my question answered in minutes. In fairness, I didn't even try my local library, but I would be astonished if they were able to give this service.

So Robb's story about little old lady librarians makes me suspect that his problem was calling the wrong library. They likely were perfectly capable of handling their own library's resources, but those could be limited.

As for bookstores, those are even more limited. That engraver question I had wasn't answered from a book in print, much less one that a random bookstore would be likely to have. But it was answered from a book that any research library should have, and which the librarian at the desk should know about.

[hapax]

But colleges have to sell you those pieces of paper to prove you can do what you already know you can do.

Well, since this is Thursday, and time for a flamewar, I do want to thank you, twig, for completely dismissing my two years of post-graduate study and research, two years of internship, and decades of job experience and continuous professional education and training.

How can that possibly compare to an encyclopediac knowledge of the correct enumeration of Star Trek novels?

[Froborr]

But colleges have to sell you those pieces of paper to prove you can do what you already know you can do.

There are two things a college degree can tell you. Some, such as a degree in a foreign language, engineering, or a science indicate that the possessor of the degree has been trained in a particular subject of value to a potential employer.

Most, however, just say "This person has completed four years of college and learned enough to pass some tests." They prove that the holder is trainable, and for most entry level jobs, that's all you need.

Nearly all graduate degrees are of the former type.

Major exceptions: degrees in economics indicate that the possessor has mastered the arcane formulae of a voodoo ritual to invoke the dread spirits of The Market, and is therefore eligible for the priesthood. Degrees in marketing reveal that the possessor is a slimy creature of the abyss utterly devoid of human decency, self-respect, or scruples.

[Lee Ratner]

Since, I'm a lawyer in a three person lawfirm plus 25 paralegals, I only have one person above me.

[Richard Hershberger]

Lee: three attorneys and twenty-five paralegals? That seems awfully bottom-heavy. What area of law?

[twig]

Well, since this is Thursday, and time for a flamewar, I do want to thank you, twig, for completely dismissing my two years of post-graduate study and research, two years of internship, and decades of job experience and continuous professional education and training.

How can that possibly compare to an encyclopediac knowledge of the correct enumeration of Star Trek novels?

I don't read Star Trek novels, thanks. I have experience in all three jobs - residential library, academic library and bookstore - and I think it's criminal that colleges can charge the exorbinant rates they do - rates most people won't recover from with a decade of work or more, for a position that could be taught via an apprenticeship program. Librarians aren't paid enough to be expected to shell out the ridiculous cost of a Library Science degree.

My degree wasn't worth what I paid for it, either. And I go into the next degree secure in the knowledge that I'm giving them $40,000 so they can give me a piece of paper so I can go do what I can do right now.

The system is broken, and sending people into a lifetime of debt for no good reason. If you think that means I'm spitting on your hard work, there's not much I can do about that.

[MikhailBorg]

How can that possibly compare to an encyclopediac knowledge of the correct enumeration of Star Trek novels?

Actually, anyone who can do that probably thinks librarians are awesome.

I can't enumerate the novels, but I can go into irritatingly numbing detail about the construction, maintenance, and proper operation of a Federation warpdrive. And I'm a librarian fan.

[mike timonin]

Hmmm. As someone who is pursuing a PhD in History, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with twig. I'm not really sure why I need the piece of paper I'll get once I finally finish my (goddamned) dissertation. As you might gather from my earlier post, I'm already doing one of the big things that the paper will theoretically qualify me to do - I'm teaching history. And, while I have the greatest respect for the professors in my department, they aren't really teaching me anything new about the other big thing - writing papers/articles/books - that I don't already know. So, yeah, there are days when I wonder why I'm throwing money down the hole that is my PhD degree.

That being said, if an MLS actually generates the helpful librarians that I encounter on a regular basis, then it's almost certainly worth the expense. I heart librarians; couldn't do my job without them.

[Otter]

I'm amazed to see the overwhelming majority of the posts in this thread simply recapitulate the poster's employment situation. Fred's post is not actually about us as individuals.

It's about a sickness to which our society is incredibly vulnerable during economic hard times. The larger an employing organization is, the smaller the value its decision makers place on the employees who actually do the work. This can, and has, caused catastrophic damage to businesses in addition to the problems already surrounding them, and in turn causes recessions to become self-reinforcing.

Oh and by the way, if you actually do work, brace yourself.

[MikhailBorg]

Well, actually, Fred did ask us if his guess about our situation was close. So we answered.

[andlorr]

Hapax: YES. Thank you.

Another example of the any-idiot-can-do-this-job attitude is endemic in the public patrons who come to use our library. These are all people who are representing themselves pro se in court. They believe that a) there is a detailed form for whatever need they have, b) that form is readily available for them to just fill in the blanks, and c) if neither a) nor b) are the case, that lawmakers purposely make finding the law difficult so as to maintain attorneys' salaries. I grow weary of explaining that no, the law is not made difficult to understand on purpose, and yes, there IS a reason all of our students go to school for three years in order to begin to understand how it works.

There are days that I hate people.

[Robb]

@Hapax, others - I'm not even beginning to argue that bookstore clerks are, in any large percentage, "better" than librarians. Is my sample representative of enough libraries & bookstores to make any kind of meaningful statement? Absolutely not - my experience is only anecdotal, and I fully acknowledge that. It's not at all my intention to imply any insult to librarians, so sorry for that if I irked you.

(I don't do the flame war thing very well - I hate conflict)

I have, however, been going to a range of libraries & bookstores for 20+ years. Being a nerd, geek, student, and a biliophile, I've read & purchased many books, and while I don't consider my experience authoritative, I'd hardly call my range of experience small, especially considering my (relatively young) age. I've worked for 2 major bookstore chains (a total of 4 stores), as well as a college library; and I've used/had memberships with 2 major university libraries, a small college, and 4 public munipal library systems (including the absolutely excellent Sno-Isle system where I currently live). Across all of those libraries & book stores, I've found that those most in love with knowledge & reading are the best to deal with, and sadly, those people are not common enough. Again, I don't mention the "helpless old lady" (and that's a term that's far harsher than I'd like) because it's a common stereotype; I have specific experiences with specific individuals (I can think of 5 at 5 different libraries offhand). That's not the majority by any stretch (and I'm sorry if anyone thought I was implying that), but it is a component of almost every library I've been to, and I find that curious.

My original question, and I don't know that I can get an answer to it, was just relating to how a specific degree program hopes to accomplish the task of making one familiar not only with many ranges of topics, but the types of organization & literature that appear within each field.

I should again note how much I love libraries & librarians, and I envy your job to the max.

[Raka]

Re: the "uselessness" of college degrees

There's a bizarre popular conceit that colleges exist only to teach you things. That's certainly one major purpose, but from an employer's point of view, an even more important purpose is providing evidence that you are capable of... something.

That "something" may be a particular skill or general trainability. It may also be a very basic ability to show up, follow basic instructions, and stick to a plan for several years. Anyone who thinks that these are trivial matters that a hiring manager can take for granted has had a remarkably sheltered employment history.

I do not have a college degree. This says nothing about my technical ability (I'm a pretty proficient programmer in several disciplines), but it's depressingly accurate in what it implies about my historical ability to show up consistently and stick to a plan for several years.

[lonespark]

I'm a government employee, and we just had a meeting where we discussed this very thing. My immediate boss and his boss are both sensible tech types with the same background as the engineers/scientists under them. But not all at that level are, and many are micromanaging jerks.

[Robb]

completely dismissing my two years of post-graduate study and research, two years of internship, and decades of job experience and continuous professional education and training.

The last thing I want to do is imply that someone who has worked & studied hard to do what they do, and do it well, has wasted their time. I can readily see why someone would feel insulted at what I said (and what twig said), and I apologize. I really don't have an "any-idiot-can-do-this-job" toward librarians, any more than I have that attitude towards any other profession: everyone has run into someone that made them think 'How on earth did that person get that job?'

*****

There's a bizarre popular conceit that colleges exist only to teach you things. That's certainly one major purpose, but from an employer's point of view, an even more important purpose is providing evidence that you are capable of... something.

Unless you studied theology, then they say "Oh. . . that's nice."

: (

[Michael]

At my last job I had the guy in another city I reported to weekly, he also did my annual reviews. He didn't know what I specifically did on a daily basis and couldn't have done it himself. His boss, who had no fixed location, was technically my supervisor, left dealing with my office to my boss and tended to ignore complaints that my boss wasn't doing it. He was Finance by training, not IT so he wouldn't have been able to do it. His boss was the VP of Finance in Yet Another City who had never heard of me until they needed someone to keep some tenants from screaming about a broken else, which they delegated to me. Since I occasionally did budgeting, supervision and negotiating vendor leases I actually WAS doing my bosses job. Go up two levels and I was doing some of hers. And the guy in the middle with no fixed office ? Kissing ass to keep a broken IT department from being fired en masse. I don't think I could have, and I wouldn't have: the best people in the department were burned out, the rest were mismanaged. Changes needed to happen.

[hapax]

Aw, darn it, Robb & twig; I was getting all riled up for a perfectly good flamewar, and y'all had to douse it with sweet reasonableness before the tinder even had a chance to catch.

I am curious, twig and mike timonin, though; if you don't mind sharing, where the heck are you getting your degrees, that you feel you aren't learning anything you don't already know? I mean, I can't even say that about the silliest in-service training; I always seem to learn something new, even if it's just that yellow font on a teal background makes for a really really bad PowerPoint slide.

Maybe that just speaks to how deep and wide my default ignorance is...

[jamoche]

Last company I was at, not only did my boss not know what I did or how well I did it, he didn't even know how the product worked. (Software company in a very specialised part of the chip-design-to-physical-chip process). He was brought in from outside by his boss, who also had no clue how my product worked, and basically wanted to push his original team's project at the expense of ours. Boss's boss disliked me because I'd once argued with an expert - or had a normal technical discussion with someone who worked on the same kind of subsystem I did but with wildly different requirements, depending on your perspective (mine: fast simple graphics. His: pretty complex graphics). I'm pretty sure the other guy shared my opinion on how our conversation went.

Funny thing, they laid me off, finally replaced working and optimised code with code from the pet project, and a extremely time-critical process got 3x slower. Now, given that a typical job this software does takes 8 hours and is only going to get slower as chip designs get more complicated, this is not good.

And they wondered why I wanted to sign everything immediately in the layoff meeting, rather than think about it and possibly dispute it...

My current boss knows how the software works, how all the pieces fit together, and what kinds of tradeoffs are needed. Though - not being a Mac programmer - she couldn't do my job.

[damnedyankee]

Librarians FTW!

I have no boss, as my department head recently retired, and they're having a hard time finding somebody at his level of experience to take over the Extension Department (aka the bookmobiles).

[Robb]

I was getting all riled up for a perfectly good flamewar, and y'all had to douse it with sweet reasonableness before the tinder even had a chance to catch.

Wait, that's not combustible? DAMMIT!

Ok, how 'bout "Librarians who vote for Ron Paul suck!"

an encyclopediac knowledge of the correct enumeration of Star Trek novels

Cue standard librarian joke: "I don't know the answer, but I know where to find it."

Shoot. Now I've jump-started my inner Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. I'd probably start here, and cross-check here and here.

[Richard Hershberger]

'Ok, how 'bout "Librarians who vote for Ron Paul suck!"'

Didn't he run on the Librarian Party ticket a few years ago?

[Raka]

I've never been invited to a Librarian Party, and that makes me sad.

[mmack]

Didn't he run on the Librarian Party ticket a few years ago?

Yes. His slogan was: "We'll put America back in (Dewey Decimal) order!"

[Robb]

I think he's hoping the Librarian vote will stay with him, even though he's moved to the Readpublican Party. Just look what the guy is advocating we do to the Constitution!

[MikhailBorg]

Yes. His slogan was: "We'll put America back in (Dewey Decimal) order!"

I think he's made it clear he no longer feels bound by that promise. It's apparently a periodical thing with him.

[mmack]

IIRC, Another popular Librarian Party slogan was "America: Love it or put it back on the shelf!"

[julia]

boss: knows how to do what I do, also knows how to manage. Knows that there are things about what we do that I do better.
his boss: knows how to recognize if it's done right, knows we do it right, knows we're a profit center, knows we're understaffed, trusts my boss
her boss: trusts my boss, trusts his boss, knows we're a profit center, knows we're understaffed
his boss: isn't his boss, it's the Chairman of the parent company, who knows we subsidized the parent company's bonus for the last two years

[andlorr]

I just searched to see if there was a "Librarians for Ron Paul" group. Apparently not, though I see Drag Queens and Librarians for Rudy. Hee.

Aw, Robb, I hate conflict too. Hugs all round!

[damnedyankee]

Other Librarian Party slogans:

"America: Check It Out!"

"The Library Party: If We Can Handle the Insane Homeless People, We Can Handle Bin Laden!"

"More Books, Less Taxes!"

"Shhhhh!"

"Go Ask the Reference Desk."

[cjmr's husband]

I bet the Librarian Party has the quietest convention of all. Probably so quiet you can hear a balloon drop..

[alfgifu]

There's a bizarre popular conceit that colleges exist only to teach you things. That's certainly one major purpose, but from an employer's point of view, an even more important purpose is providing evidence that you are capable of... something.

That "something" may be a particular skill or general trainability. It may also be a very basic ability to show up, follow basic instructions, and stick to a plan for several years. Anyone who thinks that these are trivial matters that a hiring manager can take for granted has had a remarkably sheltered employment history.

Are we talking about University here? ('College' in the UK generally means the two years of studying between the ages of sixteen and eighteen leading up to the A Level exams.)

Anyway, if we are talking about Uni, it's certainly true that any degree shows general ability in a variety of areas, but I still doubt that it's a good idea to make it so fundamental to the job market - those same skills could be picked up/demonstrated via an apprenticeship, during which the apprentice would be making some valuable contribution to a workplace while they learnt, be earning rather than racking up debt, and have plenty of time to do the whole discovering themselves thing along with other apprentices in the same field. Of course anyone who wants to go to University ought to have the opportunity, but ideally the institution would be a centre for research and the training ground for future academics, not a necessary life experience with some social status stigma attached.

Mind you, I'm reading for an MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic this year, so I'm not exactly a disinterested third party!

It certainly seems that there's a lot of apparently unimportant make-work going on at management level. There used to be an idea that in the future machines would free up huge amounts of time for humanity to laze around (often wearing very little clothing and chatting up brightly-coloured aliens, it seems). Is there any way we could recapture that dream - cut out some of these unnecessary boss-types and spread the work to give everyone a bit more free time?

@robb
what's the deal with most libraries requiring a masters in Library science to be anything other than a page? In my experience (and, fwiw, I was once one of those encylopedias of random knowledge at giant bookstore), there's very little that's done at the local librarian level that couldn't be done by someone who's very familiar with literature or the literature related to various fields. So what don't I get?.

Hey Robb,

One thing to remember about libraries - not everyone there is a big-L "Librarian." At my library we have Librarians and Librarian Assistants - the latter not requiring a degree. These are often the folks that you will find manning the checkout positions, for example.
In my department, I have a librarian, three library assistants (of various pay grades) and two pages (shelvers). All but the pages spend some time on our public service/media reference desk, but the library assistants will often defer the more complex reference questions to me or my librarian.

The requirement for an MLS/MIS degree starts generally at the assistant department head level.

[spinetingler]

@Raka
I've never been invited to a Librarian Party, and that makes me sad.

Just speaking from anecdotal experience - librarian parties have the best weed. Just sayin'...

[spinetingler]

@Raka
I've never been invited to a Librarian Party, and that makes me sad.

Just speaking from anecdotal experience - librarian parties have the best weed. Just sayin'...

[Jeff]

Just speaking from anecdotal experience - librarian parties have the best weed. Just sayin'...

Since you didn't remember saying it, I believe you! [grin]

[Therese Norén]

Going by the job I'll have a little more than a week from now, my boss will know me, what I do and do it much better than I do. My boss's boss, too, but he might not know me. My boss's boss's boss, on the other hand, will know that there are people who do the work I do, but I'm sure she won't know my name or can tell the difference between a good or a bad job. She will totally not be able to do the job, since she's in administration. Her boss will probably know about the existance of the position, but I'm sure he's not thinking about us all that often.

[Izzy]

I am curious, twig and mike timonin, though; if you don't mind sharing, where the heck are you getting your degrees, that you feel you aren't learning anything you don't already know?

Aheh.

I went to Brown; I majored in English. I learned several things from said department, including but not limited to:

1) Everyone is Sexist. And Racist. Everyone. Ever. (You don't feel sufficiently bad about this, so we'll make you sit through a hundred 8 AM classes and write a bunch of papers on it. Me, at the end of my third required course: "Okay, *I* want to oppress women now.")

2) Relatedly, Romance Novels are Feminist. Somehow. Because, see, women want emotional purple prose, because of tides, and the moon, and being in touch with the Earth. Yuh-huh.

3) I hate Pamela. I want what's-his-name to hit her over the head with something and bury her in a peat bog.

4) There isn't a single protagonist in post-1940 Great Literature who I'd piss on if he were on fire.

5) Fantasy stories are bad. Hell, any story that doesn't deal with Deep Social Issues, rape, eating disorders, or your relationship to your mother is bad.

These are all, granted, things I didn't know, so your point is valid. But I'm not at all sure that they're things I'm better off knowing.