The other day I went to my local independent coffee retailer where I found a booklet on how to order coffee. It even has a little space for you to enter in your drink choices in advance so you don’t panic when you get to the front of the line and forget what you wanted. My favorite, however, is the descriptions of syrup flavors. Vanilla is described as not needing an introduction. Does raspberry or almond? Apparently so.
I wondered, who was it that wrote this? Who fought hard to get this printed, decided on the number of pages they could spend on it, picked the paper weight and layout? Who decided on two pages for syrup coverage and then left it to the copywriter to fill two pages with syrup descriptions? Did someone’s job depend on making the brochure a success? How do you measure the success of a brochure like that?
It reminded me of Dilbert’s marketing plan: he has no marketing budget, so they giving free product samples to people who look like celebrities. The campaign turns out to be successful, and Dilbert’s estimation of humanity drops yet further.
In short, I feel bad for talking down to my audience from time to time, but the fact is that most of them are stupid. Some of them are smart– many of the important ones, in fact– and resent it. But they know it’s necessary, because they are surrounded by idiots.
Secretly Ironic 
