In my previous post, I exposed an intellectual noise created with words. The following story demonstrates a kind of intellectual noise created by a physical noise, a deliberately created sound. It exposes blatant inanity.
One summer, between semesters at Texas Tech University, I sought to make some good money working on an oil rig in the Midland-Odessa area. (I failed at this.)
The man training me as a roughneck warned me that I was not going to be accepted by the seasoned roughnecks as a respectable co-worker for a long time… and that those roughnecks would continually harass me and insult me as being a lowly worm. A kind of an initiation was that I must take it all in stride as they eventually came to trust me. This was dangerous work and we all had to protect each other.
However, my trainer advised me to throw around the tongs and other tools in such a way that would make a lot of noise. He explained:
Everyone in the oil field automatically assumes that you know what you are doing merely if you make a lot of noise manhandling the tools.