"Stupid Questions": the mantra of ill-employed librarians

Tonight in class we had a discussion about how some librarians say their patrons are stupid. I watched a pretty intense talk go down, flipping my head back and forth as though I was a Wimbleton observer. I had nothing to contribute to the conversation except a feeling of mild annoyance that some colleagues of my colleagues, the coworkers of my classmates, must obviously hate their jobs and therefore hate helping people. Get another job, guys. Don't sour the disposition of my motivated, ready-to-help fellow graduates. I also silently was grateful for my awesome co-workers at the library where I work who are always helpful, always ready to explain, and would never run for the break room to badmouth a patron.

All of that had never occurred to me before because I only do reference for children and teens. I can't think their questions are stupid- all of my patrons are pretty new to a library. I help lots of people with their first projects, helping them to know how the library works. I explain multiple times a shift what "stacks" means and how books are organized. I never get mad about it. Just because some people have older people asking the questions doesn't make it a stupid question. There are no stupid questions. The only stupid thing would be to not ask it, or even worse, to judge someone for having the courage to ask it.