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Stupid Things I Have Heard At Work 6

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AnotherHiggins

AnotherHiggins

Technical User
Nov 25, 2003
6,259
US
I've been thinking about starting this thread for a long time....

My company has recently gone through some pretty major layoffs. As a result, a lot of my reliable sources of stupid-things-I-overheard-at-work stories are now gone. But I have collected some pretty outstanding stupid-people stories.

I don't have time to list them now, but here is something from an email that was just sent out to literally thousands of users in the company.

.... All and all, we are on track....

This is followed by five paragraphs that seem to have been lifted straight out of a Dilbert cartoon, replete with more buzzwords than you can shake a stick at (stick-shaking is a common standard of measurement here in the South).

Any good examples you'd like to share?

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
[tab]-George Bernard Shaw

Help us help you. Please read FAQ181-2886 before posting.
 
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Oh, I got ya. Yeah - five.

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

Help us help you. Please read FAQ181-2886 before posting.
 
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this sentance has three erors
Click to expand...
I was counting the missed caps on 'this', the missed period, the 2 spelling errors, and the error in the sentence itself having an incorrect count.

But what is the rule on using the spelled-out numerics--ie, should it say ...has 3 errors, or do you spell out the 'three'. I seem to recall there was some limit, ie, for one or two, you spell it, for 3 or more, you use the numeric.

Anyone know of this rule?
--Jim
 
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BJCooperIT said:
Years ago, I learned of an intriguing Chinese cultural custom. I don't know if it still exists. When a Chinese person wrote a letter, the writer always made one deliberate spelling mistake. This was meant as a sign of humility, to acknowledge that the writer did not consider himself a perfect human being. Other cultures have similar customs, leaving works flawed to show that only God is perfect.
Click to expand...
Not to be annoying, but how do you misspell Chinese? The language is character based and has no letters such as what is found in Western languages. Indeed, in order to misspell, you would have to write the character incorrectly which would then mean you have written the wrong word (if it is a word at all), not misspelled a word. Maybe I should question Mr. Gompertz?... ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
 
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spell it out when it is a single word (seventeen) or requires specific wording depending on context and voice

so, not 100 but a hundred, or an hundred if you're from england, or one hundred if you're distinguishing between one and two, or a hunnert, or ...

not sure where i learned that

r937.com | rudy.ca
 
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Here's one I had during the week.

I'd reset a forgotten password, and was informing the member of staff that their new password was:

"Capital P, lowercase a s s w zero r d 1 and you will be forced to change it when you log in."

when I was asked:

"Is that a capital zero or a lower case zero?"
I kid you not.

John
 
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->what is the rule on using the spelled-out numerics

jsteph, If you wish to discuss that, I'll refer you to When to spell out numbers, thread1256-1039508. In short, spelling out three was correct by either of the commonly cited rules.

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[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

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Lots of good ones in here...

A story from my own files. I had made some upgrades to one of my applications (a purchase order system) and passed it onto the analyst for testing by several users. The analyst sent out an email request to the users to go to the QA site (with the link attached in the email) to perform the testing. All of the users responded that there had been no problems, including the admin who sits behind me.

A week after the changes had gone into production, the admin barks at me that she is having problems with the application. When I go to review what may be the problem, all I see is the revised section of the app performing as it should. But I get to listen to her for 10 minutes complain about how this has changed and now she doesn't understand it and why did it have to change it worked fine before (I don't think there were any period stops in her tirade, either, so I didn't include them here)... blah, blah, blah...

Knowing that she was one of the testers of the application a few weeks before, I asked her why she didn't mention any of this when she performed her testing. She gave me a look of incredulity and exclaimed that she had tested the changes the analyst had asked for. But everything worked as it always did! After a wee bit more indirect probing, I discovered that she had conducted the requested testing - on the old production application! Instead of clicking on the link provided in the analyst's email, she simply went to do her job as usual and entered a new purchase order (it was a PO app). When everything worked as it should (since there weren't any changes in production at that point!), she ok'd the testing to the analyst.

I should point out that I've since asked the analyst to remove her from the list of testers. *sigh*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
 
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I have two stories here.

One is my personal favorite of calls I received and the other is one that a client recently related to me.

Ro's favorite Help Desk Call:

Many, many years ago (late 80's?) somewhere around there, I had the job of going out to our bottled water plants and installing the plant PC and training the office admin.

Well, I put the PC in place, gave Sherry her training and as I am walking out the door say: "Do not install any software on this computer that isn't provided to you by corporate because of software viruses."

So, a few weeks go by and my phone rings ... Sherry is on the phone and she sounds just awful; she has a really, really bad cold. Sherry says to me: "Rosemary, I just wanted to make sure I could use the computer, because I don't want to give it my cold."

"Your cold?", I say. Yes, you warned me about viruses when you were here!

My jaw dropped and I asked her to please hold, After I could stop laughing, I got back on the phone and told her that presently there were no known cases of human/computer virus transmission, but we appreciated her calling in and checking with the Help Desk.

My client's:

Here is one that the HD Manager of a client just relayed to me. My client is a bank in Hawaii. The HD manager got a call from one of the branches that none of the 30 odd keyboards at the branch were working. They were stymied. What could have happened that all the keyboards stopped working? So, they question the branch manager: "What was done to the keyboards." Manager responds, "Well nothing really, oh they were looking dirty so I cleaned them." HD manager asks: "How did you clean them?" "Oh, there were so many of them, so I loaded them in the dishwasher in batches and they look really nice now!"

Slap to the head!

They had to go out and purchase new keyboards and deliver them and a lecture to the branch manager.

regards,

ro

P.S.

We got the cup-holder is broken, the pedal won't work, the disk is stuck (slid in between the hard-drive and floppy drive), the remote doesn't work (they were holding the mouse and pointing it at the screen)- I personally heard these calls come into the help desk. And, of course the secretary who claimed: Disks just don't work for me. Yep, she rolled them all into her typewriter to label them.


Rosemary Lieberman
rosemary-at-microflo.com, Microflo provides expert consulting on MagicTSD and Crystal Reports.

You will get answers more quickly if you read this before posting: faq149-3762
 
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Back in the 1980's......

I mailed some software to a client on a 5.25" floppy disk. I told them to call me when it was received, and I would walk them through the software installation.

Client: "We received the software, now what do I do?"
Me: "Remove the diskette from the envelope, and place it in the drive labeled "A". Then choose "Exit to DOS" on your menu.
Client: "Okay, just hang on a minute..."

(Silence for about 2-3 minutes)

Client: "Are you sure you want me to put this in the computer? It's awfully flimsy without the plastic envelope...."

From then on, the instructions referred to removing the diskette from the paper diskette sleeve....

Susan
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
- Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)
 
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SF,
A-HA-HA-HA too funny, gotta read the rest (I started from the end)
 
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I am surprised at

... the writer always made one deliberate spelling mistake. This was meant as a sign of humility, to acknowledge that the writer did not consider himself a perfect human being.

I am sure there is no 'spelling' in Chinese. Must be something else that similar to spelling.

 
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SF0751,

It looks like you're not the only one - from
Send 5.25" diskette to client with software patch. Instructions include "remove floppy diskette from it's jacket and insert into the disk drive". Customer spends 10-15 minutes trying to undo the diskette case, finally succeeds and tries to put actual diskette (minus cover) in drive. Phone call soon follows ...
Click to expand...

[tt]Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch
[/tt]
 
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A colleague is on a team that supports his company's portfolio-management application. The team manager calls the team into a meeting. My colleague relates...

"At this meeting, our manager instructed the team to immediately stop requesting requirements from one of our user groups.

"It seems this group doesn't want to provide requirements for any requested changes to the application. They feel embarrassed when asked for requirements, and they don't have time to provide requirements. The user group 'just want changes to happen.'

"In the future, we are even prohibited from using the word, 'Requirements', in conversation with any member of this user group.

"Who are these requirement-phobic users?" I asked.

"The project managers in our enterprise project management office."[banghead]



[santa]Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[ Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.
 
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Stella said:
No matter how many errors have already been found, and how perfect and finished a project seems to be, there always can be found at least one more flaw.
Click to expand...

That's the same way you play Trivial Pursuit. Whenever you're asked "How many ...?", think of however many you can, then add 1. 'works most of the time!

--Dave


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
O Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! [infinity]
 
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Ahhh, I see that SantaMufsa is also a reader of the Shark Tank. I'll usually read this during my first hour of work - it's a great way to start my morning. (At least I don't have to work with those people!)

For additional entertainment, I also read News of the Weird each Monday.

Susan
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
- Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)
 
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