Unintellegence Attacks Mid-West 2

[thekl0wn]

It seems like I'm surrounded by more sub-par intellectuals than most on here, so I thought I'd share a few recent incidents from people around me.

Incident #1: A guy I work with was asking about different sandwich selections at a local Subway restaurant, and made his decision, but needed to know the price. He asks the girl behind the counter, "How much is a foot-long?" Her reply was holding her hands about twelve inches apart, and saying, "About that much." Dead-serious. No smile.

Incident #2: A friend of mine calls me, and asks, "Is Alaska an island?" My reply was, "You're joking, right?" She was not, however. She saw a truck in Indiana with Alaskan plates, and couldn't figure out how it got to Indiana, and her husband told her they probably drove, and she thought that was funny because everyone knows trucks don't float. Her argument for thinking it was an island, is that when looking at a map of the United States, Alaska is typically shown in a separate box in the corner of the map... Right by Hawaii.

Incident #3: Same girl from incident #2. She was helping her husband fill out a job application, and was going through the checklist the employer sent along. One of the items on the checklist was, "Be sure to include your return mailing address on the envelope." She got a blank stare, and looks at her husband going, "Honey, I know what our mailing address is, but what's a return mailing address?"

Incident #4: Eating at Hacienda (local Mexican restaurant) a few months ago, I asked our waitress what day that Cinco de Mayo fell on this year. She said she would check, and walks over to a calender to see. She came back and said, "It looks like it's on the fifth of May this year." I found that funny enough in itself, but didn't laugh, and simply said, "No, I meant what day? As in Monday, Tuesday..." She then came back with another classic line, "Oh, so it's one of those holidays like Thanksgiving that falls on the last Thursday of the month."

Incident #5: Same girl from incident #2. We were swimming at her house one day, and she got home about the same time as her brother-in-law was leaving. Well, after he left I told her that he dropped a cigarette in the pool, and burnt a hole in the bottom. She looked down, and saw a brown sap stain on the bottom, and flew into a fury! She was out for blood! Well, we got her calmed down, and then I simply told her, "Think about it. How could a cigarette burn the bottom of a pool full of water?" Her reply, "I know. I know. It would float."

Let's hear some of yours.

 

[2ffat]

So he tried to sell me on a HDTV that they carried that had 3 inputs...he said it was on sale for only $1200.

I'm worried that he probably sold a lot of HDTV's that way. :-(


James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[medic]

Here in the city where I live, I realized many medical personnels are having difficulty translating dates to MM/DD/YY format.

Getting a "What's the number for November?" question is not something new to me.

 

[thekl0wn]

Electronics stores around here harbor some of the worlds most intelligent people ever. I overheard a Best Buy salesman being asked by a customer how a cordless mouse hooked up to a computer, and he told the lady that there was a small cable that went from the PC to the mouse.

I got in an argument later that day with the same clerk. He was quite annoying, and when asking about the price on a network card, he started talking about how it was THE top-of-the-line, and started reading off the transfer rates to me, and kept saying megaBYTEs. I had enough of his cocky, pushy attitude, and told him if he was as smart as he thought he was, that he would know that the little "b" used in the transfer rate on the box meant bit, not byte. His defense was that bit and byte meant the same thing, and that they were interchangeable.

 

[zarkon4]

We had a woman who is in charge of some international shipping and billing. One day whe was curious as to where a particular (can't remember name of it) city was. We informed her it was a city in the country of Tunisia. She asked "Where is that?", "It is in Africa" I replied, to which she said, "I didn't know Africa had countries, I thought Africa was a country."....Well, it was funny here.

 

[Stella740pl]

I'm worried that he probably sold a lot of HDTV's that way.
I wouldn't say then that it's him who is stupid, if it is so. Don't you agree?

 

[thekl0wn]

On a recent canoe trip, we were discussing things that people often take for granted as common knowledge. I personally admitted that it's only been in the past two years that I learned all twelve months in order. I've always known all twelve, but had to really think about the order. I just never committed them to memory, and it usually wasn't a problem because the next and previous months are always shown on a calender.

Upon further discussion, a few of the guys were talking about not knowing where certain states were located in relation to other states. When one of the guys was questioned, and could only name 9 states out of the 50.

More discussion brought up presidents, which was very interesting. One guy knew them all in order. Another seriously thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was a president. Most could name 10-15.

 

[zarkon4]

Just remembered another one...

My brother, I would say he's adopted but we look alike, was at work when one of his co-workers walked by him.
My brother, seeing that the co-worker had something on his forehead, stops him, says "You got something on your forehead.", takes his hand and wipes it off.......It was Ash Wednsday.

 

[thekl0wn]

In high school, we had a guy that was a year or two above us that was on the speech team. Well, he was adopted from Asia, and therefore looked Asian. One day at lunch he and I had a short discussion, and afterwards one of my buddies told us that he was impressed with how well the guy spoke English. Someone told him that the guy had been in America, living with his American parents since he was only a month or two old, but my moron buddy was convinced that the other guy should know how to speak Chinese, despite being raised in the exact same environment as himself.

 

[ESquared]

A new guy was hired in the tech support department I worked for. He spent much time praising his own skill and abilities. He regaled us with stories about how he would bet $1 on various technical issues with people and always win. He bragged about how he had always won.

I was a little irritated with his bragging.

Anyway, one day we were talking about screen resolution, and I told him that in millions of colors mode, you can't display every color on the screen at the same time. He opined boldly as how you could, a flat contradiction of me. We bet $1 on it. I endeavored to show him the math:

Millions of colors = 2^24 = 16,777,216
One screen at 1024x768 resolution = 768,432 pixels.
Each pixel can only display one color at once, ergo, you can't display all the colors at once.

His response, with full confidence, accompanied with disdainful and mocking head-shaking: "Erik, you can't find the answer in the numbers."

I am not ashamed to say that I hounded him on this until he finally gave me a dollar, but he said it was just to make me shut up and not because he really felt that I had won.

---------

Same guy. My computer sound was behaving strangely: using the software volume control, sound would come through at low volumes, but as I moved the slider up, at one point there would be a crackle and the sound would vanish, then higher it would crackle again and come back. So the top and bottom of the range worked, but the middle didn't, with crackles around it.

I reinstalled Windows 95. I removed and readded the hardware. I downloaded any and all drivers/firmware from the manufacturer (sound was integrated on the motherboard). I determined the problem was in the motherboard. Steve disagreed with me, so we bet $1 on it.

I contacted the computer manufacturer, convinced the tech to give me an RMA#, and got a replacement shipped out. When it arrived, I shut down my computer, swapped out the motherboards (an identical model, these were new computers) and started up. Sound worked flawlessly.

Steve continued to argue with me and never would give me the dollar on this one.

----------

A past friend of mine enjoyed fooling his sister. He really did convince her that the word "gullible" was not in the dictionary. Get this... more than once. The same dictionary. His argument the second time was that they took it out, as it was a new edition.

------------

I ordered a chicken quesadilla without peppers at Taco Bell. When my food came, it had peppers in it. I asked for it to be fixed. The manager angrily argued with me that it had no peppers in it. I asked her what the little green things I was pointing at were. She sneered out "those are chilies!" To which I could only reply, "as in chili ... peppers?"

I got my replacement quesadilla.

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[flapeyre]

Once, back 25 or so years ago, when I was fixing typewriters, I got a service call on a Selectric that would not work at all; it turned out to be nothing more than the machine was not plugged in. This was in the engineering department of a large hotel in downtown New Orleans. You would think that they would at least check that before calling (I could have billed them $68.00 for the service call, but I let it slide).

Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas.

 

[guitarzan]

Once got a call from a client, with two problems... sound on her computer was not working, and she could not transmit her medical billing information, which was done through a modem.

I started with the sound issue... her desk was cluttered, so it took a few minutes to determine that I could not find her speakers, so I cleared enough space to pull her computer forward to follow the audio cable to the speakers... of course, there was no audio cable, as there were no speakers present. She said that she had been given a replacement computer a year earlier after a crash, and obviously speakers weren't part of the deal!

On to the modem issue... While looking for the speakers, I actually found a phone line on the floor, one end connected to a wall jack, and the other end not connected to anything... so I snaked it up to the desk, and attempted to plug it into the modem on her computer. But I had trouble plugging it in, as her computer did not have a modem! She swore she had transmitted her information recently, but after I politely asked her to think REEEEAL hard, she realized that yeah, maybe it had been about a year since she successfully transmitted whatever it was that she transmits.

The folks at my shop got a good laugh from my workorder, which looked something like:

Problem: Sound not working
Reason: No speakers present

Problem: Modem not working
Reason: No modem present

 

[rjoubert]

I was a little irritated with his bragging.

Don't you just love people like that?

Reminds me of a guy at a previous job. During a meeting, we went around the room to introduce everyone, and this guy liked to brag about how he knew everything about IT and programming, as he had been in the industry for over 25 years.

As the meeting continued, our development team did a "dog and pony show" for an ASP-based business application we had developed. One individual asked if it was possible to not allow for the context menu (right click menu) to pop up. This braggart was not part of our development team, but felt the need to answer the question himself, stating that it was not possible. I chimed in and said that it was possible, but he continued to argue that it couldn't be done. After we demonstrated how to do it, he quickly shut his mouth and remained quiet for the rest of the meeting.

 

[2ffat]

OK, OK, here's mine. A long time ago, we had a delivery that was sent to the wrong location so I was sent over to get it. I sat in the front office and started talking to the receptionist. She asked where I came from. I told her Idaho. She then said her brother served in the Air Force there. I asked if it was Mountain Home Air Force Base. She said she didn't think so. Then she said, "You really speak English well, but I guess they have to teach English over there, too." She apparently didn't know Idaho was one of the 50 US states.

Later I heard that New Mexico residents were being were being denied tickets to the US Olympics since, "they had to speak to their country's Olympic committee about getting tickets." I often wondered if the same lady was also working for the US Olympics. ;-)



James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[p5wizard]

About 10 years ago, while traveling around in a rented car in Canada, we hit some car trouble in Banff, so I called the 800 number.

After explaining what happened and where we were at that point, the lady at the other end needed to know which "providence" we were in.

I thought about answering: "We're a couple of thousand miles away from any Providence I know", but thought better of it and simply replied: "Alberta".

p5

 

[mjldba]

rjoubert ... what was the primary attraction? Was it the seemingly limitless number of fine Chinese restaurants or was it "The Ballet"?

 

[rjoubert]

I'm cultured...it was "The Ballet." Those were the good ole' days.

 

[SantaMufasa]

<way off topic>
James, we are leaving this afternoon to go back to your hometown in Idaho for a family reunion. Is there anyone still there that is a Cottingham? Is there anyone to whom you want a "Hey" delivered?
</way off topic>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[2ffat]

<way off topic>
James, we are leaving this afternoon to go back to your hometown in Idaho for a family reunion. Is there anyone still there that is a Cottingham? Is there anyone to whom you want a "Hey" delivered?
</way off topic>

<way off topic continued>
Thanks, but all my kin are dead. If you go to the museum you might see my Dad's police uniform. You can read his name on the war memorial next to City Hall (if they have cleaned all the hard water stains off it).

You can say hi to everyone you meet. I doubt that they will remember me. If you attend Star Ward, they might. I was invited to my 30th high school reunion this year but since I can't stay with anyone, I won't go. :-(

Thanks again for asking, though.
</way off topic continued>


James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[mjldba]

rjoubert ... and I thought it was Ming Teh!

 

[ESquared]

In tech support for Philips CD Recorders, I called back a guy who was having a problem with his recorder. He described how he was putting a genuine Philips recordable CD in his drive, and it just wouldn't work. After some confusing minutes asking him the model of his CD Recorder, I finally determined that he did not own a CD Recorder. I mean, the disc says recordable so it should work anywhere, right? He was quite angry when I explained to him that it required special hardware. When he exclaimed that he was going to return the blank CDs, I agreed that was probably a good idea.

----------------

Same tech support department. The drives were shipping with a 1535 internal SCSI adapter (I can't believe I still remember). One of the most common problems was not firmly seating the internal SCIS cable into the adapter card--it took quite a lot of force to get it in there. So at the appropriate point after checking a few other likely things I would have the caller, while I waited, make sure that cable was firmly seated and they would say "okay I did it!" I endured more than a few frustrating phone calls where I finally discovered that they had either not pushed hard enough or (much more likely as I became familiar with the habits of callers) simply not done it and lied to me, thinking I was wasting their time. Finally I figured out a way to make the people actually get down next to their computer and do what I was asking: "Okay, I need you to swap ends on the SCSI cable... and while you're down there, make sure the ends are very firmly seated!" Of course, it made no difference in the slightest which end was where, but once I started giving that instruction, it worked every time.

It was quite surprising to me how often people would just plain lie to me. I learned not to ask questions like "have you changed any of the switches on the card?" which always yielded a no. Instead, I had to ask, "what position are the switches in?" I had to make everyone do more work because of the good percentage that would lie to me about it. Sometimes even after asking, if I intuitively sensed the person was not being truthful, I'd have him SET the switches to some random position for no reason at all, concocting some fake reason, and then SET them back to the default that it was supposed to be at.

I firmly concluded and still believe that lying to the person you're asking for tech support from is unintelligent.

----------------

Same tech support department. I ask "Is your CD recorder an internal or an external drive?" She says it's an external. Oh, okay, great. But we were making no progress at all! I was forced to begin her to describe the cd recorder--so far I can't even tell if it's my company's product or what model it is. The person, in response to my querying, allows as how the "external CD recorder" connected to her "computer" is about 20 inches deep, 20 inches wide, and 5 or 6 inches high...

I politely (read: mentally gritted teeth) explained that what she was calling her "computer" was in fact her monitor and that the box she'd told me was her external CD recorder was in fact the computer, and she had an internal CD recorder and it wasn't our product anyway. Bye-bye, have a nice day. Call time was about 15 minutes.

------------

Same tech support department. Somewhere in the middle of the call I ask, "is there any kind of error message on your screen?" Through painful experience I began to realize that when the customer says "no" to this question, they are almost always wrong (I generally don't ask if there's an error message unless there are hints there should one and I'm trying to find out what it says). And in this case, it's not a lie. They just can't see the dialog box. Honestly. So I had to develop yet another new, magical tactic: "Would please start at the top of the screen and read every word you find?" Believe me, this was much faster and more productive than trying to help them search for the error message themselves. Other questions like "what application are you running" or "what is in the title bar/the top of the current window" generally failed and had to yield to the same read-your-whole-screen tactic. It would go something like this:

"Click on the Tools menu"
"There's no such thing here"
"It's at the top of the window"
"I can't find any tools menu"
"Would you look higher, just below the colored bar at the top of the window, it has to be there, [helpfully/hopefully] File Edit View Tools Help... Tools?"
"There's no Tools menu at the top of this window"
"Okay. Would you read every word on your screen starting at the top?"
Sometimes immediately: "File Edit View Tools Help..."
"That's it!! click on Tools."
"Ohhhhhh of course that's there, I thought you meant below that."

I'm surprised that job didn't make me crazy. It certainly, for a period of time, made me less kind to people because of just how much of my time was dealing with, I don't know what else to call it, stupidity.

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]