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.

 

[ESquared]

I was at the grocery store. The checker rang up all my groceries, and told me the total... something around $250. I didn't have near that much in groceries, so I told him something was wrong. He'd entered 46 of an item that I only had 6 of. After correcting the mistake, my bill was about $80.

Maybe it wasn't SO unintelligent, but I would have expected a checker to have a sense of the ballpark value of a pile of groceries.



I wanted to buy salad dressing without any vegetable oil (except for olive oil). I went shopping and read the labels on about 20 different salad dressing bottles and eventually bought two (the only two that met my requirements). Later in the day, I was at a local farmer's market and saw a booth selling salad dressings. Curious, I walked over and checked the ingredients. Quickly seeing the soy oil, I put the bottle down and began to walk away.

The woman behind the booth, not content to leave me to my business, asked me what I was looking for. When I told her, she said that you can't make salad dressing with olive oil because the flavor is too strong. I offered as how I was trying to avoid vegetable oils and particularly soy oil. She asked me why.

I calmly gave my reasons and was challenged, so I explained in more detail. Instead of the woman giving me up as an uninformed loony, or simply agreeing to disagree, she began to get quite upset. A man at the booth also got into it with me. I offered as how I was just reading ingredients for my own benefit and hadn't been going to say anything, but they accused me of deliberately trying to start an argument with them. I reminded the woman that she had asked me what I was looking for and had pressed me to explain what my reasoning was.

Eventually it turned into shouting. I eventually mentioned that there was information easily available on the internet if they wanted to know more. The man seized on this and mocked me for being one of those "internet losers" or something like that, saying that you can't believe anything you read there, and basically that unlike me, Their Opinion Was Supported By Science And In Fact They Knew A Doctor Personally Who Agreed With Them How Healthy Soy Is.

I shouldn't have let them get under my skin at the time. In retrospect, the story is quite funny. I'm not sure where to pinpoint the unintelligence, but I know for sure it was somewhere in there! I certainly had my own unintelligence going on once I bothered to spend even one more second talking to them after the internet sneering started.

Whether I'm right or wrong in my opinions of vegetable oils, for a salesperson to get into a big silly argument in front of potential customers is counterproductive to profit.

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

 

[fenix]

I was taking calls at a help desk job years ago for a box that was a wireless router and modem combo. I had to establish how the person was connecting. I said, "are you using ethernet cable or wireless ?". By process of elimination I established that she was hard wired, and then she asked, "do they really put ether in these cables ? isn't that dangerous ?

 

[rjoubert]

She tells him the bill is "about $70".

After tallying the actual bill, I would have replied to the waitress...

It looks like your tip is "about 55 cents"

 

[2ffat]

It looks like your tip is "about 55 cents"

and then leave her a dime.



James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
^{I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!}

 

[gbaughma]

ESquared:

Your story re: dressing is proof positive that you *never* win an argument with a customer.

That doesn't mean the customer is always right, because they aren't, but they *are* always the customer.

To find ignorance I don't have to go much further than the fruit of my own loins (I still blame their mother...). Don't get me wrong, my children are intellegent, just ignorant. A dangerous combination, at best.

Some examples follow:

My middle boy (who is now in the air force) is absolutely *addicted* to Sonic games. Not just playing them, he wants to write his own. We have had argument after argument about how, even with this "video game designer" piece of crap he found on the 'net, he can't write a sonic game to sell, because Sonic is owned by Sega.... he keeps going on about how once Sega sees how superior *HIS* game is...

OK... so let's put this into perspective. You're writing a game, that's a rip-off of another game, using a freeware gaming engine. Oh, and calling himself a "programmer" by doing it.

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

I auditioned for (and got a part in) the musical comedy "The Fantasticks". I got the call that I had gotten the part, and announced it to my family (my daughter included). She says "What part did you get?" "The part of Hucklebee", I announced.

"Oooh! Hucklebee Finn?" She asks.

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

So, my middle one calls from the air force base. He's telling me about how he's put in for a post in Japan once he gets out of tech school. (Cool... he loves computers and robotics, he's going to LOVE Japan... I'm envious). Then he proceeds to tell me about this guy on base who's got a "really nice laptop" that he'll sell him for $500, and what do I think?

So, I ask the normal questions "How much ram?" "don't know" "How fast of a processor?" "Forgot to ask" "How big of a hard drive?" "Ummm... 2 something"

Then I pointed out... "You know... you're going to be going to Japan. Don't you think you might want to wait until you get there, where you'll be able to pick up a *really nice* laptop for probably 1/2 the price you'd pay in the U.S.?"



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[GlenJohnson]

OK, here's mine. Been a computer consultant for years, and a customer called me one day. Her husband was going to replace his modem, as he hadm't been able to get on the internet in days. Called his cell phone, had him try and connect, had him hold the cell up to the computer. Modem was doing the beep beep, crackle stuff modems do, so I told him not to touch the modem, I'd be right over. They were connecting using A**. Never did really like the service, but it was there nickel. Did everything I could to get them on the internet, just couldn't get it to work. Told them to call A** customer service No, no, they wanted me to call. Explained that customer service would be able to help them, and I had to charge them to sit on the phone to get connected to customer service. They didn't care, so I sat there, and finally got connected to customer service. Customer Diservice had me go and do all the same things I had been doing, still with no luck. Now, we were in a town of about 175,000 people. The A** customer diservice finally asked me where I was calling from. I told him the name of the town and his reply was "Oh that's the problem. We only have 5 lines into that town, and 4 of them are down." Almost the biggest ISP has 1 line for every 35,000 people. (Customer switched to another ISP.)

Glen A. Johnson
If you like fun and sun, check out Tek-Tips Florida Forum
Don't forget to Buckle up. It works.

 

[Bandenjamin]

Oh Glen that reminded me of one of my favorites.

Doing support for a major computer manufacturer I received a call from a disgruntled A** user who was told by the disservice support rep that he needed to have have his A** adapter card replaced by the hardware manufacturer...Needless to say there is no such freaking thing. I had to call A** Support to try and convince them of this but they stuck to their story. I even tried to explain to them that the adapter in the network stack may need to be removed and reinstalled but they insistend on it being a bad "card". Finally I turned to the customer and, with A** support on the phone, said "Sir as you can see I have tried to explain this to them, I would recommend you contact another service provider." He very happily did.


--Dan
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain

 

[GlenJohnson]

LOL, that's exactly what I did. Held the phone up and told the client the situation. "Are you sure you want to keep A**?" There reply was a resounding NO!


Glen A. Johnson
If you like fun and sun, check out Tek-Tips Florida Forum
Don't forget to Buckle up. It works.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I wonder if the Brits may pronounce that disservice's name
as

A Ole.. ( No accent on the e)

Would be fitting, I guess..







To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[thekl0wn]

Same girl from incidents 2, 3, & 5 on post 1... Last night I was over at their house eating supper, and we got to talking about the "Alaska Incident", and she was trying to redeem herself. She claimed she could write down all 50 states in less than six minutes, and she asked me if I could do it... Now, I'm not sure if I could or not, but knew I'd be able to weasel my way out of it if pressed, so I claimed that I could write all 50 states, and the continent they reside on as well... Her reply was, "Oh... I can do the 50 states, but not their continents..." Her husband slammed his head on the table and asked for a sharp object.

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

Same girl, same night... I decided to tone it down with a little joke. I asked, "A farmer has twenty sick sheep, and four die. How many sheep does the farmer now have?" (twenty sick sounds like twenty-six, and is what most assume it to be) She replied, "I've heard this one before... It's 18. Twenty SICK sheep. Four die. Eighteen.

 

[gbaughma]

thekl0wn:

Take great joy in the knowledge that *you* aren't the one married to her.

... and take pity on her husband.



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[thekl0wn]

At their wedding rehearsal dinner, the entire wedding party, parents included were sitting at a big table when she had one of her "stupid attacks", and her fiance turns to the groomsmen and says, "I bet all you guys are jealous you're not gonna be puttin' the ring on her finger tomorrow." (he's horrible with his timing) She was beat red and glaring, so I broke the tension, by telling him, "Bet I know what your NOT gonna be doin' on your honeymoon!

 

[thefourthwall]

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. sad

Brings to mind my time working at Radio Shack years ago; they told about their "sales quadrant" of high income/low income and high product knowledge/low product knowledge.

Heh. They wanted us to focus on high income/low product knowledge. Like the 486/25sx pc's with 107mb hard drives, 90mb of which was already taken up ... yep, what a value!

 

[thefourthwall]

Last year I had a helpdesk ticket to enable wireless on an end-user's laptop. In the image, the wireless device is turned off and users do not have administrative rights. After days of playing phone tag, this guy returned my call; as I was at a remote location, I assumed it would be a simple thing to LANDesk into the guy's laptop and enable his wireless card.

hmmm ... LANDesk would not connect ... I asked the user for his node name (the organization referred to the PC's netbios names as node names at the time).

"oh, it's a Dell"

Patiently I walked him through getting to the computer name tab of My Computer | Properties.

Except I couldn't even ping the node name, and no record in DNS of a corresponding IP address.

After some probing questions about his network connection, he finally comes out with

"Oh, I'm sitting at someone else's desk because it's bigger and there's not a network cable here. Can't you just remote in via wireless to turn my wireless card on?"

 

[Prognewb]

Last week, one of the salespeople came over to my desk all in a redfaced huff, his computer was going crazy, windows won't stop scrolling, mouse won't work, etc... complaining all the way back over that nothing ever works around here. Got to his desk, took a quick look... and moved the notebook he had set on his keyboard off.

 

[rjoubert]

Prognewb...that's too funny. How did he react when you "fixed" his problem?

 

[thekl0wn]

We convinced a 26-year-old girl yesterday, that if she turned her head fast enough, she could see her ear.

On a related topic, the same girl just sent me an email, saying that she couldn't figure out why her neck was so stiff today.

 

[Prognewb]

His mouth dropped open and he just said "oh". He spends a lot of time either poking fun at or talking down to other people in the office, so I made sure everyone found out about that.

 

[gbaughma]

... and moved the notebook he had set on his keyboard off.

Been there, done that. A lady called me up and I could hear the computer beepbeepbeepbeep in the background. She had set an entire BOX of files on her keyboard.

Same lady called me up one day, and (check this out.. I couldn't believe it myself...) she told me that no paper was coming out of her printer.

I went up to take a look, and she had set her PURSE on top of the printer where the paper comes out! I mean, good GRIEF!



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[SQLSister]

My boyfriend's daughter (who is in her 40's) thought March came after April. How do you get to your 40s without knowing what order the months are in?

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared