Stupid Things I Have Heard At Work 6

[AnotherHiggins]

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

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[tsdragon]

Years ago, when MCI was still calling people and annoying them to change their long distance service, I got a call from them. It was not long before Christmas. When I told the person that I'd go without a phone before using MCI they asked why. I told them that story, and they said they understood my attitude. I probably ruined their pre-holiday season - worrying if it was going to happen to them.

(I don't know where the spelling "layed" came from.)

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[flapeyre]

At one company I used to work for, it was company policy to not fire (or lay off) anybody during the month of December. I don't know if this applied to gross misconduct; but you couldn't be fired in December even if you had a bad performance rating. Come January 2, all bets are off.

Dic mihi solum facta, domina.

 

[GwydionM]

We've been working on this project for donkey's hours

------------------------------
An old man who lives in the UK

 

[PaulTEG]

Story about getting "laid" off ...

Jack and Diane worked for a nice manager who was on the horns of a moral dilemma. He was given the nod from above that his staffing budget was cut, he neede to let someone go, and he thought there was nothing to choose from between them. To this end, he thought, "I'll re-interview them for their jobs", and ever the gentleman, with the "ladies first" prerogative, he called Diane into his office.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to lay you or Jack off" he said, about to suggest the notion of the interview, when Diane interjected
"You may Jack off so, I've got a headache" ;-)

Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)

 

[NewToCR]

Paul, too funny, thanks

 

[gmmastros]

We are in the middle of moving our office, so yesterday, the phone lines were not working yet. Voice mail was working.

One of our employees called and left this message...

"I'm sorry but I can't come in today because my daughter is sick. Blah blah blah. <Insert 5 minutes of chatter involving rectal thermometers and such.> Anyway, call me if you don't get this message."



-George

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. - Fortune cookie wisdom

 

[KenCunningham]

During a virus outbreak a few years agin, a colleague sent out an email asking people not to switch their PCs on again until notified (by email, natch) that it was safe to do so.

It even made the Diary section of the Glasgow Herald!

 

[2ffat]

OK, how about this one. Our ISDN line went down (this was before DSL was available). We called Sprint to get someone to come out and look at it. The operator told us that she couldn't help since we had to go through Sprint's web page or email them to get support. No ISDN, no web, no email.

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

 

[grande]

2ffat, I was in a similar situation last year.
When my phone line wasn't working, I went online to contact the company. There were several phone numbers I could call for support, but no email.

-------------------------
Just call me Captain Awesome.

 

[jebenson]

When I was in college, one of the many jobs I held was in a pizza restaurant. I did everything - cashier, making pizzas etc. I had this one coworker who I knew was not the brightest, but I didn't know exactly how stupid he was until one night...

We were working an evening shift (along with an assistant manager), and it was a slow night. I was working the register/counter, and the other guy was making the 'za and doing prep work for the next day. One of the things he had to do was mix up a couple of batches of dough for the crusts. This mixing was done in an industrial mixer called a Hobart (the name of the company that makes them) and they are huge. They are also quite powerful, being able to mix a 50 pound batch of dough as if it weighs nothing.

Well, I'm at the front counter when I hear a blood-curdling scream of anguish from the kitchen, followed by, "OH GOD PLEASE STOP IT STOP IT!!!!!" When I got to the kitchen I was greeted by a scene that I will not forget until the day I die.

On his knees in front of the Hobart knelt my coworker, with his right arm stuck into the mixing bowl. The machine was still mixing, and I could hear the snapping of his bones. I ran across the room and shut off the machine, then ran to the telephone and called an ambulance. The assistant manager came out and started freaking out at the scene. All was chaos and bedlam.

Eventually the ambulance crew arrived, and we had to dissassemble the machine to get this poor sap's arm out. The actutal mixer arm in one of these machines is shaped like a large corkscrew (about 2 feet long), and his arm was wrapped in it about 3 times.

As the guy was strapped to a gurney, I finally got to ask him the question that had been burning in my mind: "How did you get your arm in the Hobart?"

"I stuck it in there," was his reply.

"Why?" was the only logical thing I could ask.

And here's the response that is not only the stupidest thing I've ever heard in the workplace, but quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard a person utter in any location:

"Because I wanted to see if it would hurt me."


I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[Chopstik]

<Trying to say things even more stupid>

"Because I wanted to see if it would hurt me."

So, um, did it?
</There, I said it...>

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

 

[jsteph]

I think all people have that involuntary 'jump' response to a certain extent. You're on the outdoor observation deck of some tall building, looking over the railing. Something deep inside, like an itch that needs to be scratched says 'jump', just to see what it's like.

I guess some people have this to a larger, more ridiculous extent.
--Jim

 

[Toshilap]

jebenson, you were kidding, where you not? I am stunned!

 

[sleipnir214]

One night while guarding a live ammo dump, a stupid kid in my (U.S. Army) battalion decided to fire off a round from his M-16. I was the first one to arrive on the scene.

Me: What inthehell were you shooting at?
Him: I just shot up into the air.
Me: Why would you do a dumbassed thing like that?
Him: I wanted to see if I could get the bullet to land at my feet.

I had the pleasure of recounting this conversation at the stupid kid's court martial.

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[CajunCenturion]

The difference between stupidity and genius is stupidity has no limits

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[AnotherHiggins]

sleipnir: that reminds me of my eleventh grade Advanced English teacher.

He was talking about how the young think they are immortal. He told us that when he was a child he shot arrows (from a bow) straight up into the air tried to catch them. He told the story as if this was the kind of foolish thing that every young child had done. He looked straight up, pantomiming the act.

When he looked down, he was met with the slack-jawed gaze of a lot of youngsters who didn't understand ever being that stupid.

[infomercial voice]
But wait, there's more! If you act now, we'll throw in this story as our free gift to you!!!
[/infomercial voice]

I was at a 'bachelor’s weekend' up in the mountains several years ago for which I had constructed a potato cannon. We were all inside one evening drinking and watching a movie when we heard someone firing the potato cannon. One of the guys - and in his defense he was quite drunk - was firing potatoes straight up to see how close to him he could get them to land.*

*for anyone not familiar with the muzzle velocity of a potato being propelled by ignited hairspray - let's just say you wouldn't want to be hit by it.

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

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[jebenson]

Toshilap,
No, I am not kidding. True story, every word.

***********

A few years later some frinds an I were at our favorite swimming hole on a local creek. We liked this place so much because it has a 15 foot cliff one can jump from into a nice deep pool. The catch is that you have to jump away from the cliff, as it bulges at the bottom just below the waterline. Jump straight down and its broken bone city.

While we were there 2 other guys we didn't know showed up, carrying a cooler full of beer. They obviously had already been imbibing. They watched my friends and I jumping from the cliff for a few minutes and then decided they were going to try it.

We were very clear about the bulge at the bottom of the cliff, and it could even be seen through the water, as it was low enough that day. We made sure (we thought) that they should jump out from the cliff. We pointed the rocks out to them, showed thm how the deeper water was a darker shade of green, demonstrated a few times, etc. The first guy jumps, no problem. The second guy walks to the edge and puts his hands together like he's praying, then just leans forward and falls straight down the cliff!

I though for sure that my friends and I were going to have to jump in and pull this guys dead - or at least paralyzed - body out of the water. To my amazement he surfaced, looked up at his friend (who had climbed back up the cliff by this point) and said, "Dude, I think I f***ed myself up!" The guy in the water then climbed back up the cliff. He was remarkably lucky...all I could see was the beginnings of a good shiner on his right eye, and a cut on his right cheek. I'm fairly certain that the broke his cheekbone, and possibly the orbit of his eye. He kept repeating, over and over, "Dude, I think I f***ed myself up!" After each time he said it, his friend said, "Dude, you f***ed yourself up!" We strongly encouraged the non-injured guy to take his friend to the hospital, but when we left (a short while later, as the fun afternoon suddenly wasn't so fun anymore) they had opened a couple more beers and were continuing their stellar conversation.

If god protects fools and drunks, that guy had double coverage going for him that day!

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[SQLDenis]

What about this for stupid?

My English teacher claimed the middle number in Boeing model numbers specifies how many engines the plane has. 747 has 4, 767 has 6... and then someone asked "how about the Boeing 707?"

Oops

“I sense many useless updates in you... Useless updates lead to fragmentation... Fragmentation leads to downtime...Downtime leads to suffering..Fragmentation is the path to the darkside.. DBCC INDEXDEFRAG and DBCC DBREINDEX are the force...May the force be with you" --

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

 

[Toshilap]

jebenson, I knew you weren't kidding but you have to admit - this story is OUTraging every one. WOW!

I finally got it all together and forgot where I put it.

 

[SantaMufasa]

Okay, I'll admit my own stupidity that falls into the two of the classes, above: 1) JEBenson's Pizza-Buddy category and 2) John's (AnotherHiggins) youth-are-idiots category.

I was about 13 years old at the time; my younger brother was 8 and younger sister was about 6. My dad made me clean out and sweep the garage spotless every Saturday. Part of the "spotless" process was to get rid of the drips of oil on the garage's concrete floor that had escaped from a leaky crankcase on one of our vehicles. For oil removal, I always used a little gasoline as a solvent.

Following the "annointing" of one particular pesky oil spot with the solvent, and always wanting to impress my impressionable younger siblings, I decided to display my "magical powers" by showing them how I could make concrete "burn". I flicked a match onto the small pool while my sibs were mesmerised by the dancing flames.

Soon, however, the flames produced the accompanying black, stinky smoke (in the garage), so I figured that I should put out the flames. To smother the flames, I grabbed the closest "smotherer", which I found out moments too late, was the gasoline-soaked cleanup rag. This, of course, just intensified the flames. So, in response to the increased flames, I kicked the flaming rag outside of the garage.

But then, the kicked, flaming rag landed smack against the foot of a tinder-dry wooden fence. I ran over and kicked the rag again away from the wooden fence. But in my growing panic, I didn't aim my kick very well...just simply away from the fence...and the now-engulfed rag landed squarely on the 3-inch-diameter opening of the completely full 5-gallon military-style gasoline can ! <yikes>

Envisioning an explosion that would take out the entire garage, me, and my sibs, I figured the only way to prevent an explosion was to dissipate the fuel...And the best way to dissipate the fuel: Kick the Can, of course!

Do you know how big a fire can result from 5-gallons of high-test gasoline?...Pretty big! The flames were reaching about 40 feet in the air. Of course my sibs instantly snapped out of their deer-in-the-headlights mesmery into those little wind-up toys that you put on a table and they spin around, knocking into each other and knocking each other over, then doing the same Keystone-Cops routine over and over again, and screaming, "Dave's burning the house down !!! Dave's burning the house down !!!"

My dad comes rushing out of the house to see what all the commotion is, just to be met with the 40-ft. flames and the "Keystone Kids" bumping into each other, knocking each other over. He tries to put out the flames by smothering them with the large (6'x4') cardboard drip pans used to catch oil drips, but the fire is too large.

Not understanding that the fire is gasoline, he screams to me to go get the hose. Being too young to realise that you don't pour water on a gasoline fire, I obey. I run to the back of the house for the hose. During my run, I'm thinking to myself, "Why don't those stupid Keystone Kids just shuuuut uuuuuup? Their panic isn't helping." So, as I run I hear myself screaming (to no one within earshot), "Shut up, shut up, shut up."

By this time, the Keystone Kids are running to all the neighbors' homes announcing that "Dave's burning down the house!"...Dad's trying to put out a gasoline fire by dumping water on it...And I'm contemplating the thrasing I'm going to be in for as a result of all this.

My dad ended up with pretty severe second-degree burns on his face and arms...The previously tar covered asphalt driveway had a big 8'-diameter burn scar on it...the house was fine...the Keystone Kids and I were fine...

...And through it all, after the fire was out and I had explained my stupidity, my dad, realising that I had already put myself through more Hell than he could offer me, just hugged the three of us and said, "You are three lucky kids...I'm a lucky dad. Don't play with matches ever again.

...And I haven't in the all the 40 ensuing years.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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