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?Stupid things?

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by jessie

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Hypothetically, if you saw someone standing on a ladder, with their head up in the ceiling tiles, and there were about 200 other people working in their cubicles all around, would you ask that person on the ladder to help you make copies?

This actually happened to me today and made me wonder... just what the Bejeebies could this person have been thinking?

There I was, up on a ladder, running plenum grade monitor cable about 65 feet into a wiring closet to hook up a wall mounted display and this woman actually asked me if I was BUSY and could I help her use the copy machine?!?! Why not ask one of the 200 other people or better yet, her BOSS whose job it is to make sure her people know how to use the office tools, and who was sitting not 20 feet from where I was up on the ladder?

I don't know why I'm perpetually amazed at the lack of common sense in people I work with... I really should know better by now.

Just for giggles, what's the stupidest thing that's ever happened or been said to you at work?

19 replies

by tig2

If I had a penny for every time I was called on to "fix" the printer, I would be rich. On one memorable occasion, I had a woman try to get me to leave a meeting to come fix the printer. I stopped by after my meeting ended- some 20 minutes later. After refilling the paper tray, her job ran. After the third time her job ran, I decided to check the queue. Yep, she had sent it probably 50 times from the time she discovered that I wasn't going to leave my meeting to "fix" the printer.

*sigh*

by jessie

For about 6 months after I got out of Electronics school I worked as a copier repair person. I cannot tell you the number of times I'd drive an hour to get to the location of a particular 'broken' copier only to PLUG IT IN and have the thing work just FINE. It got so bad, I'd even ASK them if it was plugged in. They'd say YES (mad at me for asking such a dumb question) I'd drive out there, and PLUG IT IN AGAIN! That went on for the entire 6 months I worked as copier repair. Thank G_d I got paid mileage.

by deadly ernest

in the special clothing my employer gave me to wear - the uniform of the NSW Constabulary. I was out on patrol one evening when I spotted a youth I needed to speak to, I told my partner, who was driving, to pull up beside the youth.

We were separated by the width of the footpath about five feet, he's leaning against the front window of a closed shop, no one is within about twenty or more feet of him, in either direction. I point directly at him, if I'd had a gun and fired, I'd have hit him square between the eyes, I said "You, Pete, I want a word." No, he's all alone, I point at him, and use his name, so what does he do?

He looks to both sides, points a finger at himself, and squeaks, "Who? Me?" My partner nearly wet himself laughing at the response. The only way I could have made it more obvious who was to get out and tap him on the shoulder - talk about dumb.

by jessie

This one, actually a bit clever on the part of my husband.

We were walking one evening through the parking lot of a local movie theater. There was a policeman sitting in his patrol car at the curb with the radio BLASTING some eighties pop-rock. My husband walked over to the open window and said, "Excuse me, sir. I'm gonna have to ask you to turn that down."

Okay, well... we thought it was funny anyway and the policeman got a kick out of it.

by deadly ernest

from a few years back.

Smallish town with a nice little bank. Guy travelling through thinks the bank is just perfect to rob it. He parks in the large car park right beside the bank. gets out and enters the bank, there's a few people there as it's just after the start of the main lunch break. He reaches the front of the queue and pulls out his gun as he passes the robbery note to the teller. She laughs at him, and says "You best put that down before you get hurt." He gives her an odd look, then goes white as he hears several guns being cocked behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees a number of local deputies pointing their guns at him. Police arrest him and then walk him through the police station car park to lock him up in their building on the other side of the car park.

How dumb do you have to be to park in the police car park and try to rob the bank beside the police station on the day they get their pay checks. At lunch time, there's usually more cops in the bank cashing checks than there is in the station.

I nearly killed myself laughing when I read about it.

by seanferd

Some people are just mentally... mentally.

My prior job, which I (un)fortunately no longer have, was like that constantly. Only it was the boss with the mental deficiency.

by nicknielsen

Back in my first post-military job, I got a call on a Friday afternoon that a site normally supported by another tech couldn't print at all, and, since it was on my way home, could I check it out on the way?

I walked into the site and headed straight for the print server. On my way, I passed a printer and glanced at the display to see "Load Letter." On a hunch, I checked every other printer on site; they [u]all[/u] said "Load Letter."

Checking the print server (OS/2 Warp 4), I found 65,536 jobs in the queue and the server locked up. Because of the number of jobs, I was unable to purge the queue from inside the server process and had to kill the process, manually delete the jobs in the queue directory, and reboot the server.

I found the office manager and showed him the printers, telling him that loading paper was a user function. He asked why. :0

I told him, "Because it's in the user manual, not the service manual.

edit: For those that are wondering, yes, almost all the jobs in the queue were repeats sent because the previous job didn't print. One damnfool sent the same job almost 300 times! And everybody there was guilty of doing it for multiple jobs.

second edit: If you have to ask the significance of the number of jobs in the queue, count to 1111111111111111. Or square 256.

by seanferd

I recognized the number straight off, realizing it was a good thing that you checked the server as well as giving instructions of filling paper trays.

Seriously, these folks think off-site tech support is supposed to fill paper trays? Heaven forbid that one of them should have a pen run out of ink.

by nicknielsen

Most of those I'm familiar with are like this.

Do you understand now why I laugh at government conspiracy theories? Can you imagine any government with people like this working in it keeping a secret of that nature?

by jessie

My boss made me replace a user's computer because the user was having "all kinds of problems." He was made to make me because her boss knows my boss's boss and so forth. So I replaced the computer, and the user is having the SAME problems... You know what the problem was to begin with? When she opened one website it logged her out of another website and then when she reopened the first one it logged her out of the second one (her description).

Turns out, the user was opening up one website, logging in, going to FAVORITES to open her other site and of course, it was changing the current page.

After about a 30 minute smoke break, I politely informed my boss the issue the user was having so HE could have the pleasure of informing his boss and the user's boss the exact nature of the 'error.'

by .martin.

where is the box of . me holding box.

the remote isn't working, batteries in the wrong way

printer isn't working, no ink in it

by tony hopkinson

two graduate engineers who because they'd forgot to ask me for a link to the main computer system, asked the shop floor guys to enter the poduct ids manually.

Despite that their new system was four flights of stairs away. The product ID is a six digit consecutive number, and they go past once every three to four minutes for their eight hour shift.

by jessie

I once worked with a guy who in all seriousness said the computer did not have to be turned on in order for it to receive a fax. This back in the 90s with a faxmodem in the computer and software that had to be open in order for the machine to listen for faxes.

by nicknielsen

are legends in their own minds. I once watched an MCSE spend four more hours troubleshooting than he needed to because he was too smart to do the basic checks.

He was training me and we had gotten a call about a workstation with a domain log-in problem. We walked in and he sat down and went right to work. After a couple of minutes of looking around, I asked him if he needed help, but was told that unless I was also an MCSE, I couldn't help him. Finally, about quitting time, I told him I was tired of this idiocy and was going home. He said we couldn't leave until the PC was on the domain, so I walked over to the wall, plugged in the Cat 5 cable, and said "Try it now."

Needless to say, it didn't matter that he had never checked the physical connection. It was all my fault for not telling him when I first noticed it...

Smart as a whip, that guy, but if he was a rock, he wouldn't have sense enough to roll downhill.

by tony hopkinson

the chap who rearranged his office which involved disconnecting a printer.

I got called in because it wasn't working, after some head scratching, I put it down to forcing the 25 pin D plug on to it's mate with the use of a blunt instrument....

Yes ladies and gents, upside down....

Unf'ing believable.

He was another university product as well, which I'd have gone so I could be intelligent as well...

by jessie

I always tell people, on a computer, you can't plug something in anymore where it won't work or isn't color coded... I guess I was wrong. Once again, I underestimated the power of stupidity.

by jessie

I absolutely love it when stupid people screw up in fantastic ways. :D

I spose stupidity does serve some purpose then, comic relief.

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