Was monkey jnr’s 3rd birthday yesterday so we were sat in the garden blowing up balloons. A couple went bang – as they do. Two mins later the woman looking after our neighbour’s house (while they’re on hols) came over and said “Do you mind not bursting any more balloons as it’s upsetting the dog. He doesn’t like bangs.”

I really had to bite my tongue. Kept it curt but sweet instead.

Any stupid people said any stupid things to you lately?

“Can you have this done today?”

That’s normally a stupid thing to ask me.

When I go on bike rides or do anything remotely adventurous, my Mum says ‘be careful’.

Umm.. since when have I ever been any kind of adrenaline junky who takes crazy risks? Ok I know she’s just showing she cares, but it still sounds a bit of a daft thing to say 🙂

“Does anything happen in this race or do they just keep riding down the same hill all the time?”

rocketman – that’s a pretty fair comment though. 😉 EDIT – thought you were talking about drug cheats in lycra riding up them…

Them “How soon can you have this done“

ME “Erm .. should be ready by [insert date here]“

Them [i]“Oh, can you not get it done sooner ?[/i]“

.. we’ll yes actually, I just made up the first answer for a laugh

The MiL’s partner came round to pick her up from my son’s first birthday party.

we had Happy First Birthday stuff everywhere – up the garden path, in the house etc plus its not hard to remember that a kid hasn’t been in this world too long.

Said partner upon entering the house asked ‘How old is Finley today?’.

The room went very quiet…

When I go on bike rides or do anything remotely adventurous

and people ask “is it for charity?”

It’s as though nobody else gets of their backsides for the fun of it 😉

“how much!!!!?!?!? you could’ve bought a car for that!”

Along similar work lines then:

PM: How long will this take you?
Me: Well there’s a huge number of variables, it could take me about a week but depending on what I find out when I start it it could take me a day or a month. I don’t really want to give a definite answer.
PM: Ok. Soo.. how long will it take?
Me: I really don’t know yet.
PM: Right. So, how long will it take?
Me: FFS. Ok if you have to put a number down put three weeks for contingengy
PM: That’s too long
Me: So why are you even asking me then? What do you want to put down?
PM: How about.. a week?
Me: Fine, a week then 🙄

One week later:

PM: Where is it?
Me: Well I’ve uncovered a load of issues, so it’s not done yet.
PM: But you said you’d have it done in a week.
Me: *sigh*

Burnt my arm a while ago

‘Is it a bad one’

Well i’ve never had a good burn

Molgrips, do you work at my company?

@molgrips – reminds me of budgeting time where I use to work.

Head Office would ask the MD’s to produce the budget forecasts which my MD did very diligently based on 11 years of being in the job.

Every year they would tell him it wasn’t enough and would give the figure they expected the bottom line to be so he would have to fudge everything else around that.

And then, every year we were under their budget but pretty much spot on his original estimates…

Molgrips – it would be done by now if you hadn’t been arguing contributing on here all week!

I work for a large IT company in a technical sales role. The technical and product side of the business tends to have some pretty bright people working in it. The pure sales side is a bit more er.. mixed. Part of my role is to work as a liaison between the two parts

Some of the recent gems:
How do you work out 10% of something?
How do you spell “quarter”?
I’ve got a tender here for storage can you look at it?

Had a quick look and it was for warehouse shelving!

Having a mid ride stop in Langwathby, outside a nice teashop.

Some old dear asked what was down a particular road.

She was told it was the railway station from the film Brief Encounter, on the Settle-Carlisle line.

Her follow up question was ‘is that was where the Settle-Carlisle Line starts?’

No, that would be either Settle or Carlisle.

When I used to work in sales my boss would tell us the definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

I took great delight in the irony of her telling us this, using precisely the same phrase, 2 or 3 times a week.

The amount of BS that is spouted in my office is nothing short of frightening, it would be difficult to pick a winner…

Though my mother is a good source of ridiculousness

‘You have been like this your whole life, why can’t you just change?!’ is a favourite.

Also, I knew a girl once who strongly believed that leather was made only from monkeys hands and faces. She’s a teacher now.

do you dye your beard?

when talking process improvements with people I’ve met for 10 mins, how much can you save us – try so hard to say it depends how shit you are now

I work in the furniture department in a college. I am always getting staff and students coming in saying ‘Have you got any offcuts of wood I can have?’

What they normally mean is not strictly wood, but mdf or plywood, and usually by an offcut, they mean about an 8’x4′ sheet!.. 🙄

mikewsmith – Member

when talking process improvements with people I’ve met for 10 mins, how much can you save us – try so hard to say it depends how shit you are now

Hah. We did a lean processes thing back in the bank, one area after 6 months triumphantly declared that they’d saved X thousand pounds and reduced by Y FTEs, and were given gold stars. We said “Seriously? How did you have that much wastage, you must be shit. We haven’t made any signficant changes because this is lean stuff is all just common sense that any competent person would be doing already” and got told off for not making massive savings.

Ah, the banking industry, how I miss its cheeky foibles.

At a school year reunion last year

“So how old are you then?”

“Erm, the same age as you as you were, like, in my class and stuff…..”

I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve wheeled a bike out of the garage whilst wearing bikey kit and a neighbour asks:
“are you going for a ride?”

See also – swooping onto drive covered in mud:
“been for a ride?”

I was once asked by Dell customer service how to spell NHS.
The Solaris operating system includes a facility called NIS. For clarity, this (according to the documentation) is pronounced enn-eye-ess
I posted this before, but in an underpowered canal boat making little headway against a strong wind, my mum asked “is it because we’re going uphill?”

Me. : ooyah bugger!

Someone else : are you OK?

“Why are you riding a downhill bike?”

(not mine, but mine is the same colour)

Are the Cotswolds open on Sundays?

I posted this before, but in an underpowered canal boat making little headway against a strong wind, my mum asked “is it because we’re going uphill?”

Is an issue for trans-pacific shipping, though, iirc. Or at least one of the Oceans. And yes one of our Terrain/Sea simulators for Radar Altimeters did (correctly) have gradient as one parameter for Sea.

He’s just being friendly 😡

Cardiff has an outdoor velodrome at a local leisure centre which also has a pool. I turn up at the kiosk dressed in full on lycra, helmet, biking shades, cycling gloves, the lot, and no bag carrying alternative kit. A bit tired of having to ask for a ticket for the velodrome this time I just hand the girl a fiver. She looks at me for a second and said ‘Swim, is it?’

Whilst touring vineyards during a recent visit to a sultana supplier our buyer asked ‘what have grapes got to do with sultanas?’

Whilst touring vineyards during a recent visit to a sultana supplier our buyer asked ‘what have grapes got to do with sultanas?’

this

I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve wheeled a bike out of the garage whilst wearing bikey kit and a neighbour asks:
“are you going for a ride?”

See also – swooping onto drive covered in mud:
“been for a ride?”

made me chuckle.

As an IT technician I often have Service Managers over my shoulder as soon as an alert comes in:

“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t know yet, just looking into it”
“Right, can you fix it please?”
“Errm… I don’t know yet because I don’t know what’s wrong”
“OK. When will you know what’s wrong?”

At which point I have to stop answering.

American tourist stopped me in Regent’s street in London once, and politely asked me which way Hamleys toy store was.

Outside the shop next door to Hamleys.

At Christmas time too, so there was the usual enormous crowd looking at the festive window display entertainment.

Once met a girl in Dubrovnik who worked as a tour guide, shepherding cruise ship tourists around. She regaled us with a selection of jaw-droppers she’d been asked about the city by her charges, including:

“What film was this set built for?”
“Do you have refrigerators here?”

And my favourite:

“Do they take the walls down at night?”

Person – “what’s your job, then?
Me – “I’m a mechanical engineer”
Person – “Ah right, so you fix cars….”
Me – “erm, nope…..”

The local Nissan garage, after having my Micra in for five days:

“Well, the diagnostic computers are saying that nothing’s wrong. But we know something’s wrong, because it won’t start”.

Is an issue for trans-pacific shipping, though, iirc. Or at least one of the Oceans. And yes one of our Terrain/Sea simulators for Radar Altimeters did (correctly) have gradient as one parameter for Sea.

How does that work then? Is it due to differing air pressures acting on the water causing bulges and depressions? Like a storm surge?

or tides? or centrifugal force (inertia, whatever) from the earths rotation?