[Closed] Stupid questions you get asked in your job

why can i never get a plumber

can you make it warmer in here.. yeh close the windows..

you must be busy..

can you come round after tea tonight..

it says 24 hrs on the advert why cant you fix my boiler at 2am..

you come highly reccomended ( by someone i ve never heard of) so can you do me a favour..

oh.. ( with gasp of theatrical suprise) i havent the cash can you take half now and comeback next week for the rest..

In every shop,workplace,takeaway etc. i happen to wander into. 'He's here, he's come for you'.
Feels like i'm living in a Peter Kay joke sometimes.

"You can't sell many tickets there?" I work in a signalling centre controlling close to 190 miles of track and people think I sell tickets!

"Do you do a Singletrack discount?" 😉

[quote=bencooper said]"Do you do a Singletrack discount?"
Well?

it says 24 hrs on the advert why cant you fix my boiler at 2am..

Seems reasonable to me. What am I missing?

Whilst working on a supermarket checkout whilst i was a student:

"careful, the ink's just dried on that one!"

It's 6pm on a saturday, I have been on this till for 8 hours.... I have heard that 20-30 times today.

Or while working on the delicatessen - standing in front of perhaps 150 different types of cheese:
"can I help you sir?"
"Yes, I'm after some cheese"
*pause.....
"okay...... what sort of cheese were you after sir?"
"Ummm, cheddar I think"
*pause.....
"Okay, well here are the 25 types of cheddar that we have"
etc

Not working in a supermarket = the biggest incentive to pass my finals

More student job tedium from a while back:

Just opened up the SU bar, we had ten different beers (or close approximation of beers) on tap, about another 10 in bottles, and of course pint and half-pint glasses.

Student: One beer please.

Me: Yep, you're going to have to be a bit more descriptive with that one.

My job is to get our customers and their pupils to ask MORE questions...

These aren't exactly stupid questions but they're very common and quite annoying. One that never seems to go away...

"Which is better, LED/LCD or Plasma?"

The exit by Panasonic from the Plasma market may resolve this. The other, becoming ever more common...

"Can't I do it wirelessly?"

I work negotiating waste contracts worth hundreds of millions as a technical adviser:

So you're a glorified bin man then?; or

So why don't my council collect x and when will they start?

So you're a glorified bin man then?

@zokes...

used to have a regular in my old pub who'd order a "glass of beer". After a long list of "what size glass" (a normal one), "what beer" ( whatever best) I learnt that in Leeds at least, a glass of beer is Half a bitter.

as a paramedic, everyone,asks "what's the worst thing you've ever seen?" I'm usually half way through describing a naked, obese man in a hoist with diarrhoea before they start turning pale, either that or face worms.

I'm also getting a bit sick,of "are you a first,responder? My daughter is one of them, but she's a volunteer!". That's great, whilst I have the utmost respect,for community respnders I'd like to think there is a line where my skill set surpasses theirs!

"can I help you sir?"
"Yes, I'm after some cheese"

batfink, much much earlier:

[img] [/img]

I'm also getting a bit sick,of "are you a first,responder? My daughter is one of them, but she's a volunteer!". That's great, whilst I have the utmost respect,for community respnders I'd like to think there is a line where my skill set surpasses theirs!

Not if call me Dave and his chums get their way.

Meehaja, I regularly get asked "do you have to send an ambulance, can you just send a paramedic?"

A person having a heart attack or a family member calling about a patient who's had a stroke " will I/they have to go to hospital, I/they don't want to go to a hospital"

"What do you think this rash/spot/abscess is?" No idea, I can't see over the phone, that'd be why I want you to go see your Dr

"I've had this itchy raised rash for 3 days, is it meningitis?"

But the one that makes me bang my head on the desk " I've had this toothache for 4 weeks, I want an emergency dentist tonight, where's the nearest?" usually asked at 2am on Sunday morning

I used to work for Coca-cola in central London and had to drive a branded van around. I used to be asked for a free coke around 30 times a day, every day.

When I worked in recruitment (I know, I'm sorry) a qualified accountant asked me if she could take her poorly cat along to a job interview at a major bank HQ

bencooper said » "Do you do a Singletrack discount?"

Well?

Used to, when I advertised in the mag years ago - is there still a list of discounts for subscribers?

"Why do you have to work Christmas/New Year/Easter/ Bank Holidays?"
"Can you analyse [i]my[/i] urgent samples before all the other urgent samples?"
"Thank you for analysing my urgent samples and phoning the results..........are they normal?"
"Are you a vampire?"
"Can you do twice as much work, with half the staff and no new capital equipment?"
"What's wrong with Window's 2000 Pro?"

I could go on...........................love the NHS.

Another..

How do I do a Pivot Table?..

Or

How do I do an IF statement?.. or Whats a vLookup??...

Both these really get my goat, folks should know the basics of Excel in the environment I work in..
😈

"I need a spoke."
"Sure, how long?"
"About this long." (Holds up hands about a foot apart)

See also:

"I need an inner tube."
"What size?"
...

We seem to attract people asking stupid questions at work. The most common stupid one seems to be:

"Can you move the ambulance please, you're parked in my space/blocking the road"
Usually when the motor's sitting there with the disco lights going and us busy with a patient.

The most annoying one, which I've had a couple of times,
I'm busy doing CPR on someone in the street and get a tap on the shoulder......

"Can you give me directions to ????????"

No, piss off, I'm a little busy at the moment 😯

😯

when guiding the ones that used to get asked over and over again were:

"is it hard?" - everything is relative

"will i have to push?" - if you can't pedal, then yes

"can i ride it?" entirely dependent upon your skills

"how high are we?" usually when trying to set their altimeter (my thinking being that it really doesn't matter)

"when does the snow melt?" when going past a glacier

"is my saddle high enough?"

"should i put more air in my tyres?"

"should i put my jacket on?" that used to so get on my tits. how should i know how their body reacts? if i said yes then que ten minutes of fumbling with rucksacks and various layers. you lose so much time when people begin to faff.

perhaps not entirely stupid, but annoying when you get the same Qs all week from the same people.

Not a stupid question, but a standard nimby response to any scheme I'm presenting in a public consultation:

"We really do love what you are doing, and we really support modern architecture. Its just that we feel it's not right in this location"

and

"Yes we love your scheme and the design really fits well for this area. Oh hold on - there's some social housing in there? Well this is definitely not the right place for this."

and one of my favourites when looking at an already cleared housing site. Proposal was for new elderly bungalows.

Local resident, "You're not going to put housing here are you?"
Me, "Yes, but it single storey only"
Local resident, "Well we're definitely going to object as it will take away our amazing view"
Me "You've only just got the view as the previous houses have just been demolished to make way for the new scheme."
Local resident, "Well maybe....going to object anyway."

Sometimes I get loads of abuse, threats or pelted with stuff, so the above is always preferable.

"Hi konabunny, this is client's PA, can you update me with [tedious complicated project]?"

No, but I'll update the client if she calls. Even more irritating when followed by "yeah, I saw you emailed client with a long email about something, but I didn't bother reading it before I called you".

I also like:

" So do you use CAD?"
Me, "Yes"
"So does the computer does all the drawing for you then?"
me, "er, not quite...."

Is this Edinburgh Castle?

Clue - I don't work there...

[img] [/img]

You work in the Starbucks over the road right ?

I do some gardening for a nationally-known outfit, big houses and such. I quite enjoy it, and lots of the public are interested and interesting. There's always one, though...

'You can do mine when you finish if you like', inevitably spoken by a charmless twunt.

One's natural response would not fit with the [i]fantastic visitor experience[/i] corporate bolleaux, except where a smack with a spade might just fit the [i]identify visitor needs and respond in a natural, helpful way[/i] category.

What do others think? Can I have votes please?

"is this petrol station not open then"

said the old dear I had rushed towards, who had driven in though the site gates, up to the pump island that didnt have a pump on it, and who's car was slowly sinking axle deep in the freshly laid concrete slabs adjacent to the island.

"What do you do for a living?"
I'm a stress engineer.
"That must be stressful ha ha"
Yawn

bencooper -
"I need a spoke."
"Sure, how long?"

I do some gardening for a nationally-known outfit, big houses and such. I quite enjoy it, and lots of the public are interested and interesting. There's always one, though...

I used to do conservation volunteering, one of the other volunteers was a bloke called Douglas who was a large bearded biker type. One day we were digging a large hole to plant a new tree, and a kid was completely getting in the way and trying to steal tools. He eventually wandered up to Douglas and said "What's going in the hole, mister?"

Douglas looked down at him, pulled out a large bilhook, and said "You."

The question I always get asked, although not whilst at work is, " can you get me a job offshore?".
Which would be less annoying if these were people who had a trade behind them, but invariably, they don't, and I have to explain that skilled jobs need skilled people. On a weekly basis almost. For the past 8 years.

When I worked in a chip shop I often got

'Have you got any chips left'?

When I said yes, I would get a 'you shouldn't have cooked so many then'.

I got my own back when one person how long the chips would be and I answered 'about 2 inches, give or take'.

My how I laughed.

I'm sure as MTBers we're all familiar with people saying 'oh that looks like hard work' as you ride up some hill or other.

Why yes, it is hard work. What's your point?

"Is there a problem with [system]?"

I don't know, is there? Why don't you turn your neck a few degrees and look at some of the two dozen other people in your open plan office who are also using it in order to find out?

When working on an outage:

"Is it fixed yet?"

Yes, I just decided not to switch it back on or to tell anyone.

"How long will it be?"

Well, that depends entirely on how long I have to spend answering questions rather than working on it.

Not a question exactly, but "it doesn't work." Could you be any less specific? In what way doesn't it work? Do you get an error? Is it on fire? Throw me a bone here.

"Is the Internet down?"

It's designed to survive a nuclear war, so that's not likely.

"Can I ask a question?"

Evidently. Would you like to ask me another one?

"Can I borrow a cross-head screwdriver?"

No, because if you can't tell the difference between Philips and Posidriv it'll invariably come back looking like a bradawl, and I'm not prepared to replace my tools on a fortnightly basis.

Cougar - and IT people wonder why they have a bad rep for customer service.. 🙂

My sisters a GP, every year she gets this just before xmas, usually on a Sunday night

Patient: I need an emergency appointment tonight...
GP: what's wrong?
Patient: I'm bad with flu
GP: how long have you had it?
Patient: 4 weeks
GP: I am sure you just have a cold, it will go soon, buy some lemsip..
Patient: But I need antibiotics, as I want to be well for the big day

Is it silver?
Asked about a £7.99 bracelet.
Closely followed by are these real diamonds?

Today

Q - Why would you like to work in Financial Services

A - Because you pay by far the best (in my speciality).

Obviously I answered totally different. 🙂

As a maths teacher I frequently hear

When am I ever going to use this? You don't need maths in real life!

All my customers: "Has this taken longer than you expected?"

Me: "erm, yes, sorry"

Ah yes the antibiotics question.

Actually, it's never a question, it's always a demand.

"I've had a cold since yesterday, I need antibiotics"

"I've got a bit of a sore throat, I need antibiotics"

FFs no wonder bugs are becoming resistant to antibiotics

Oh and my fave, "I saw my Dr earlier, they said I've got a virus. They didn't give me antibiotics, I want some"

I think I'm lucky in that I get few daft questions in my work, as I don't really have to deal with the public. The most common though is a variant on the theme:

"can you do x?"

Well, yes I can, but you know it's not my job and you're not paying me to do it, so no.

Well, yes I can, but you know it's not my job and you're not paying me to do it, so no.

Working in ecommerce you can guarantee that about 4.45pm on christmas eve someone will call the sales team and ask if you can get a parcel to them in time for christmas, when you say no you get shouted at up to and including being accused of ruining christmas.

I also regularly used to have to deal with customers who'd got there address wrong on their parcel and were apoplectic that it hadn't made its way to them in a timely fashion. A few years back I was on the phone to a woman who'd put down someone else's address on her order, we'd delivered it ahead of schedule and to the address she provided but she demanded to know why we hadn't spotted that it was the wrong address.

Thankfully I don't have to talk to customers now so get asked very, very few questions.

People asking about woodburning stoves, do they get hot? do i need to stop the kids from touching it?
WTF, get asked at least once a week, how do people so stupid get through life, let alone be in charge of a solid fuel heating appliance.

Call sign: "er ATC, we're reaching flight level blah de blah, can we get further climb?"
ATC: " negative, traffic 1000ft above crossing right to left"
Call sign: " oh yes, we have him on TCAS/visual"
Why ask then?

Always 3 standard replies when people hear my job.

"Is it stressful?"
"Which tower do you work in?"
Or my personal favourite
"Are you the guy with the Ping pong bats?"

I don't get why IT people get so uppity about answering some fairly basic questions.

If part of the plant goes down on the shop floor, the fitter doesn't huff and puff and sigh when asked how long the plant will likely be down. He gives a rough estimate.

It's not really that hard to be polite and helpful.

(This is not aimed at anyone on here, just an observation)

Genuinely got this the other day.

My email to them

"Could you please forward the license file to myself."

The reply, via email.

"I just want to ask where do I need to send the copy of the license? May I have the email address please."

Had an ex-customer's engineer on the phone this morning, because they couldn't access the product.
"I'm sorry, you don't have a support contract any more".
"But we've paid for access"
"You have a licence to access, but no support"
"But we've paid for access, and we can't access"
"You've paid for the licence to access, but not for support if there's a problem accessing it"
"But we've paid to access it" etc etc etc
The analogy I ended up using was that of buying an album - if your CD player stops playing it, there's no point ringing the record label.

When my dad was dieing, he decided with me to plan his own funeral, as he used to be a funeral director he knew the questions to ask, undertaker turns up very profesional,limited sence of humour, planned the church, mourners, cars and flowers etc etc, came to the price, which was very reasonable.

I said to the funeral director, How much for cash, the funeral director went a funny shade of white then red, almost started choking, then regained his composure and said im so sorry i cant offer a better deal for cash, and ive never been asked that before.

Me and my dad then burst out laughing, dad explaining i had a strange sence of humour, and that we would pay the full amount.

The undertaker then saw the funny side. 😀

Bet you wished you had been drinking tonight

the fitter doesn't huff and puff and sigh when asked how long the plant will likely be down. He gives a rough estimate

The point is that in IT people ask questions that cannot be answered, and then get all cross when you tell them they can't be answered.

Imagine if your car is dead one morning, and you tow it into a garage. If you asked them right then how long it'll take to fix and how much it'll cost, would you expect an answer? Would you call them at 3pm and ask them the same?

No, you'd say 'do you know what's wrong with it yet?' or at least I'd hope so.

Actually, I do get asked if I know what's wrong yet. However they then ask me how long it'll take before I find out. How the hell should I know that?

I get asked, with monotonous frequency -

"can I go to the toilet"

My response depends on the time they ask me.

For all the IT people complaining about dumb questions, sometimes you don't help yourselves. After an afternoon not receiving emails all of a sudden I had a load come through the 1st being an email to the whole company saying that there was a problem with the email system which meant emails couldn't be delivered but they were working to resolve it. No other communication on it. Well done fellas, genius.

and when youre walking up a steep hill pushing your bike,and some fat stupid walkerist shouts, "I suppose thats a push bike then".

[quote=FeeFoo said]I don't get why IT people get so uppity about answering some fairly basic questions.
If part of the plant goes down on the shop floor, the fitter doesn't huff and puff and sigh when asked how long the plant will likely be down. He gives a rough estimate.

Just to add to molgrips answer (though I'm probably just saying the same thing a different way), when the fitter gets called in to fix the plant he's probably already been told where it's failed, or if not he's aware of a limited number of ways in which it could have failed.

When the IT bloke gets called in he's dealing with an infinite number of different ways for things to fail, and the user has probably been no help at all in describing the nature of the failure. Repair time could be anything from 5 minutes to days, weeks, months or years (depending on the scale of the system involved). One of the most important parts of an IT geek's job is managing expectations - unfortunately many of them aren't very good at it. The trick is to teach customers not to ask the question, though if they do and it's on something where I know likely causes of failure well I may give what I think is a worst case answer (that can still come back to bite you). Experience suggests that people might moan when you give them a long timescale to start with, but they're generally actually happier if it then only takes you 5 minutes than if you'd told them 5 minutes to start with - the worst thing is to tell them 5 minutes for a job which takes hours.

[quote=mrhoppy said]For all the IT people complaining about dumb questions, sometimes you don't help yourselves. After an afternoon not receiving emails all of a sudden I had a load come through the 1st being an email to the whole company saying that there was a problem with the email system which meant emails couldn't be delivered but they were working to resolve it. No other communication on it. Well done fellas, genius.

Well that is stupid, but it's also whataboutery.

Is there water all around the island?

[i]I don't get why IT people get so uppity about answering some fairly basic questions.

If part of the plant goes down on the shop floor, the fitter doesn't huff and puff and sigh when asked how long the plant will likely be down. He gives a rough estimate.

It's not really that hard to be polite and helpful.

(This is not aimed at anyone on here, just an observation)
[/i]

Obviously this is old equipment, as now it'll be controlled by IT at the bare minimum - and until I take a look I've no idea how long it'll take to fix nor (if it needs parts), how long a supplier will take to deliver/fit the part.

How long have you been here (asking how long the business has been established)

My reply is a swift look at my watch and.. oh.. since about 10 o clock

My reply is a swift look at my watch and.. oh.. since about 10 o clock

You must a cool watch if it tells you when you arrived earlier, mine jsut tells me the current time!

My reply is a swift look at my watch and.. oh.. since about 10 o clock

For years, my website said "Established Tuesday (about tea-time)"

For all the IT people complaining about dumb questions, sometimes you don't help yourselves. After an afternoon not receiving emails all of a sudden I had a load come through the 1st being an email to the whole company saying that there was a problem with the email system which meant emails couldn't be delivered but they were working to resolve it. No other communication on it. Well done fellas, genius.

Yep, email is the preferred method of informing our staff that the email server is down

do they work?

no, we sell then cos they are broke and shit.

Every time I go out surveying. I pause to check my map. A passer by stops.

Passer by: "Are you lost?"
Me: "No. I know exactly where I am. I'm a cartographer. I've got 1:10k and 1:25k maps on me. Which I know how to read. I've got c.10 satellites on me at any one time pin-pointing my position to <2m on this hand-held computer. I can give you my exact co-ordinates in British national grid, or lat-long. Which would you prefer?"

Actually, that's I lie. I just smile politely and say "I'm fine, thanks".

Just for a bit of revenge on the IT bods

'can you fill out a project brief?' i have done, on average three times a year for the past four years while you've been failing to deliver the freaking project. We got presented abill for 12k of developers time the other day - not seen exactly what, if anything, they've developed and the IT PM doesn't seem sure either.

and

'can you tell me what's wrong with it?' No i can't, that's why I'm phoning you.

" So,tell us how you are going to transform our high performance computing department?"

"we like what you're proposing, but your fees a higher than everyone else - what can you do about it?"

meh

None really apart from, “aren’t you a bit too young to be retired”

Q. We need to test this new software.
A. Yeah I'm working on the test plan now.
Q. No we need to confirm its good by Friday.
A. As soon as I've finished the test plan were on it.
Q. Can we not just test at a high level..

A week or so later,
Q. Can you help we've been testing and found some issues.
A. Ok what test were you doing.
Q. No we were testing at a high level.
A. So what do you believe the software should have done.
Q. Can you fix it.

And repeat...

Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk
Dad can I have some chocolate milk

[quote=thestabiliser said]'can you tell me what's wrong with it?' No i can't, that's why I'm phoning you.

"Can you fix it?" - no, not if I don't know what it is you want fixing (and it seems you don't either).

thestabiliser said » 'can you tell me what's wrong with it?' No i can't, that's why I'm phoning you.

"Can you fix it?" - no, not if I don't know what it is you want fixing (and it seems you don't either).

I know what it is, but i don't know what's wrong with it. bit like you and capitalism.

"Is it true a pregnant women can wee in your hat?" No.
"I pay your wages!" I pay your benefits now go away.
"You can't arrest me?" Yes I really can if necessary.
"Busy night?" Nope thats why I'm here.
"Can I have a photo with you?" Yes and before you ask no you can't wear my hat.

Girls in Marketing Dept overheard:

"Is Surrey a town or a city?"

😯

When working at a used car dealers as a student, washing cars on the forecourt:

"Ooh, Could you do mine next?"

Repair time could be anything from 5 minutes to days, weeks, months or years (depending on the scale of the system involved).

Moreover,

Usually, diagnosing a problem is the difficult bit, fixing it is easy. Therefore there's often very little time which passes between "I don't know how long this is going to take" and "there, it's working."

"Can you fix it?" - no, not if I don't know what it is you want fixing (and it seems you don't either).