mr Photo
A kipper isn't a fish, its made with fish (herring)

like a burger isn't an animal
(lankygingerfool, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 9:40, Reply)

more americans I'm afraid
Not sure if this has been posted or not, as I am sure it is frequently overheard ..

I once heard two American tourists on the tube aguing, in booming voices, about whether Paris was in France or vice versa. I think they were on a Europe wide tour, so god knows what they made of the Czech reublic etc.."Is that in Dublin?"
(impossibly witty twat No, YOUR Mum etc etc, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 9:39, Reply)

what???!!!
A friend once asked me "What's the opposite of a cheese grater?" and i overheard this conversation on a bus between two old ladies....

"it's bloody cold today,isn't it?"
"it is. especially for a tuesday."

????????????????
(spiff, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 9:00, Reply)

My boss is also technically retarded...
My boss, who looks a bit like Madge Bishop and acts rather like Millie Tant, had created a spreadsheet with all our contact numbers on it. I thought this would be useful to have and would save time scapping over the one dog-eared phonebook. So I asked her if she would mind if I copied it..
She told me, very loudly, NO, saying that it was exactly this kind of "duplication of information" that would "clog up my screen". She was not referring to the number of shortcuts I had and she used the word "screen" to mean pc. Now, my PC arrived at the same time as me and has a 160gb hard drive. It didn't seem worth tryng to explain though, not on my trial period anyway. I am sure I may have ended up pouring cold coffee over her slapped arse of a face. I just went to the loo for a bit of silent screaming and punched the concrete wall a few times.
(impossibly witty twat No, YOUR Mum etc etc, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 8:18, Reply)

Numpty Spreadsheet Question 2
Another colleague once called to say he was having trouble getting Excel to do what he wanted.

He had a column of data and wanted to get the average value.

He had clicked on the AutoSUM button, but that was only totalling the figures (obviously) and he wanted to know why it "wasn't working properly"

There's really no answer to that is there?
( JugglerJAF It's curtains for you.Lacy gently wafting curtains, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 7:24, Reply)

Numpty Spreadsheet Question 1
I was once asked by a colleague why the spreadsheet he was completing to monitor staff attendance wasn't working properly.

A common reason for the error was non-completion of required data in Column B so I asked him "Have you completed the 'Loaned In' data in Column B?"

His reply: "Where's Column B?"

I just had to answer with the obvious: "Well, it's in between Column A and Column C"
( JugglerJAF It's curtains for you.Lacy gently wafting curtains, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 7:22, Reply)

A work colleague twice my age
Paul: 'What's three times five?'
Me, after an incredulous pause: 'Fifteen'.
Paul: 'No, sorry, I meant what's five times three?'
( Trinosaur, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 6:39, Reply)

Being Retarded
When I was but 19, I lived briefly in Englewood, Colorado, USA, a suburb of Denver. If I missed the first bus to work, I caught the second bus, which numerous retarded people also caught on their way to their work. It was a loopy good time, singing songs and sharing stories with these civil folk.

One weekend in downtown Denver, quite by accident, I ran into several of my retarded friends, who were busy talking to a businessman. My friends immediately pulled me into the conversation. The businessman assumed that if I already knew these folks, then I must be retarded too. None of my carefully-worded statements shook his considered judgment - he simply responded, in a slow sing-song voice: "So, do you go to a workshop every day too?"

It's nice being slow!
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 6:35, Reply)

Northern Lights
As a student, a bunch of us heard that the Northern Lights were, unusually, visible from England. So we all pile out (around midnight), into my little old Metro and drive out from Manchester city centre to the middle of Saddleworth Moor.

There we stand staring up at the... thick layer of fog, not well known for aiding sky-based observations.

We return (about 2am) to our Hall of Residence. The Porter, not the sharpest tool by a long way, asks where we have been and we tell him about our complete failure.

"Oh, you won't see the Northern Lights tonight lads - they're over Oxford"

Same Porter once blew my mind and vastly expanded my understanding of sheer stupidity. He spent 5 minutes explaining to me about the days getting longer and shorter throughout the year. Yawn, like I didn't know. But then he hit me with this simple statement which floored me: "That's the system... but I wish they'd change it". WTF!!
(rob3rt, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 6:24, Reply)

...so I was recently in Paris...
... and walking throught the italian painters section of the Louvre I heard a booming American womans voice saying "You know Honey, a lot of these paintings are about our Lord Jesus!"
(MissusVroom, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:40, Reply)

And yet another thing...
Another one of my students' parents told me that her son would stop eating sand off the playground if we made him push heavy objects around the classroom. I swear.
(Shannon623, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:23, Reply)

And another thing...
I teach a class of autistic children. One day, the mother of one of my students was telling me about the progress her son was making in private therapy:

Mom: Well, his therapist is working on teaching him to discriminate between colors. She says a color, and he's picking up the corresponding card about 50% of the time.

Me: Really? That's great! Ah...how many cards is he choosing from?

Mom: Two.

Me: (biting lip to keep from laughing in her face) Yeah, that's pretty good...
(Shannon623, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:21, Reply)

Kipper
I honestly thought Kipper was a Fish...........what is it then ?
(MrPhoto, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:15, Reply)

Another one
I`m an 20 year Expat in Northern California, I was bartending in a faux Irish pub ( I`m not Irish though ).

Her. So are you the average Englishman ?

Me. No the average Englishman lives in England.

Jesus holy Bethlehem............
(MrPhoto, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:10, Reply)

Man in the booth next to ours
in a restaurant in the US was explaining to his attentive audience of two middle age folks about the role of "genitals" in the bible. Took me about ten minutes to figure out he meant "gentiles".
(nabi, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:09, Reply)

Wait, Zander...
...correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they use *obstetric* forceps to deliver babies?
(Shannon623, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 5:09, Reply)

At my previous job
at a mobile phone company, the Debt Recovery Manager asked us if it was possible to sort a group of accounts by their average balance.

My gran once observed some people doing "that budgie jumping" in a town car park. I wish I'd been quick enough to say that they were doing "parrot gliding" the week before. She's also come out with the line "Do you think she's got that bullmania" referencing the eating disorder.

A friend managed to pwn himself at his place of work a while back by insisting at a staff meeting that there was such a fish as a kipper. It fell apart when he referenced the dictionary for evidence.

No apologies for length - you love it you dirty blurt.
(_(_(_(_(_(_(_(_(_ =o.o=, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:37, Reply)

Most recent ones
My friend asked, " do you think Al Quida ( sp ) caused the tsunami ?

Wrong coast I replied !

Oh Scotland is attatched to England, ( American with a degree )

Spent the rest of the evening giving him stories of the Isle of Scotland.

I`ll think of others and some of them are mine.
(MrPhoto, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:31, Reply)

I think I might be a chav
A few years ago, I could never get my password to work. No matter how many times I typed it in, I got "invalid". Other people could do it just fine if I told them. The help desk couldn't figure it out.

It wasn't until the help desk guy actually came and watched me did he figure out what I was doing wrong. I would arrive at the password section by hitting the space bar. In my little computer/logic impaired brain I didn't think a space meant anything. It's nothing right?

Well "napoleon" is DIFFERENT from " napoleon".
My computer geek husband to whom I had complained to about this for six f*cking months has never I mean never let me live it down. Sigh.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:18, Reply)

I still struggle with this one (posted before)
Half way through Spiderman when the green fella starts blowing stuff up my mum says 'This is getting too silly for me'

Despite the fact that half an hour previous the main character got bitten by a radioactive spider and gained super powers
( beefandcheese, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:16, Reply)

I was at a friend's job
visiting. My friend worked tech support for an internet service provider. I heard the guy on the phone next to us say "The gas pedal isn't working?", and then he put her on speakerphone. Seems an elderly lady was having problems with her computer's gas pedal not turning the computer on. After a while, we discovered that by gas pedal, she meant mouse.
(Sinister, baby is waiting for ffej..., Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:15, Reply)

I work with disabled toddlers.
Because they don't speak, we have a system of images that they point at to communicate.

Today, one of the parents came in and told us about his new job as a sniffer dog handler. He said he doesn't want his daughter to use the images any more, because in the dog handler training school they gave him lots of ideas about teaching her! I guess in his mind there is no difference between his four year old daughter and a german shepard.
( gracielou, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 4:12, Reply)

oh and how could I forget
At the previous shop I worked there was a genuine crazy person who was rife with classics sayings. But my favorite has to be ( and try to imagine this in a loud slightly higher pitched dazed geordie accent )

"Everyone loves David Cassidy, but you can never remember if he's dead or alive"

Me and the supervisor had to run to the warehouse to collapse on the floor laughing... bless im...
(theTerribleSecretofWoo, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 3:42, Reply)

I hate my job
I think every shop has thier resident nutter customer. Our resident nutter likes to talk at you for hours, and this one time he thought he'd get philosophical.

Nut: "You know how the moon goes round the earth and like it creates tides"
Me: "yeah"
Nut: "And the sun goes round the Earth..."
Me: "whoa there the earth goes round sun matey"
Nut: "Really? oh well what does IT do?"
Me: "urm... not sure what you mean"
Nut: "why is it there?, the moon is there to create the tides, what is the sun there for?"
Me: last threads of sanity snaps
(theTerribleSecretofWoo, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 3:33, Reply)

I'm from America
the list is fucking endless.
( Funtastic Pony Magic, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 3:19, Reply)

I had a friend...
...and I still have I suppose...Anyhow, this guy was about 25 at the time, had a degree in English, and was a teacher, who taught A-level in our local college. It was summertime, and while he was giving me a lift to work, I commented on the amount of sugar-stealers flying about (Big fluffy seed things, like dandelion heads, but lighter), and he started going on about them migrating......

Him - I wonder where they go every year?
Me - Where what go?
Him - You know, the Sugar-stealers...
Me - ...Stunned silence...Er...you do know they're not alive...they're seeds...
Him - Oh... really...I always thought that they were...

Jesus...this guy taught me english...least he's not american though...

NB - On an American note, I was at a big camp in Thailand, where its incredibly disrespectful to have any flag flying higher than the Thai flag, to the extent that we took down the pretty damned elaborate flagpole that had taken us all day to produce, just to rectify this. The Americans, on the other hand, decided, in their world ruling wisdom, that this was a whole bunch of crap and proceeded to make their flag fly higher than anyones. Later that night however, an international force of people with respect decided to take it down and replace it with a tiny flag stuck in the sand....Ha Ha!!!! Take that America!
( Mr.Ons knows you can hear him, Earthmen., Sat 8 Jan 2005, 3:06, Reply)

I
did once tell someone who I work with `to stop hanging around and come to dinner` just a few days after her childhood friend of 50 years had hung himself.
( Tyronne Get To Falkirk, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 2:51, Reply)

just got back from Subway
and there was a middle-aged tourist with a New York accent who wanted a meatball marinara sub. He took about two minutes to choose what bread he wanted, about 30 seconds deciding what cheese, and he had to top it all off with "oh, and don't marinate it, I'm in a hurry." The entire staff started sniggering while he looked around, shrugging, saying "whaddaya laughin' at?"
( trintrin has jam for blood, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 2:37, Reply)

A girl I met in Australia
We were driving toward The Nobbies on Philip Island in Victoria when she announced 'I like hay'

The randomness had us laughing for a good while!

I have tp let her off though because she was lovely.
( beefandcheese, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 2:27, Reply)

stupid bush-loving twat
way back in about March 2003 when the US army forced their way into Iraq to search for the "weapons of mass destruction" that were not there (the whole thing in itself should be an entry for this QOTW).

well, anyway, some classmates and I, being from a very liberal town, were discussing the pointlessness of the war.

me: "it's just horrible. how can they go in there and murder all those innocent people. and over what? nothing!"

former (thank god) classmate: "wow, kate, you're uninformed. they're aren't bombing civilians, they're bombing the terrorists DUH!"


i need to get out of this country.
(sponch!, Sat 8 Jan 2005, 2:07, Reply)