If only politics was this simple
Me: "Did you hear that Ian Paisley retired today?"

Ditzy co-worker: "Oh. Does that mean that Gerry Adams wins?"
(posthumous mince is tiptoeing through the tulips, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 23:02, 2 replies)

I work in court at the Old Bailey
A few months ago one of our ushers was about to bring a judge into the courtroom but had misplaced his door knocker. It was to his detriment that he decided to use the ill-advised substitute of a packet of Polos, which promptly exploded and showered down around them both like painful minty confetti.

Another time he accidentally fell asleep during a fairly tedious hearing. Upon waking he mistook a pause in breath for the end of the day and in his loudest and jolliest voice stood up and announced 'COURT RISE!' right in the middle of the judge's ruling.
( The Helpful Bear, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:57, 5 replies)

Many years ago while working a temp job for the DSS
one of my fellow workers had a book in his hand as he arrived in the morning. One of those huge, oversized american horror-writer type books.

"Woah - that's a big book," exclaims one of the duller chaps in the office, "Have you read the whole thing?"

- "Well, no - I am about three quarters of the way through. I just read a bit on the bus every day."

"But, it's so big. How can you remember all the stuff from the beginning by the time you get to the end??"
( Mystery_Bob, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:52, 1 reply)

MUG 1
I used to work in a marketing firm and most the senior management had personalized number plates. Even though spending money on a numberplate that no matter what the letters spells out TWAT to any right thinking person is pretty stupid. But one of the girls in the office who bless her wasn't the brightest bulb said something that actually made my mouth gape.

We were discussing the latest platetwattery and who much it cost. Kelly piped up "you wouldn't catch me spending that much on a number plate I'd be mega pissed off if I crashed my car and had to replace it at that price"

:o0
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:50, 1 reply)

Hold this here
Don't move it off the ground until I've measured it.

Dave, why have you picked it up and are walking around with it?


Also:
Me: Can you do this for me by 5?
D: Yes
Me: If you're not going to get it done on time tell me and I'll help because it needs to be done by 5
D: OK
...at 5pm
Ne: Have you finished that stuff?
D: No, I went and did something else instead.
( thistle, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:31, Reply)

Used to work with a bloke we called Brain Dead Brian
He'd seen an advert for one of those 100 games in one systems on the telly.
He came into work and announced he'd got one for 3 quid from the local game shop and wanted to know how it plugged in the telly.
It took 10 minutes to explain to him he'd bought a mega drive controller.
(Captain Spacker I lick windows, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:30, 4 replies)

If customers count as colleagues.
My mum's story, not mine.
A supermarket in the Black Country, the '70s (think present-day Bulgaria).
Swivel-eyed harpy: Excuse moy, luv.
Helpful shelf-stacker: Yes?
Swivel-eyed harpy: Do yow know where the kureels are?
Helpful shelf-stacker: The what, sorry?
Swivel-eyed harpy [getting insistent]: The kureels.
Helpful shelf-stacker: The what?
Swivel-eyed harpy [tutting audibly]: The bluddy KUREELS! Yow know, like Corn Flakes...
(electricteeth, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:27, 1 reply)

I once worked with a woman
who thought that Manchester was in London.

Her reason was that her old boss had hated Man United and as he was a Chelsea supporter she figured that Manchester must be a local team to Chelsea.

What I didn't understand was that she loved watching the soaps. So I asked her if she thought Corrie and 'Stenders were in the same place and if so why were the accents so different? She just thought the Manchester accent was from a part of London.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:15, 5 replies)

No smoke without fire...
Many years ago, I used to work in Burger King. This particular branch was the one in Glasgow Central train station, which if you've never visited is pretty big, and pretty busy. The West Coast main line, all the trains in the West of Scotland, they all start from there.

At the time our story takes place, we'd had a few bomb scares. They removed all of the bins from the station so nobody could leave exploding packages around the place, but even so every few weeks the fire alarms would kick off and the station would evacuate out onto the surrounding streets. Trains would be backed up for hours, replacement bus hell would ensure, it was a Big Deal. Of course for those of us who worked there, it got pretty old pretty quickly, and every time it happened you'd end up enjoying the sunny climate of Glasgow for an hour or so while the station got checked out by police and firemen before you could get back in. God forbid it happen near the end of your shift, you'd be there ages...

Anyway, that's all background. It's a Saturday afternoon, I've started work at 3pm and am just settling into a happy day's burger slinging when the alarm kicks off. Out we go, into the windy rainy shithole. My colleague, who for the purposes of no anonymity whatsoever I shall call Dave, who had finished his shift at the same time I started, is spectacularly unhappy about this turn of events. He's left his bag and civilian clothing in the manager's office, and can't go home without them (even if the trains hadn't all stopped for the alarm), because the manager wouldn't let him nip in and get them on the way out. Truth be told he gets a bit shouty, in the guttural and creative way that only a Glaswegian really can.

Given his outburst, you can probably imagine the manager's reaction when, after being told that the fire alarm had come from the Burger King staff gents' toilet, saw the security camera footage from our staff room... which showed Dave heading into the cubicle with a pack of fags, presumably having forgotten that the new integrated smoke alarms had been fitted that very morning despite us all being warned not to smoke in there any more on pain of death.

I've got no idea what the cumulative cost of that ciggie was, but Dave got to spend quite a long time in the manager's office before he got to go home, and never set foot in BK again. The daft prick.
(Sartori is moving to Canada, eh?, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:13, Reply)

hmmm
2 stories.......

Girl who works for me thought Columbo found America. Consider that.

Also I was half way telling her how Eddy the Eagle Edwards was half man half bird and was thrown out of the Olympics for cheating. I failed and laughed as I was tellling it. She fell for it though.
(farehamer, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:08, 1 reply)

My last manager...
decided to treat us to an exhibition in Earls Court in 2009. On the way there we passed through Wandsworth station, and caught a connecting train. After the day was done we were heading back, but Dave (for that is not his name) could not remember the station. I tried to tell him it was Wandsworth but no...he insisted that was wrong but he did remember that "it sounds like wibble, not Wandsworth"

"Wibble station? are you serious?" said I, but Dave insisted this was correct. I pretended not to know him as he stood asking station staff when the next train to wibble station would be here.

"wibble station sir?"

"Yeah, well it sounds like that, its on the way to London" says Dave

"You are in London sir and there are no stations nearby that sound like 'wibble' sir"
( Bamboo Steamer, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 22:04, 2 replies)

Alaska
We had a giant world map on the wall of our office, being a travel insurance specialists this was most useful.

One day I spent a good ten minutes explaining to one girl why there were 'two' Alaska's.
(Peacocke, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:41, 11 replies)

I actually quite liked...
...the receptionist at a former company who struggled with the pronunciation of certain computer terms.

I remember her making many a frustrated phone-call to suppliers, none of whom seemed to stock 'Whiffy Routers'.
(costas, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:40, 3 replies)

Window cleaning
My previous job was based in an office in Shoreditch on the fringes of the city. Out the office window we could see the London skyline, primarily the Gherkin and the Natwest tower.

This was pre congestion charge and the fog/smog hybrid would completely cover our view and block out the two buildings in question. Girl in my office was amazed that the buildings had 'disappeared' and was doubly amazed when we told her they used to lay the buildings down so they could clean the windows.

Went on for weeks till she twigged.

She also once asserted that Heinrich Himmler was the president of the United States
(Peacocke, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:39, 1 reply)

Likely to be accused of MASSIVE DRUGS or some such
A firm I used to work at had a contract to run cable through a site that was under construction.

As is the norm with construction sites, it's pretty chaotic, with everyone working over the top of everyone else.

One painter was asked to paint an anterior (think that's the right word) wall in an atrium with multiple floors open to the main area - so he hops into the cherry picker / scissor lift, and off he goes, up and up, right next to the wall lip - with his head out the basket, looking down.

Not for long though, because he managed to get his head crushed / lopped off when he came to the first floor. If you need a mental image, try and imagine the mess you'd cause if you stuck your head out of a moving lift with no doors, and kept it there while you went between floors.

Apparently the amount of blood was "fucking outrageous" and "enough to make ye fuckin boke"
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:11, 10 replies)

turners
I used to work with a guy who was always eating, something to do with him always being at the gym.

One day while he was eating yet another banana I asked "graham do you buy those bananas in bulk ?"

"no...... Asda" was the reply

Another day he asked "why does the rain outside the factory always fell at an angle"

He accepted that it wasn't falling at an angle we.where just on the side of a hill
(BiggestNizzy your company name here pm for rates., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:04, 4 replies)

I work in a care institution

There's a broad range of people working there, including quite a few who are always on about X Factor/How amazing Katie Price is/One of their mates being on Jeremy Kyle etc., however this one comes from one of the big wig senior managers.
We had to do our compulsory fire refresher training - what the different extinguishers were used for, evacuation protocol and the like. One of the 'true or false' questions:

"When fighting a fire, you should always make sure there is an exit in front of you" - FALSE - you should make sure an exit is behind you.

This woman wanted to know whether if there was a fire in one of the fire exits, whether we were still supposed to use it. It took the guy doing the training a good few minutes to explain to her that she should use any other possible exit that isn't on fire.

Can I have a payrise please?
( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 21:04, 2 replies)

where do I begin..
I had lent someone in work the book 'shockwave', which was left on their desk. This prompted a colleague to ask a number of questions such as:
*what's this about? (american bombing of nagasaki & hiroshima)
*when? (august 1945)
*why? (edited story of WWII...ten minutes later)
Then the realisation:
* oh, why do you call it World War 2? (O_O...because there was a world war 1)
* why? (assassination, serious balkan standoff, toys thrown out of pram, all hell brakes loose on the continent)
*when? (1914 - 18)
* so when was the titanic? (1912) oh... I wasn't born then (O_O)
* where is it? (produced A4 scale map of world from diary and pointed to a piece of blue sea off the newfoundland)
* that's not far away I could row there, look it's close to ireland (you realise that this is a scale map of the world don't you?)
*what does that mean? (flashback to father ted)

this was the same person who asked if dinosaurs used axes...

So many stories - they was 17.....
( pottybeaver is neither a potty nor a beaver, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:55, 10 replies)

Turkish Delight
A long time ago I was working in a research unit at a prestigious British university while doing my PhD. We all used to use a single printer which involved saving your work on a floppy disk and walking over to the machine with the printer attached. One weekend I wired every PC in the lab to an automatic switch box and connected it to the printer.

Monday morning I send a print job from my machine at the other side of the room and the printer magically bursts into life. A young Turkish student who was visiting had his desk right next to the printer, he jumped up from his chair and wanted to know what was happening. I told him it worked by infra-red waves and he had to move out of the way so the signal could get through.

For six months everyone in the lab made the guy stand up and move every time anyone wanted to print something. People from all over the university used to come to watch this ...
(iamdrdee *The more we are sober, the less we are free*, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:53, 2 replies)

My First Pearoast
I used to work in the zoo

One of my co-workers, a legend called Richie, managed to convince another co-worker called Crazy Sarah (who could do with a whole QoTW to herself) that the Baby elephant had died... Because it drank too much water and its face fell off. However its parents were not too upset because a Japanese scientist had invented a special Elephant sized Playstation for them to play on. Apparantly the Elephants love rugby games but the Lions prefer Football games.

Another one of his stories she believed was all the animals had been replaced with robots overnight. When at first she didn't believe this he pointed out how much her dog's pet-food cost and to multiply this by every animal - the food bills were too much so the animals had been secretly replaced with hollywood robots.
(FondaAccord, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:46, Reply)

Stoopid yank talk
Induction day for a new job and we're having lunch with the Head Honcho over from Dallas. He asked if we had any questions and one of the other newbies, a French lad, said 'Do you know what the average length of service is'. The big American Boss paused for a moment to decipher the accent and decided to check he'd understood. 'Tenure?' To which our French friend replied 'Wow, that's a long time'.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:22, Reply)

I have no answer for you
*unlurks

Boss: Have our software suppliers done something we don't know about?
Me: Facepalm.
Team: Facepalm.

*relurks
(lighthouse keeper, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:14, 1 reply)

turkey
as i don't work(medical reasons, not laziness), here's one about my sister's colleague.

one night after work, my sister and her workmate carol decided to go bowling. ccarol was actually quite good at bowling and managed to get 3 strikes in a row.
now, if you enjoy bowling, you may know that when this happens, the word "turkey" flashes up on the score screen.
when the game was over, my sister grabbed her coat, ready to leave.
"we can't go yet!" says carol, "i haven't been given my turkey!"
silly cow actually thought she'd won a turkey and they were kept in a freezer in the storeroom.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:14, 10 replies)

Norman.
Me(looking at teletext): "Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated!"
Norman: "Who's he?"
(hiraeth SPACE £19.99. I say yer buy one yer get one free, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:05, 1 reply)

Not suited to the job
My colleague Percy (name protected to preserve the terminally stupid) works in IT by default. I work for a public sector aligned organisation that was transferred from the Council 8 years ago. Percy is totally institutionalised and the type of person who can only exist in the public sector without demotion, redundancy, sacking etc.

[Now don't think I'm getting all Daily Mail about the public sector I'm not - most people work flipping hard - however there are those, like dear Percy, who are beyond hope].

Percy was promoted from the call centre to the position of IT Trainer some years ago. This was when they needed someone to bridge the gap between IT professionals and those who believe if their monitor power indicator is aglow then the computer is switched on. The IT Trainer role served its long forgotten purpose before it was canned. Now we're not an organisation to make anyone redundant unnecessarily it was decided by the powers that be that Percy would perfectly in the IT department having all the necessary skills for the job e.g. Could demonstrate page breaks in Microsoft Word and filter data in Excel.

Percy was given a pay rise and a new job title and expected to fit right in. Percy's lack of aptitude for the job was ignored by the rest of the IT department who absorbed his inefficiencies on the grounds that he was a nice guy and always willing to do the donkey work of shifting PC's and patching people in. One day a member of the IT team is showcasing a new piece of software we were using for compliance checks. A nice nifty function of the product was the ability to ping, remote desktop etc from within the utility. The only thing that had to be done was to add the web address of the server it was installed upon to the trusted sites list in your web browser. An example syntax was provided in the help notes to make the process even easier.

We all add the server address to the trusted sites list and are having a little poke around when Percy speaks up that his still isn't working.
I walk over to his machine and ask him to show me where he's added the url to the trusted site list. Percy opens the trusted site list to show me where it says:

http: //myserver/lansweeper

I was so astounded that even Percy had made this schoolboy error that I said "spot the obvious mistake?" Percy looked blank. I smiled...

Percy looked blank...

"Percy, you do know that we have don't have a server called 'My Server'?"

The penny suddenly drops. Percy shouts his excuse, "But I got the first bit right!!"
(Fireyfox is prepared to change, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:05, Reply)

Can't believe the things I've seen.....
Doing IT support for a group you deal with a lot of stupid colleagues, a few of the things I've seen recently.....

"This floppy drive is broken" - user was putting the floppy disk in the wrong way up (yes some people still use them!)

Someone trying to do a video conference without a webcam - when I told them they'd need a webcam to be seen by the other people they said "can't I just download something from the internet to do it?"

"printer is broken" - nope, the printer is switched off because they've unplugged it to charge their mobile phone

And that's just a few, I'm sure I'll remember more soon!
(LargeDoner, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:59, 3 replies)

I once had a junior who...
for the sake of balance I should point out is now a very successful businessman, and he had a habit of genuine face palm moments whereby he would do something daft and immediately bury his moosh into his hands. This is not the recommended course of action to take when you have just put your hand on a newly varnished bannister to steady yourself whilst you read the "Wet varnish" sign on the stairs.

Mind you on another occasion he did manage to cover himself from head to toe in yellow toner whilst attempting to refill one of the old style colour printers that used a toner reservoir rather than cartridges. He got called Bart for quite some time after that unsurprisingly.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:55, Reply)

Sweet thing
Once upon a time, I managed to convince a cute-but-ditzy blonde fellow shop-worker that the gravel-like crystals of sugar sometimes seen in bowls alongside the after-dinner coffee were just as they'd been mined from the ground, but washed clean to get rid of the dirt.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:54, Reply)

This actually happened today!
In an IT meeting about how details of proposed system changes need to be entered into a form and then approved / rejected by senior IT, my colleague uttered the following as he made notes...

"Requests for change....fill in an RFC form....what does RFC stand for?"

A moment of silence, then everyone looking at him, then looking at each other to make sure they've heard him right. Followed by plenty of belming once the meeting had ended.
(LargeDoner, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:50, 3 replies)

On discussing the Baby P case at work
our office idiot chimed in with 'he didn't die, did he?'

Facepalms all round.
( Blue Star was working part time at the 5 and Dime, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:42, 6 replies)