Before this QOTW gets too far off track
It may be worth considering a few things.

1) A lack of training does not equate to stupidity.

2) A cultural misunderstanding does not equate to stupidity.

3) Being employed in a job you are not qualified for is more the employers fault for not explaning the role properly than the employees fault for not being able to do it.

4) Delivering an unclear instruction and not having it carried out the way you had expected does not uquate to stupidity.

I thank you for your time.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:50, 18 replies)

poo breath
She was bright, well educated, an actress don't you know (well, she played bodies in Holby City etc) and a complete fucking weirdo.

Her last day she made a concoction out of peanut butter, marmite, hot water etc and then proudly wandered around telling people that the foul smelling sludge she was slurping up was in fact human shit...
( zulu eh?, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:44, 4 replies)

I once had a foreign colleague
who wasn't 100% fluent in the idioms and cultural quirks of a small island off the coast of europe.

This one time I said something and she totally didn't quite understand and had to politely ask for clarification. And she didn't even know which tube line she needed to use without looking at the map. The fucking idiot.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:34, 19 replies)

Wow
"Can you catch cancer from an open casket funeral?"

Thing is, I have a massive amount of respect and admiration for the lady who said that. She's an incredibly strong and intelligent person, and one of the most genuinely nicest people I have ever met. I don't know what she was thinking when that question fell out of her mouth, bless her cottons.
(Beacon, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:28, 2 replies)

Drawing
Well, there I was doing a self-portrait, can't for the life of me remember why. It was in my first job and I'd just finished then in walks one of the admin ladies, takes a look at the picture then at me, then (Gawd bless her) she says "Ooh, a self-portrait!"

"Mmmm, I said."

"Did you draw it?" Came the reply...

:(
( Ninj, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:27, 1 reply)

twas a girl here
I once watched her copy and paste individual cells from Excel to word because she didn't know how to select a range of cells and paste them.

How the fuck these people get a job in an office I never know. I showed her how to copy some cells and press paste. She couldn't believe it!
(waxdart hello., Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:26, 9 replies)

I am a stupid colleague
We've got this new internet conferencing thing, and i called into a meeting yesterday from my laptop with some people in the states.

In the bottom corner I could see 4 squares; three of them were black, and in the fourth there was a video of a person's head. He was picking his nose. I thought "oh my God does he realise everyone can see him?! He's not going to, is he, surely not.... omfg he did, he ate it!!"

Then i realised that person was me.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:22, 1 reply)

The great motivator
Our CEO was a formidable woman. Strident and confident and utterly, utterly inept.

She led us from one crisis to another, always certain in her actions and never changing course until we were royally fucked. And then leading us off on another ill thought out campaign until we were Royallyer Fuckeder. We were a company on the brink when she had her finest hour. She gathered us all together, all 650+ employees, in a big hall she'd booked at extravagent expense in a fine London Hotel. She talked at us for an hour, a stirring, motivating and totally incomprehensible call to arms. Watching her in full, ranting, manic flow was captivating. Which was unfortunate for her really, because it meant that every single one of us was listening intently when she reached her rousing finish and proclaimed, proudly 'Yes, I have made mistakes, Yes, I have misjudged, but I promise you this her and I promise you this now, I may have led us to the edge of this cliff, but I will lead us on now when we take a three hundred and sixty degree turn and thaat first brave step forward...'.

At which point she was drowned out by burst of noise caused by 650 odd people simultaneously not managing to stifle their laughter.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:20, 1 reply)

Not quite clear on the concept
During the Pope's visit to the UK last year, we were watching the live coverage of him appearing in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on the news on the telly. There was a crowd of tens of thousands, waving Vatican flags, Saltires, and the occasional Irish tricolore, waiting for the man in the funny car to turn up.

My Northern Irish boss and I performed simultaneous facepalms when another colleague asked why, amongst a large crowd of British Roman Catholics, no-one was waving a Union Jack.
(square go, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:17, 2 replies)

Keith
My first job out of sixth form (I only completed one year) was as a labourer for my uncle’s building company. It was only meant to be short term whilst I sorted myself out, but I ended up working for him for two and a half years. One of my fondest memories of my time working with my uncle was when he employed the local ‘weirdo’ for a couple of weeks to help with a particularly big extension we were building. Keith was his name, and before I go into the ‘stupid work colleagues’ part of my post, I’ll give a bit of background as to how I knew of Keith and the type of person he was.

When my group of friends and I were in our early teens, there was an 18 year old bloke that always used to be in the local park on his own, listening to heavy metal music loudly on his Walkman. Scary to look at, we avoided him as much as we possibly could. During one summer holiday break we got talking to him, and although he was quite strange, we would hang around with him despite protests from all of our parents. This man we were meant to be avoiding was Keith.
Keith was a loner, but he looked out for us once we’d ‘made friends’; giving us money he’d stolen from his mum so that we could buy multi-packs of Chewits and numerous packets of stickers for our sticker albums. He would let us try his cigarettes, and sometimes, if he was in a good mood, even give us a can of beer.

To say Keith was unhinged would be an understatement; I’d seen him flip out and go mental on numerous occasions; be it at someone who had told him to pick up his rubbish, or at one of us for taking the piss out of him too much. Despite this, we grew to like Keith, and a lot of the time made a concerted effort to laugh with him, rather than at him. Sometimes though, it was just too hard not to, for we witnessed some truly spectacular Keith events. In no particular order, these are some of the wonderful things Keith did during the time I knew him:

- After getting fed up with his life, he tried to hang himself from a tree in the park with his old school tie. When in the tree we begged him not to do it, but he jumped anyway. The tie snapped. A month later he tried the same thing with one of his dad’s ties and the same thing happened, the tie snapped again.
- We made a small bike ramp over an old tree stump which we were riding over. Keith came over and asked to have a go. After taking an almighty run up, he hit the ramp, crashed, and broke his collar bone.
- From my mate’s kitchen window, we saw Keith coughing and spluttering outside during a hail storm and called him over. He could barely talk and it looked like he was struggling to breathe. He then started rubbing his throat frantically and after about 30 seconds said, “Ahh, that’s better”. When we asked him what had happened, he told us that he’d swallowed a hail stone the size of a golf ball and it had been stuck in his throat, so he had to melt it by heating his larynx up.
- He had a (not serious, but rather ugly) cyst removed from on his face, between the top of his nose and the corner of his eye. The cyst was about the size of a malteser. It grew back, three times.
- When the resident of one of the houses that backed onto the park told Keith off for being too loud, Keith started trying to climb over the high wooden fence to get to him. When he realised that he couldn’t get over, he picked up his own bike and threw it into the man’s garden in a fit of rage. He never got it back.
- He actually had a girlfriend for a brief period, a large girl by the name of Sarah. Quite disgustingly, he would get his todger out, hold it between his thumb and forefinger, and then waggle it at her saying, “Come and have a play”.
- He would climb onto the church roof and sing heavy metal songs to the empty graveyard, as if he was in concert. He once did this on a Sunday morning, when a service was on. Inevitably, he got told off, but Keith responded in the only way he knew how to; by running into the church and shouting ‘GOD’s NOT REAL’ over and over again.
- We built a rather impressive base in the woods, complete with roof. We went back the next day to find that Keith had demolished the whole thing in a drunken rage, and taken a poo on top of the debris.
- When he got really angry, or when trying to impress the younger kids, Keith would see how many times he could wrap a swing around the top support pole in one push, and then walk away with his hands in the air, fingers pointing skywards, nodding his head enthusiastically.

There are plenty of other anecdotes I could mention, but, I’m rambling. My uncle offered Keith some work; he wasn’t a bad lad, just a bit ‘different’ shall we say, and we needed an extra pair of hands to help with knocking up cement, moving bricks etc. My uncle had got to know Keith through various conversations in the park when he walked his dog and felt a bit sorry for him if truth be told.
Now all of the following happened in one single day to Keith at work. He’d been doing the job for a few weeks, with a few minor incidents, and he did continue to work for my uncle afterwards, but never lived this day down.

First, I was helping Keith to dig a soak away (a two metre deep x metre x metre hole for rainwater to drain into). We were shovelling the mud into a small dumpster type vehicle and then once full, driving it to the skip to empty. Keith liked driving the dumpster, but upon returning to where I was digging, he got out to walk to me, lit a cigarette, and fell straight down the hole. This made me laugh, and when I looked down at him, he just looked up at me and said, ‘ I forgot we’d dug that’.
Then, after lunch, my uncle asked Keith to cut down a small tree that was in the way of where some foundations had to go. He (scarily) gave him a chainsaw and left him to it. He returned a while later to find Keith trying to cut down the tree with a chisel and hammer, explaining that he was a bit scared of the chainsaw. My uncle asked why he hadn’t used a handsaw, to which Keith responded, ‘it’s a bit sharp’. Stifling laughter, my uncle then moved him inside to help insulate a loft. First Keith somehow managed to get wedged in the loft hatch. When he finally got into the loft, he fell through the ceiling after missing the rafters. He was told to go home for the rest of the day, and try and chill out a bit.

Keith, what a hero.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:15, 2 replies)

"When did you get married?"
"Eh?"
"That ring. When did you get married?"
"What, my THUMB ring?!"
"Yeah. When did you get married?"
(Mean Mad Mutski, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:13, Reply)

I got me one of those new fangled Playstation doofers
and wanted a Namco gun controller for it for shoot-em-ups. Funds were scarce, so imagine my delight when I saw one advertised in the Aberdeen Press and Journal for a tenner.

The seller was in Fraserburgh - not somewhere I'd normally go, but what the hell, it was a lovely Saturday morning and it's quite a scenic drive. Until you get to Fraserburgh, which at the time was one of the worst places in Europe for druggies.

So I wound up in a dingy flat with one of North East Scotland's finest examples of scum. I handed him a tenner. He handed me the Namco gun. Let's face it, it was probably nicked.

As I made to leave, he asked me, "by the way pal, where do you plug it in?"

"Same place you plug the normal controller."

"????"

"You know, on the Playstation?"

"It doesn't plug into the TV then."

"Er, no. Bye now!"
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:11, Reply)

Merkins....
A very high-flying American Banker lady came over on business to Canary Wharf from the US of A (holes). Rang in a panic from the lobby to say could someone come and pay her cabbie as she'd only got US Dollars and Euros.

Yes she didn't know what currency we use in the UK.
( Sallyrsm, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:10, Reply)

A woman in our Human Resources Department
was so thick that she treated the resources like humans. Obviously she didn't last long.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:08, 1 reply)

i have some colleagues with really unfortunate names
www.linkedin.com/pub/janet-aliya/1B/897/456

www.linkedin.com/in/waynekerr
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:02, 1 reply)

Job interview
"What's your worst quality?"
"My hair"

Yes, she was blonde.
(Mean Mad Mutski, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 14:01, 2 replies)

Americans
Upon telling an American colleague that I planned to fly from London home to Glasgow for the weekend, I was asked, "Do you need a passport to get back into Scotland?"

Said American colleague has been in the UK for two years.
(square go, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 13:57, 2 replies)

We once sent a colleague out for some tartan paint!
But he had the last laugh, as he returned with some paint... and a PROSTITUTE!!

We all laughed, including the prostitute.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 13:35, 4 replies)

Two gems from a colleague of mine
"Oh, Stacey, did you see Leslie Nielsen died?"

*pause*

"Did she work here?"

* * * * * * *

"Are there really spacemen?"

"Yes, on the Interational Space Station."

"What do spacemen eat?"

"Dehydrated food. Food with the water taken out."

"You're making that up. How would you know?"
(Generator cannot be named for legal reasons, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 13:26, Reply)

New starter
"I've got a meeting tomorrow afternoon"
"Oh yes?"
"Yes, I'm going to take along a notepad..."
"Ok yes, good idea!"
"But I had a question..."
"Sure, go ahead"
"Should I write notes in pen, do you think, or with a pencil?"

This was a trained barrister.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 13:21, 5 replies)

Jadeisms
I have a wonderful colleague who we occasionally refer to as Jade (as in Jade Goody of Big Brother Fame). My colleague is most definitely not stupid. However, she occasionally has what we term "Jadeisms". On the telephone one day, speaking with a customer she asks "What's your name Dave?" . . . . Facepalm.
(GsterMum, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:38, 1 reply)

Email I just received simply said
"Cheers!"

And I laughed.

No wonder people think I'm fucking weird.

With affection to Mr. Legless

Cheers!
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:26, 19 replies)

The IT dept in my work
are installing the computer systems for some of the buildings at Media City in Salford. Last year me and a few other techs sat in horror and disbelief during a meeting as we watched their presentation for running the building on the Win XP OS.

When asked why they were installing PC's when all the clients will be using FCP Studio, they responded:

"PC's are much more reliable and greener for the environment, they use less power. And lets face it, Windows XP is much more stable now compared to OS X, it's been out longer"

We pointed out once again the use of Final Cut and Pro tools etc and the response we got was:

"Yeah we've thought of that, were going to install it on Windows"

I could hear the blood pressure in my colleagues brains pop a few blood vessels that day.
( Bamboo Steamer, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:15, 16 replies)

Hm
I worked with a Canadian girl who had a Masters degree from Oxford who was in a massive panic one morning because she thought she would get pregnant after her boyfriend (on the first night they spent together) splurged on to her stomach. They didn’t even have sex. She was under the impression his spunk would go down through her belly button and make her pregnant.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:13, 22 replies)

L*am F*x
My colleague has made a statement to the press that effectively accuses a large part of his professional workforce of being criminally incompetent and his predecessor of being maliciously wasteful all on the basis of an anonymous source published in a Murdoch Redtop and without bothering to ask his team whether there was the slightest bit of truth in the story. He's going to look a proper tit when it turns out to have been completely made up.

/liddlebiduvpoliticslaysngenelmen

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:13, 36 replies)

The Managing Director of the company I work for.
Would Interpretate things.
He would look for an escaped goat if things went wrong.
When buying things would talk to the prequirement officer.
He would ask for people to be more Pacific if he wanted them to clarify something in particular.

He'd regularly invent words to our amusement, unfortunately also to our dismay when he'd often do this in meetings with important clients.

He got 'made redundant' last year thank fock.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:08, 4 replies)

My MD (I don't know how he got there) has asked/made the following questions/statements:

How many days are there in a year (shouted across the office)

How many 0's are there in a million (in a finance meeting)

I'm not going change this contract free willy (i believe willy nilly was his intent)

in response to a spreadsheet he asked me to make him:

'you've put 0.01 is that 1%? are you sure 1% isn't 0.1? also have you taken into account BODMAS in your equations?'

Finally he wrote 'chau' at the end of an e-mail written to me and some german colleagues. I asked him what this was he replied (spoken) ciao and that it was the only german he knew
(Fennestrator, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 12:05, 10 replies)