Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[starry diadem]

Ah yes, sloppy communication. These days I'm impressed if they can just get the spelling right and not put apostrophes into plurals. I just saw this today on a restaurant sign: Field of Green's -- is the name of the eatery. Now, they can call it anything they want, it's their place. But the name implies that it belongs to Field of Green, not that it is a field of greens. Oh well, whatever.

Presumably, they stole the apostrophe from Starbucks.

[Hmmmmm]

This is making me grateful for my ILs, who always do what they can to baby proof their house when we bring Piratebabe over there.  And sometimes they'll miss a few things, likely because he wasn't quite that tall the last time they saw him, but they're good at swooping in to move something.  Usually while laughing and saying "Well I didn't think he'd be able to get to THAT already!" as they move it higher.

Toddlers have expandable arms, like Inspector Gadget.  A toddler sitting on your lap at the table can reach things that YOU can't reach!

I had to watch my little ones like a hawk at the IL's house.  MIL got her nose out of joint when I asked if her cleaning stuff could be moved out from under the kitchen sink.  You'd think from her reaction that it was an hour's job, at least -- but everything was in a plastic caddy and could have been moved in 10 seconds!

May I ask for how long a visit you were there?  Was it a overnight/multi-day visit?  I'm asking because I have a toddler neice and newphew who come with their parents for visits for an afternoon and I would never think to move things out of closed cabinent doors. But there are usually so many adults in the house that they never have a chance to get into too much mischief.

[hjaye]

When I was in college, my then GF now wife, had a suitemate who loved sour cream.  She would buy tubs of it and just eat it by the spoonful.  Until someone else in the room told her what sour cream was.  Whether it's done deliberately though a chemical process or naturally through aging, sour cream is "soured" cream.

She never considered the possibilities generated by the name.  Also she never really looked at what was in sour cream.  All the fats in it wouldn't really make it a good snack food in large quantities.  My wife said when she was told, she Ew'ed and didn't eat it again for the rest of the school year.  Evidently the fact that it was "sour" made it unsuitable for consumption, even after being told that being "sour" was OK and not bad (except in the calorie department) for you.

So if you leave sour cream out on the kitchen counter all night...... does it go good?

[lowspark]

lowspark wrote:

"I just saw this today on a restaurant sign: Field of Green's -- is the name of the eatery. Now, they can call it anything they want, it's their place. But the name implies that it belongs to Field of Green, not that it is a field of greens. Oh well, whatever."

To me, that name is the same as saying Green's Field.  That is, a field that belongs to someone named Green.  I agree that it's probably not what they meant, though.

Virg

I went to this restaurant a few weeks ago with my DD and her vegan friend. I think they figured out their mistake because their website just has Field of Green but their sign still has Field of Green's.  Honestly, I didn't think much of it, but DD and her friend were both highly amused by that errant appostrophe.  They wanted to ask to meet Mr or Mrs Green.

Off topic, but... was it any good? It's pretty close to my office but I've never eaten there. It doesn't sound tempting.

[gramma dishes]

lowspark wrote:

"I just saw this today on a restaurant sign: Field of Green's -- is the name of the eatery. Now, they can call it anything they want, it's their place. But the name implies that it belongs to Field of Green, not that it is a field of greens. Oh well, whatever."

To me, that name is the same as saying Green's Field.  That is, a field that belongs to someone named Green.  I agree that it's probably not what they meant, though.

Virg

I went to this restaurant a few weeks ago with my DD and her vegan friend. I think they figured out their mistake because their website just has Field of Green but their sign still has Field of Green's.  Honestly, I didn't think much of it, but DD and her friend were both highly amused by that errant appostrophe.  They wanted to ask to meet Mr or Mrs Green.

Off topic, but... was it any good? It's pretty close to my office but I've never eaten there. It doesn't sound tempting.

I was wondering the same thing.  I can envision two very different scenes.

One would be a "field"  (huge counters/tables/cases) filled with an incredible plethora of choices of different kinds of salads and fresh cool fruits and veggies.  Yum yum.

The other is a bunch of cattle chomping down in a field, pooing and f-rting as they go, oblivious to their surroundings other than the greens they're chewing in that funny sideways mouth movement. 

I wonder which image, if either, the name is trying to evoke?   

[blue2000]

When I was in college, my then GF now wife, had a suitemate who loved sour cream.  She would buy tubs of it and just eat it by the spoonful.  Until someone else in the room told her what sour cream was.  Whether it's done deliberately though a chemical process or naturally through aging, sour cream is "soured" cream.

She never considered the possibilities generated by the name.  Also she never really looked at what was in sour cream.  All the fats in it wouldn't really make it a good snack food in large quantities.  My wife said when she was told, she Ew'ed and didn't eat it again for the rest of the school year.  Evidently the fact that it was "sour" made it unsuitable for consumption, even after being told that being "sour" was OK and not bad (except in the calorie department) for you.

So if you leave sour cream out on the kitchen counter all night...... does it go good?

 

[Roodabega]

...She never considered the possibilities generated by the name.  Also she never really looked at what was in sour cream.  All the fats in it wouldn't really make it a good snack food in large quantities.  My wife said when she was told, she Ew'ed and didn't eat it again for the rest of the school year.  Evidently the fact that it was "sour" made it unsuitable for consumption, even after being told that being "sour" was OK and not bad (except in the calorie department) for you.

So if you leave sour cream out on the kitchen counter all night...... does it go good?

It very well might, but I'm not sure I want to be the tester of that. 

[Yarnspinner]

I really felt for this lady, but after explaining 50 times and apologizing 100 more times that there was NOTHING I could do to help her, I was sort of feeling less sympathetic by the moment.

We have downloadable e-books available at our library.  The method for downloading them used to be pretty straight forward:  you would go to the site, choose the book and type in your library card number and hook your kindle or nook up, et voila!  the book would download for three weeks.

Suddenly the method changed (and I freely admit that I do not know how to use it exactly because I just pay to download the cheapie books and take out the regular books from the library) and there are some new steps that take you to amazon where you have to have an account now.  And suddenly the site is allowing other books that have to be downloaded in adobe, which not all kindles (especially the old ones) seem to have.

This woman spent two hours on our internet access computers trying to download several ebooks that insisted she first download adobe to her kindle (which we tried to do and the source promptly said her device was not compatible) or sent her to amazon and she would burst out in all kinds of whining about "She never had to do that before"...but strangely enough she had an account with them, so she must have done this before.

My coworkers and I all took a crack at it and followed all directions to a T.  Other folks have been following these instructions and getting good results but for some reason, this lady's kindle absolutely refused to load.  I *think* part of the problem was that she didn't have a kindle connector thingie (do you love my knowledge of technical jargon?) but was using a generic one that happened to be in our lost and found box because, you know, we are completely responsible for her being so nervous about being FORCED (yes forced) to download books that she forgot her own connector at home. 

 All the while, the woman sat and wailed that she was wasting her life doing this and it was so painful and the world was hateful and we (of course) were incompetent and made noises that could only be described as coming from someone who was constipated.  Lather rinse and repeat.  Every thirty seconds she would cry out "Isn't there someone here who KNOWS how to help me?  Who can I CALL?" or "I HATE having to do this, but I am FORCED to because I cannot afford to BUY them and I REFUSE to carry FIVE LIBRARY BOOKS TO EUROPE WITH ME!!!!!!!"  (Uh--please, if you are going to Europe, you don't need to take five of our books with you.  In fact, don't take any of them with you because if you cannot remember your connector, I suspect you cannot remember the book(s) you brought with you, either.)

Ma'am we are doing our best.  There were other books that download in the old way.  Telling me over and over again that "The other lady knew what she was doing" doesn't help as I am the ONLY lady in this department and the only other lady quit six months ago and no, I am NOT going to call her at her new job and ask her to drive the thirty miles back here to help you.  And please, stop grunting.  It's making me want to throw up.

[gramma dishes]

I feel equally sorry for you and the poor old lady!! 

I'm hopelessly incompetent with all things electronic, but I'm very very good at following directions to the letter.  Unfortunately, many instructions are written with the idea that some things are just 'obvious' so they don't include those steps.  (For me, it would need to start with something like "Push the button to turn your computer on!")

But I've also been on the other end.  Sometimes someone seems to think erroneously that I look like I know what I'm doing, so they'll ask for help.  And just like you, although I can do 'that' (whatever it is) on my own equipment, I can't do it on that other person's. 

So my sympathies.  Sorry you had to deal with that.  But minus the moaning and groaning (which I might have substituted with a little mild swearing), she could have been me.   

[Twik]

Ah yes, sloppy communication. These days I'm impressed if they can just get the spelling right and not put apostrophes into plurals. I just saw this today on a restaurant sign: Field of Green's -- is the name of the eatery. Now, they can call it anything they want, it's their place. But the name implies that it belongs to Field of Green, not that it is a field of greens. Oh well, whatever.

Presumably, they stole the apostrophe from Starbucks.

Maybe it's owned by someone named Green? In which case, it's rather witty.

[Piratelvr1121]

This is making me grateful for my ILs, who always do what they can to baby proof their house when we bring Piratebabe over there.  And sometimes they'll miss a few things, likely because he wasn't quite that tall the last time they saw him, but they're good at swooping in to move something.  Usually while laughing and saying "Well I didn't think he'd be able to get to THAT already!" as they move it higher.

Toddlers have expandable arms, like Inspector Gadget.  A toddler sitting on your lap at the table can reach things that YOU can't reach!

I had to watch my little ones like a hawk at the IL's house.  MIL got her nose out of joint when I asked if her cleaning stuff could be moved out from under the kitchen sink.  You'd think from her reaction that it was an hour's job, at least -- but everything was in a plastic caddy and could have been moved in 10 seconds!

Tell me about it. We have a bookshelf with a cabinet by the right end of our living room couch and the lowest shelf is on level with the arm of the chair.   One day DH put a cup of juice on the bottom shelf, thinking the little guy couldn't get it.  Well he did and he spilled it.  I, not knowing it was DH's cup, started to yell at my older two thinking it was them but DH said "That's mine! I didn't know his arms could reach that far!!"

[Shalamar]

Speaking of sour cream, my ex-FIL used to brag about how he only drank skim milk ("anything else tastes too rich to me"), but he'd eat sour cream by the spoonful.  He also loved piling tons of whipped cream on chocolate cake (not that there's anything wrong with THAT ...). 

[lilfox]

Work is always a good source of brain-hurts.

I need to request approval to travel to a conference (first of several this year).  The way travel works, you either set aside funds for it in your project budget or you use general budget X.  This year we have significant cutbacks so using budget X is not an option.  No problem, since I set aside enough travel budget to cover all the conferences /meetings I should attend this year.

Well this year travel is being heavily scrutinized so now I need approval from two levels of management.  That's fine, of course, cuts down on frivolous spending.  The problem is, if the travel is not approved, they take that money away from my budget.  So I'm supposed to set aside money out of my already tight budget for trips I consider essential to the success of the project, but if I can't convince upper management then I lose the money.  That's painful, but okay, I get it, that money is considered "extra."

Nope, the real brain-hurty part is that apparently there is a set of 'code words' that will help get approval, and 'trigger words' that will almost always earn a rejection.  Lest you think a trigger would be something simple like "it's close to where my family lives/I've always wanted to go to that city," oh no.  Triggers include "publicizing company research" and "networking with other subject matter experts" and "building scientific credibility" - you know, the actual POINT of a conference.

So for the same conference, as long as I use the exact right words, I will probably get to go.  But if I justify it in a slightly wrong way, then no.  I feel like the managers have a hand over a buzzer and the minute I say the wrong thing, ZAP, sorry you lose.

Morale is ... not high.

[o_gal]

I'm hopelessly incompetent with all things electronic, but I'm very very good at following directions to the letter.  Unfortunately, many instructions are written with the idea that some things are just 'obvious' so they don't include those steps.  (For me, it would need to start with something like "Push the button to turn your computer on!")

And then there's the opposite problem - when you are dealing with people who are expert at computers and think they can short-cut the extremely detailed directions, and then what they are doing fails.

At work, we were switching the computers in our common lab to a new OS. This entailed changing the setup of Outlook, and once you converted you could not go back. So everyone had to pick a time when they were willing to switch. I was the first one to switch, and I went to the help desk for instructions. The tech there wrote extremely detailed directions and said that you had to follow them to.the.letter or they would not work. She was correct and they worked fine for me.

So I posted her exact instructions on a wall in the common area. And I underlined her instruction to do it exactly as written. People in my work group knew that I had done it successfully, so when things blew up in their faces, they would come whining to me. I would ask what they had done and invariably, they would shortcut a crucial step - they knew that normally you could do X, then Z, and that step Y was irrelevant in normal course of action. But when switching over, it was crucial that you did X, THEN Y, then Z. And then they would get mad that first they had to call the help desk and have their account cleared so they could begin at step A again. But usually they then did the instructions exactly right :-)

[Margo]

Speaking of sour cream, my ex-FIL used to brag about how he only drank skim milk ("anything else tastes too rich to me"), but he'd eat sour cream by the spoonful.  He also loved piling tons of whipped cream on chocolate cake (not that there's anything wrong with THAT ...). 

That doesn't hurt my brain at all (except the bragging part)
as I feel the same. I use skim milk, and find anything else feels/tastes really greasy in tea or coffee, and really rich in other situations - like drinking cream.
I like cream on desserts etc but I don't want to drink it :-)