Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Merry Mrs Martin]

  I have two from when I worked in jewelry......
A phone call
  Hi my diamond fell out how much to replace it?

Do you know the size?

about the size of the little half moon thing on my pinky finger  ( the  lunula I had to look it up again)

Well since you're not here I'm really not sure how big your fingers are. If you purchased it here and have the receipt , I can look up the info for you. Did you buy it here?

No ,  but it's the size of the half moon part ....goes on to try to clarify which part of her fingernail she was talking about,since neither of us could remember the word lunula

But people's fingers and halfmoons are all different sizes I really cant tell from  that description without seeing your finger.If you bring in the ring we can figure about what size is appropriate or .................

We discuss the relative size of her lunula and diamonds.  with a lot of "but I can not see  your finger to see how big it is" "It's my pinky"

Please come in.....

But how much will it be?

I can find something in your price range whatever it is.  Wait , maybe I can guess with some other info. When  and where did you buy the ring and how much was it then?

OH  I don't want to tell you that, you'll just charge me that then and not give me a good price.

If you come in and show me the rest of the ring I can figure out a price for you, I really need some idea of the size.

IT;'s the size of the half moon...... ** OK you may be thinking this is nuts , but I am a professional I know the difference between crazy and wanting to spend money**

OK is the halfmoon part of you fingernail the size of a pea? I held while she got a pea.  At some point early on she was told " diamonds range anywhere in price form $20- 200,000.  Most of the engagements rings here sell for between $1000 and $8,000" and latter "the biggest halfmoon I'd ever seen would be around $5,000"  by this time we were communicating only in halfmoon measurements..  This range was not narrow enough.  So we discussed peas and halfmoons until we got it down to a $1000 range, she did buy the replacement diamond from us and the price was within the range.

The other I don't recall as much of the exchange but " I will like to know if my repair is complete?" while it seems like an easy question....... if you are unwilling to provide your name , ticket number , address , phone number and don't remember exactly when you dropped it off or who with only that it was a bracelet and the clasp was broken well I really will not be able to find it.....I figured it was the saleslady who was best at dealing with nutty people *to spite the previous exchange this wasn't me, I had no where near the tolorance this woman had*


 

[Iris]

I walked into a 5th grade math class once. The teacher was saying, "You never, ever, ever divide a large number into a small one!" OK. Maybe this is why we have so much trouble teaching math in middle and high school.

Then how would you know what percentage 44 is of 1500? 
Actually, I was going to bring this up in this thread as something that not only makes my brain hurt, but makes the brain of the person trying to explain to me why this works, to hurt even more.  While I accept that it does work, I have always wondered why, and no one seems able to explain it, resulting in their becoming more and more frustrated and eventually angry.

I don't quite understand the question. Do you mean you can't follow the method of division, or that you don't understand the concept of something small being divided by something large? Or is it specifically percentages that you don't follow?

[Maujer]

^^^^
That goes along with:
Them: HI I need to speak to Bob
Me: Sure, I have 3 here in the office; which one would you like?
Them: Bob in X Dept
Me: Well this is X Dept are you looking for Bob A, Bob B or Bob C
Them: (getting angry) I just want to talk to BOB!
Me: Okay, can I ask what this is in regards to? (thinking I can figure it out this way)
Them: NO! It's personal! Just transfer me to Bob
Me: Well can I have your name so I can see if Bob is available to take your call (I'll hunt each down if I have to!)
Them: (really angry now) NO! JUST GET ME TO BOB! ARE YOU THIS INCOMPETENT?
Me: One moment please... (grab first Bob I see) are you expecting a personal call from someone who doesn't know which Bob you are. If not do you know which one of you it is? No okay on to the second Bob.

<swearing to myself NEVER to name my kid BOB! I hear Claudius is a nice name)

Whenever I cover for the receptionist at my job, I want to bang my head against the wall. Note: If you are calling any decent sized company in Boston, do not ask for a Sean, Ryan, Daniel, John, or David without a last name. We have oodles of all of them.

[BabylonSister]

I ran into a teacher who thought AD meant After Death. I bit my tongue and did not ask her what happened to the 30 odd years between BC and AD.  (She meant after death of Christ)

Wasn't it here that a lot of people admitted they had always thought that's what it stands for? Even the kids I teach - I drum it into them, make them repeat it, and in the next test, what happens? Same stupid answer. I feel like screaming, "It's Anno Domini! Anno Domini!!"

I've heard a (Christian!) preacher say that and also that BC stands for Before Crucifixion. He was, erm, a little full of himself in general so I knew it would be a waste of time to try to correct him.


I heard another preacher say that Christians and Muslims don't have the same God because "The Muslims' God is Allah." 

[starbuck]

My sister and I both keep hens. We ran across a woman at a party who told us she thought it was "gross" to eat something that emerged from the hind end of a chicken. My sister said, oh you avoid eggs then? just making conversation and the woman replied that no, she eats eggs but only the kind that are made in a factory.  I said well all eggs come from hens even factory farmed eggs but no, she insisted her eggs were not factory "farmed" but factory "made" as in totally synthetic, because she would never eat anything that came of a chicken "like that." Good grief.

[mariejkt]

My sister and I both keep hens. We ran across a woman at a party who told us she thought it was "gross" to eat something that emerged from the hind end of a chicken. My sister said, oh you avoid eggs then? just making conversation and the woman replied that no, she eats eggs but only the kind that are made in a factory.  I said well all eggs come from hens even factory farmed eggs but no, she insisted her eggs were not factory "farmed" but factory "made" as in totally synthetic, because she would never eat anything that came of a chicken "like that." Good grief.

This one reminds me of something my son said happened at school one day.  Him and his friends were talking about meat (I have know clue why) and he said hamburger comes from a cow and a kid argued with him say no it doesn't it comes from the grocery store.  It is so sad that people don't know where their food comes from.

[Iris]

My sister and I both keep hens. We ran across a woman at a party who told us she thought it was "gross" to eat something that emerged from the hind end of a chicken. My sister said, oh you avoid eggs then? just making conversation and the woman replied that no, she eats eggs but only the kind that are made in a factory.  I said well all eggs come from hens even factory farmed eggs but no, she insisted her eggs were not factory "farmed" but factory "made" as in totally synthetic, because she would never eat anything that came of a chicken "like that." Good grief.

This one reminds me of something my son said happened at school one day.  Him and his friends were talking about meat (I have know clue why) and he said hamburger comes from a cow and a kid argued with him say no it doesn't it comes from the grocery store.  It is so sad that people don't know where their food comes from.

I wondered if her mum told her that as a child in an attempt to get her to eat eggs...

Factory made eggs *shakes head in sadness*

[Harriet Jones]

Sounds like the Dresser Queen, who'd rather buy tomatoes from the store than have home-grown, since they were growing in *dirt*.

[exitzero]

^^^^
That goes along with:
Them: HI I need to speak to Bob
Me: Sure, I have 3 here in the office; which one would you like?
Them: Bob in X Dept
Me: Well this is X Dept are you looking for Bob A, Bob B or Bob C
Them: (getting angry) I just want to talk to BOB!
Me: Okay, can I ask what this is in regards to? (thinking I can figure it out this way)
Them: NO! It's personal! Just transfer me to Bob
Me: Well can I have your name so I can see if Bob is available to take your call (I'll hunt each down if I have to!)
Them: (really angry now) NO! JUST GET ME TO BOB! ARE YOU THIS INCOMPETENT?
Me: One moment please... (grab first Bob I see) are you expecting a personal call from someone who doesn't know which Bob you are. If not do you know which one of you it is? No okay on to the second Bob.

<swearing to myself NEVER to name my kid BOB! I hear Claudius is a nice name)

Whenever I cover for the receptionist at my job, I want to bang my head against the wall. Note: If you are calling any decent sized company in Boston, do not ask for a Sean, Ryan, Daniel, John, or David without a last name. We have oodles of all of them.

And the reverse, if your name is Sean, Ryan, Daniel, John or David, leave your last name or at least an extension  when you leave a message for me to call you back!

[Grancalla]

Years ago when I worked in a military hospital records section I had to do a bunch of paperwork to get the minimum security clearance necessary for my job.  I did fine until I got to the section about my spouse; Mr. Sirius was born in Britain, but at an Air Force base to parents who are U.S. citizens so he is a U.S. citizen by birth.  The paperwork only had two categories for foreign born spouses - resident aliens and naturalized citizens.  There was nothing in the paperwork about foreign-born U.S. citizens.  I came to a complete halt.  I told my boss why I couldn't finish the paperwork, so she contacted the security people and told them what was happening.  Meanwhile, they're nagging me to finish the paperwork, and I can't, even going so far as to threaten to pull my security clearance so I couldn't do the job I was doing. 

Finally, about two weeks later, my boss informed me that the paperwork had been fixed, and I finished it.  What amazed me was that, with all the people in the military who have had children overseas, no one thought to include a category for family members who are foreign-born U.S. citizens.  Mr. Sirius, who was an active duty military member at the time, told me he ran into the same thing when he had to do the paperwork.

A cubicle-mate at a former job ran into a similar problem. He was born to US citizens, in a civilian hospital in a foreign country. Some of the people responsible for the paperwork kept wanting to classify him as a foreign national.

[oz diva]

I was once sitting in my car in the right turn lane and had my right indicator flashing. A man sitting in his car to my left was gesticulating wildly at me, so I turned down the window and he yelled "Your indicator is on!" "Yes, that's because I'm turning right", I said. Maybe his doesn't get much use. But that's what I do if I'm turning right.

[magician5]

I had a man once tell me that salt melted ice because "the salt absorbs the water". 

And DH has dealt me a couple of doozies. 

#1) that men have one less rib than women, because of the Adam and Eve story.
#2) that meat is not the muscle tissue of an animal, but something else called "flesh".

I am an intelligent person (well, they let me walk around unsupervised anyway), and until just a year or two ago (I'm 62) I believed the "one less rib" thing (though not the reason how this came to be).

[magician5]

This one reminds me of something my son said happened at school one day.  Him and his friends were talking about meat (I have know clue why) and he said hamburger comes from a cow and a kid argued with him say no it doesn't it comes from the grocery store.  It is so sad that people don't know where their food comes from.

True ... and most people couldn't tell a wild veal (with its huge claws) from a farmed veal, either. Not to mention those poor turduckens.

[oz diva]

I was at my brother's today and his daughter G (17). Bro was carving some ham and G asked if we also ate sheep.  This is the same girl who received the car (see other thread) so she has proved her intelligence, but she totally forgot that lamb is sheep and she is having it for dinner.

[PaintingPastelPrincess]

I will say, I hate trying to decipher the ship to "ONTARIO CA" comments in the system at work because CA is both the country code for Canada and the state code for California and people don't always think a zip code is necessary.  The country, of course, is "obvious."