To wonder why people are such morons?!

[proximalhumerous]

Semi-lighthearted...

First moronic occurrence: Received an email yesterday copied to four people, so six people in the conversation altogether. Let's call them Alice, Ben, Charlotte, Dan, Emily, plus me.

So Ben had written to ask me to say in advance whether I need a particular item on a particular day. This item is provided by Dan. If I do need said item I should email Ben, copying in Alice, Charlotte and Emily. But not Dan. So basically now everyone is now in the loop apart from the one person who actually provides the item.

Second moronic occurrence: I emailed someone (not Alice, Ben, Charlotte, Dan, or Emily, as it happens!) requesting to book a room for a specified date in July. This person said she would check whether it was free. She then proceeded to write to all the other clients who make bookings for this room to ask whether they are using it on X date - which is an entire fortnight before I actually need it.

Third moronic occurrence: I wrote to ask for a refund for a train ticket, explaining that, owing to delays, I had had to purchase a new ticket and catch the following service on that route (a four-hour journey) half an hour later. I was asked whether I had used both tickets.

Please make me feel better with other tales of people's idiocy.

Yep.

I live near a historic, single-lane, traffic-light-controlled bridge. As you wait for the lights to change, big green and white signs at both ends say 'DONT OVERTAKE THE CYCLISTS'. On the bridge there are BIG symbols of bikes painted on the road, facing both ways, clearly indicating that cyclists HAVE PRIORITY.

The number of drivers who still overtake them is astonishing and dispiriting.

This would drive me nutty, I couldn't work with such numpties. I don't like the one question email idea either. I send a numbered list, most people answer each point, so out of 10 or 12 issues we immediately resolve say 8.

My pet hate is being cc’d into an email with a trail of 10 messages going back and forth like a ping pong competition, it comes to me and it’s complete and utter rot 🙄
Not sure what they want me to do with it?
Then some information comes to me that’s inaccurate and has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Oooh, I can relate to that.

My partner died. I was the executrix. Long story with one branch of Barclays. I won't go into details but I will never bank with them again.

Thames Water, who I also informed why they should address the bills to me from now on, sent me a cheery letter congratulating me on moving into my new house and hoped I'd be very happy there.

My last CEO who was a Dr, explained that the reading age had gone down from aged 11 to 9. I found that frightening.

@CantHoldMeDown , innit ,just, As I moved through the degree levels there was always the 'promise' that each level had higher levels of 'thinking' and it never did. To get through every level of academic thinking mostly required regurgitating the 'prescribed' reading with a tip of the hat towards the tutor's stance. Can't say too much and remain within the word limits. The Safe Essay.

And when we drill down in our reading, if you're researched based, I found that so many, too many, academically accepted research studies were/are nothing more than regurgitations of previous research studies, providing no new evidence, just opinion and accepted (academically) and used as a valid reference henceforth.

Because, whilst going through the various academic levels a prerequisite is to only refer to academically-referenced material. And so absurd info carries on as near fact, coz a published source says so.

And then you can get a Critical Thinking module which is anything but, just more of the same old with a different name. Nothing to do with proper thinking things through at all.

I find it fascinating. The “cretins” were often to be found in the Swiss Alps, something to do with lack of iodine in the water or soil. They had thyroid problems so often had stunted growth or goitres.

The woman today at the fuel station who decided to fuel up with a queue behind her and then go and spend 15 minutes doing a mini shop ( A Tesco station) leaving her car parked up at the pump rather than moving it to the side car park

The main client I deal with on a regular basis at work. (I do a practical/creative job, he is the middle man between me and the end customer) He constantly reminds me how they've been a loyal client for 20 years, but his lack of knowledge about pretty basic stuff, (for our industry) makes it seem like he's worked there about 20 minutes. Each time I think I couldn't get a more stupid request, im proved wrong.

Without getting into specifics, he'll write out some instructions that either do not make sense, or are impossible to do for thst particular item. I'll send back a detailed explanation of why x, y or z will not work and offer alternative solutions. His reply is nearly always to simply copy out the original request again....
sometimes i feel like a broken record - no, that is not possible, please see my response dated ....

Obtuse, dense, thick. That’s all I can think of now

Not long ago I had to have a blood test to check if I was pregnant or not (as I’d had 2 positive and 2 negative at home test and was on medication that I needed to take but couldn’t if I had been pregnant) I called reception to ask if the result was back and the receptionist refused to tell me over the phone said I would need a GP appointment. They couldn’t offer me one for 3 weeks!
I explained about medication and not being able to take it if I didn’t know and she agreed she could give me the result over the phone. She said “no action required” apparently that was all she was allowed to say and kept repeating it.
I explained again that it wasn’t helpful and I needed to know, she then spoke to her colleague and explained the whole things and I could hear the lovely receptionist in the background saying “good grief just tell her she’s not pregnant”

@CantHoldMeDown absolutely -but maybe fill up and pay and move your car off the pumps if you want to do an actual shop and not just grab a twix etc

I had one of those car accident 'phone calls, I decided to play with him and strung him along for quite a while. The guy told me they use a firm of solicitors, and named them. I asked for a number to speak to them direct, but he gave be all sorts of BS as to why I couldn't, when I said I needed to hang up, but would call him back, he insisted I only call on the 'phone I was speaking on.
I checked out the solicitors, and called them, I explained what had happened, the woman at the solicitors insisted they don't deal with companies like that. I kept reassuring her I knew, and I was advising them that their name was being used in connection with this scam set up. She just kept reiterating that her company doesn't operate like that. She just couldn't grasp what I was telling her.

This one is sadly very common with not only phone companies, and is obviously the very last thing a bereaved family member needs at such a difficult time. Words fail me when widowed friends relate these stories

Our bin men are outstanding at this, really going above and beyond.

They carefully position the bins to block both the driveway and the footpath and positioned on the edge of road so causing a hazard to drivers as the section immediately outside our driveway is quite narrow and there's often a car parked on the other side of the road and on it's on a bend (fortunately it's a very quiet road but it's still annoying that they seem to find the worst possible place to leave it in).

I do complain and it improves for a few weeks before they do it again and I'm sure it's no coincidence that they've 'accidentally' smashed two of our bins in the lorry machinery meaning we have no bin for a few weeks until its replaced.

The driveway positioning reminds me of another example of stupidity. I get hire cars delivered to home to use for work trips. We have a driveway and there's a huge empty parking area at the side of our house.

Take a guess where, out of the following 3 options do the delivery people leave the cars:

A.on the huge empty parking area (which is unrestricted, no lines, signs or obvious ownership, parking restrictions where we are aren't particularly common).

B. on our driveway, which will usually block in one of our own vehicles and take up the space we use for the other one, meaning we have to do a load of shuffling around to get the cars where we need them.

C. Half on the footpath and half on the narrow section of road on the bend outside our front garden

In case you haven't worked it out, it's mostly C, option B a good proportion of the time and very very occasionally the first and to me the most suitable choice.

I don't understand it. I provide instructions in the booking. Every time they ask me to review 'my hire car experience' I mention it and yet they seem to deliberately leave the car parked both dangerously and illegally.

And no, I'm not rude to them. I'm nice, polite and gratefully thankful for the service they provide.

Client number one: Can you confirm how long we’ll have the product of the week slot?

Think that one through in your head…

Me to client number two: We can’t upload a PDF as an image. Please can you send an image file?
Client: What’s an image file?
Me: Ask your designer for a file ending in .jpg or .tiff.
Client resends PDF, but renames it “Image.jpg”.

Hired a gardener to de-weed the garden. He arrived without any tools, looked around, patted the soil a bit and said I can't do it as I don't have the tools and left. The garden was a small normal garden.

Same with someone a few years ago who had to clear out rubbish shoved in a shed. Arrived without bin bags and proceeded to bring the smelly, dusty items 1 by 1 through the house. He was a handyman who had been told what the job was before he came.

My mother was told she should have given a week’s notice to close down my grandfather’s phone account. She replied that unfortunately he hadn’t told her in advance that he’d planned to collapse suddenly and die.

I believe this is lighthearted, and no idiots have been harmed in the making of this thread.

A filter lane wouldn’t usually last for half a mile. Stay left, allowing other cars to overtake you, until you need to get in lane for your turning.

Idiot and cretin were Aldo medical terms at one point.

There's actual concern now that ChatGPT is getting worse rather than better, AI models are now consuming a lot of their own data - they’ve already ‘polluted’ the Internet, so becoming less accurate.

Ultimately they’ll get to the point where they won’t be based on enough original human material. At the same time that humans get less capable as a result of using AI.

Wasn't British gas was it?
They are useless fuckers
My mother's father died and she rang tham to cancel his account/claim any overpaid money
They kept repeating that they needed to speak to him but she kept saying 'he's dead!'
In the end she snapped 'what do you want me to do?get a psychic to phone him?' and they agreed!
Took about 4 months and going much higher to sort it out
I swear that horrid bastard was up there laughing at her