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.

The 17-yr old who turned up to be interviewed for a Saturday job with us....at the end he told us he couldn't actually work Saturdays because he played football that day.

I just ring up, and when they ask for the account holder, I just say "ok, hold on............. This is she".

Try putting a simple message on a class parents watts app! It's comical.

Worked in a car dealership on the service desk.
Guy comes in and says his car is leaking.
Mechanics have it on water test the rest of the day and not a drop entered the car.
I phoned the customer to quiz him for any more information.
”oh aye, hen, it only leaks when the windae is open!”
🤯
He was taxi driver and it turned out he just wanted one of those small covers for the top of his window so that he could open to talk to his customers without rain entered the car.

I work in IT in an FCA regulated industry and due to audits I formalise sign-off for any documents related to IT changes.
I send an email to the approvers with a "table" included stating Project name, name and version number of document they are approving etc.
I ask them specifically to copy and paste the table into their reply and complete their name and date of approval.
It's very simple.
What I get back is an email saying "happy to sign off", nothing else.
Grrrr

My girlguiding group prior to a camp, I send out email saying
'Your daughter is responsible for everything she brings, please name everything she brings to camp'. With reminders sent out saying same thing

Post camp parent messages 'my daughter has lost her uniform please can you return it' Me "did you name it". Parent 'no, I didn't know I needed to'! And this is in an affluent village where many parents have very high powered 6 figure jobs, seriously, how do they get these jobs!

Others include 'please send your daughter in trousers as we may be going near prickly bushes on a walk'. Then at least a quarter turn up in shorts and sandals and moan when their child has some scratches.

'The next group your child will go to operates on a Tuesday or Thursday, which should be put her down for'. Parent replies 'Wednesday please'.

Does your child have any food allergies
Parent - 'she is allergic to dairy so made make sure she doesn't have any eggs'
Me 'is she allergic to dairy or eggs'
Parent 'allergic to dairy, can't have eggs but please give her ice cream as she will be very upset otherwise'
Me 'sorry we don't have any dairy free ice cream on camp, could you bring some in later today please'
Parent 'oh no, normal ice cream is fine'

NHS appointment booking clerks don’t listen either. Drives OH nuts as he needs several appointments every month for his cancer treatment meaning he had to ring several different people. He always says he needs a blood test appointment for Monday specific date because he has an infusion on the Thursday - they offer Thursday or Friday and he has to patiently tell them it’s too late as the cancer nurses need the blood test results before the Thursday morning to issue the treatment bag. Then they offer him the Monday before which is too early because the cancer nurses need a blood test within 3 days ahead of treatment. Finally, they give him the Monday appointment he originally asked for! It’s as if they just want to be difficult for the sake of it.

I knew the bin left in the middle of the driveway was on purpose!! 😂

So how does that conversation go?

BT: we've been informed the account holder has died, are you her?
You: this is she, id like to close my account, thanks
BT: OK.

😂😂

The thing is, I can actually believe that would happen judging by some of the customer service people I've spoken to in the past.

😂😂

Absolutely agree with this, lots of country roads and lots of cyclists near me equals lots of idiots tailgating aggressively when they can surely see it's not safe to overtake?!

I fucking love the word cretin. My English teacher used it a lot, back in the 80s. Not to me, I might add! I really don't think that using it these days is insulting to the original cretins. Same as "moron", I doubt many people know the origin of the word. It just means exceptionally stupid, and rolls nicely off the tongue.

My English teacher did once ask me why I was "masticating" at the back of the classroom. I've never seen a group of pupils turn their heads so fast. I was chewing gum.

A friend posted on Facebook that he'd written "a Wikipedia bio of John Ward, who discovered new species of sharks in the coal mines of Stoke-on-Trent!" and I clicked the link because I was so surprised at the thought of sharks swimming around in the coal mines of Stoke-on-Trent...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ward_(geologist)

I'm dead clever, me :-)
Jo

You never make mistakes yourself op?

You could go for the Bugs Bunny pronunciation...

"Nyah...whadda mah-roooon!"

I made a request to another team last week for 4 bits of information. All related so one email wasn't unreasonable and also bullet pointed and highlighted for clarity.

It took another 3 emails to get everything.

I can't work out if it's a sheer inability to read and comprehend or passive aggression at being asked to do their job.

I also love the word cretin. My son created a portmanteau of cretin and retard whereby he called me a “cretard » when I made a daft mistake-all in a loving manner of course!

I've already answered this question up thread.

The reading comprehension ones are especially funny to me since often you read a post on MN with the OP saying something along the lines of "I'm divorced and I work full time" and the first post replying to OP will be "are you divorced OP?" Or "Do you work OP?"

Yeah, I remember realising that, even at age 14, my kids were more intelligent than a lot of the adults they came across in public life. As a kid you're just kind of brought up to think that adults know everything, aren't you, and you don't question it. You question yourself, wondering if YOU'VE misunderstood somethihng or got something wrong when an adult appears to say something stupid. It's a gradual realisation that most people's IQ's are quite low.

And slow.

Omg this 1000 times. Yes don't hit the cyclist obviously but SLOW THE FUCK DOWN AND WAIT IT WON'T KILL YOU - WHEREAS OVERTAKING ON A BLIND BEND (or indeed not a blind bend but when you can plainly see there is oncoming traffic) QUITE POSSIBLY WILL 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

It's not about making mistakes is it? It's not reading or following very clear, simple instructions or failing to apply a primary level of common sense..dead people can't speak about their bank account. Tuesday OR Thursday does not include Wednesday.

I think it's partly due to the idea that there's always a back up, a fail safe, someone else will pick it up so if you don't pay close attention it doesn't matter. I teach teens. It's incredibly difficult to make them believe that they WILL be removed from an exam if caught making eye contact or mouthing anything or "forget" they have phone or smart watch. They get given so many chances in every other scenario, a parent swoops in and rescues or fixes a problem, we send eleventy billion messages and reminders and things still get forgotten but we have to keep spares so it doesn't really matter.

This is so true.

There is no accountability for many people now. There is often someone else who can pick up the mess or solve the problem for them.

My grandmother always says that people treat their jobs like coats; some put them on properly and button them up; some sling them over their arms.

I think my conclusion is most carrots nowadays don’t bother with any coat at all!