Most stupid requests you've ever had at work?

paulmclaughlin · 18-01-2015 8:03pm

In the company I was working in, a piece of software was prone to randomly writing the wrong data to records. This had occurred an unknown amount of times.

My employer asked me to randomly check records in the hope of finding every error.

I had to explain to him that the software problem had to be fixed first then each record would have to be systematically checked for errors.

He responded "Oh, you do that then, you know what you're doing".

I was just doing data entry day-in day-out, I had no programming experience at the time and the software was used nationwide.

thelad95 · 18-01-2015 9:27pm

ViveLaVie wrote: »

I didn't make a fool out of her, she did that herself. My job is to teach the students to think critically. I genuinely thought once she questioned it she would realise herself.

If you'd just said no and rubbed the question off the board, I doubt anyone would've noticed. The student may have just seen a question on the board and without reading it, presumed it was intended for the class.

If the student genuinely thought the question was for the class, then congratulations you've probably damaged her self-esteem irreparably by making a gobshíte of her. A lot of other girls are probably bitching about her and this incident will be bought up now and again to continually haunt her.

I don't know you and I don't know your teaching or discipline style so this bit isn't necessarily aimed at you but I came across so many teachers in my time who would regularly make a gobshíte out of well-behaved students (just because they were accidentally late or didn't have their homework done on one accidental occassion), without having the balls to stand up to the students who genuinely were acting the gobshíte. Often former inter-county GAA players as others have mentioned.

Now, on the other side of it, it's a classic schoolboy/girl trick for someone to ask a stupid question to rile the teacher. We had one eejit in careers class who would always ask questions like
'When is the CAO exam?'
Can you apply for a PLC through the CAO?'
'Can you change your CAO after the deadline?'
'Are you meant to put courses in alphabetical order or in order of points?'
and the best of them all
'Can you buy CAO points with BitCoin?'

Again, Vivelavie, I'm not necessarily aiming this at you as I don't know if you fit into the category I'm talking about, but teachers in general should be careful what they say to students. You might forget the incident once you leave at 3.55pm but they may end up lying in bed at 1am thinking about the incident and how people laughed at them.

Just remember, the age-group you're dealing with are at a very delicate stage in terms of confidence and self-esteem and too many people leave the Irish secondary school system with their self-esteem destroyed not built up.

my teapot is orange · 18-01-2015 10:00pm

If I make an unsuccessful phonecall, i.e. I don't get through to the person I wanted to speak to, I have to note that in five different ways in different places/systems for each number I dialled, noting the time and date. I can spend 10-15 minutes noting that there is nothing new to report.

Shenshen · 18-01-2015 10:27pm

anncoates wrote: »

Most ably aided by yourself.

In her defense, I've seen students who never needed any help with that, and the girl she describes sounds a lot like them.

I met both of them when I was still at school myself.

Number one was in my geography class when we learned about continental divides (imaginary lines on a map that group rivers of a continent by which sea they flow into). The next lesson, the teacher gave us an unannouced test, part of which was a map of Western Europe with a request to draw in the continental divides (to Mediterranean, the Atlantic and North Sea, the Baltic and the Black Sea). I happily drew the line around all the sources of the rivers shown on a map, very straight forward.
However, one of my fellow students after handing in her paper spent the rest of the lesson pretty much shouting at the teacher about how unfair this test was, she hadn't been aware that she was supposed to learn all those lines of by heart, how could the teacher expect her to answer this question?
And no matter how many times the teacher tried to find another way of telling her "There's no need to learn the lines by heart, this is about showing that you can use your brain to apply a principle", there was no convincing her.

The other one spent a whole double-lesson in biology arguing with the teacher and refusing to accept that insects were not mammals. 2 weeks before we sat the German equivalent of the GSCE.

I would not blame ViveLaVie for trying to get a student to think. I would commend her for the effort.

heroics · 19-01-2015 10:34am

Deleted User wrote: »

Isn't that why they're the student and you're the teacher? If you just wanna encourage the attitude of being afraid to ask questions then fair enough. I'm only repeating what one good teacher taught me - "no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer".

If a student "has" to ask...? Come on man, a student is supposed to fcuking ask!

Beginning to think you are just trolling at this stage.

You obviously think that teaching/learning is giving the student the answers to every question. I don't agree with this. You can't teach everything in school/college that the person is going to need for the rest of their lives. Students need to be encouraged to think for themselves and be able to work out (in this case a very simple) problem not just have every answer given to them. Problem solving is not just for Maths but for every part of life and in my opinion the teacher above was dead right to turn the question back on the student.

It is also possible as mentioned in another post the student was trying to wind the teacher up which was something we also used to do in school.

Laois_Man · 19-01-2015 10:48am

My first job out of college was customer support for a couple of IBM products

My very first call after onboard training was some gimp in Scandinavia I think giving out about how the software interface was causing ergonomic injuries to his employees and they were calling in sick the whole time....coz of our interface!

My very first call

I stayed for less than 2 years!

bucketybuck · 19-01-2015 10:51am

Grayson wrote: »

Someone here replied all to a mail thread to ask if they could be added to that mail thread.

Is it possible that the person is not part of the mailing thread, but was simply forwarded a particular mail by somebody who was, and so now want to be added to the mailing list?

Deleted User wrote: »

If a child asks you "excuse me sir/miss, what's 2+2?" you say "four". If you say anything else, you're not very much of a teacher.

Is this a joke?

my3cents · 19-01-2015 11:00am

bucketybuck wrote: »

Is it possible that the person is not part of the mailing thread, but was simply forwarded a particular mail by somebody who was, and so now want to be added to the mailing list?

I think the word "all" is used to mean everyone in the company with email, so no one in the company wouldn't get the email?

bucketybuck · 19-01-2015 11:02am

my3cents wrote: »

I think the word "all" is used to mean everyone in the company with email, so no one in the company wouldn't get the email?

I assume he meant "reply all", as in reply to everybody on the email, which is not necessarily everybody in the company.

TrustedApple · 19-01-2015 11:29am

Back in my work placement from college. My boss wonted me to make him a app for his business for both the Google play store and the apple app store. With me paying for both Dev licences for him.

He then wonted me to make a back end database for backing up all the old photos with no money to buy a server.

Guy had crazy ideas when he wonted me to pay for the projects lol

But the funny thing is there now banned from takeing on in turns lol

Stinjy · 19-01-2015 11:48am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Eh? I remember people like you from my own school days. I had to suffer people who's only ability to "teach" English or mathematics was based on them being an inter county hurler.

Responding to a genuine question with anything other than the answer, in your case a sarcastic smart ar$e "figure it out yourself" reply, only indicates a disinterested and lazy teacher. I mean no wonder kids in Ireland dislike education if you're what they have to suffer five days per week.

Please do us all a favor and find another job. Try scaffolding, because teaching isn't really working.

This... This is whats wrong with the irish education system ... Teachers spoon feeding and students expecting it... Then bam into college where you need to be able to think for yourself and do a bit of independent learning and its bloody difficult because we all happily sat through teachers spoonfeeding us... Telling students the answer isn't teaching and never will be.

However I have had teachers like the one above and in my experience they were the most fantastic teachers I've ever had. And I can safely say none of them were ever inter county hurlers, just great teachers....

Annnnnnyway back on topic

I joined a team in retail, very quickly realised none of them knew the first thing about computers they just about knew how to use the system they had to use as POS and every time something went wrong the IT guy was called out... He wasn't a particularly nice guy but I'm not sure I blame him with some of the stuff.... One day anyway something went wrong and they put me on the phone to him his fist instruction "press the start button, that is on your screen in the bottom left hand corner, now can you see 'my computer' written there" .... I swear I stopped him there... I understand why he was doing it the way he was but he musta thought I was a right eejit.....

We had many questions asked after that and I got the joy of answering them all ....

RainyDay · 19-01-2015 12:14pm

samapple789 wrote: »

He then wonted me to make a back end database for backing up all the old photos with no money to buy a server.

Flickr - 1 TB free storage of photos, with great control over security, and loads of options for tagging, grouping, indexing etc?

Ravenid · 19-01-2015 6:14pm

IM from user on 1st floor Leeds Site to me Tech Support Agent on 4th Floor Dublin Site:

"Hey, quick question. Is it me or is the 1st Floor printer on fire?"

Answer: Yes. Yes it was.

Mr. CooL ICE · 19-01-2015 11:58pm

Guy from a different department is from Finland and his English is pretty good, but not perfect. Whenever he has a query regarding grammar, or something like it, he usually sends me an IM. One day, he sends this:

"Does anything ever get torn asunder these days unless you are a sorcerer?"

coffee_cake · 19-01-2015 11:59pm

That's pretty funny. Intentionally, I mean

Irish Steve · 20-01-2015 2:03am

Phone rings.

Pick it up, senior manager on the other end.

How do I get this f**in computer to work, I've spent 15 minutes searching the keyboard for the any key, and I can't find it.

What error message did you get?

System had recovered from a serious error, press any key to continue.

Cue press of mute key on phone and several moments of hysterical laughter before composing a reply that wasn't offensive or inappropriate.

Capt'n Midnight · 20-01-2015 2:36am

bluewolf wrote: »

Okay class I'm going to try teach you some critical analysis and engage the brain a bit

How dare you not spoonfeed me answers you HURLER you!! How am I going to memorise an essay now?!

Here's a slightly different one - History question 5: "What was notable about the late 50s?" And your answer "My aunt who I live with used to have a parrot called Fifties who is now dead. The most notable thing about the late Fifties was his enormous appetite..."

slangamerican · 20-01-2015 2:38am

Once needed a couple to send in photo ID to complete a transaction, ended up with a holiday snap of the 2 of them on a boat, what made it worse was they couldn't understand why it wasn't acceptable

McDermotX · 20-01-2015 3:14am

Irish Steve wrote: »

Phone rings.

Pick it up, senior manager on the other end.

How do I get this f**in computer to work, I've spent 15 minutes searching the keyboard for the any key, and I can't find it.

What error message did you get?

System had recovered from a serious error, press any key to continue.

Cue press of mute key on phone and several moments of hysterical laughter before composing a reply that wasn't offensive or inappropriate.

You should have asked him if he could see the Kuh-tarl, Esc, and Pig-Up keys.

somesoldiers · 30-01-2015 12:56pm

somesoldiers wrote: »

I have noticed the word "ping" creeping into work conversations in my office. "I'll ping him an email", "I will ping that over to you". I must confess I cringe and feel a little bit of vomit build up every time someone uses it.

Can any IT types confirm whether "ping" should now replace send, ring, call, forward, etc and other verbs used in offices settings?

jimgoose wrote: »

Absolutely not. "Ping" refers to an ICMP Echo-Request, and is used to verify that whatever/whoever is supposed to be at the other end is indeed at the other end and able to respond. It has its uses between people, but none of the above are them. Unless the purpose is to make sure the other person is present and alive.

Flahavans have a new radio ad out now

"before the ...., before the emails start pinging,...before the..."

Blazer · 30-01-2015 1:04pm

slangamerican wrote: »

Once needed a couple to send in photo ID to complete a transaction, ended up with a holiday snap of the 2 of them on a boat, what made it worse was they couldn't understand why it wasn't acceptable

Should have asked them for the topless ones..they sound dumb enough to have sent them in.

bear1 · 30-01-2015 2:21pm

In 1 hour and 40mins I say goodbye the cesspit that I used to call an interesting job

Monday starts a new chapter in my life

ONTO THE PISS!!!

Wossack · 30-01-2015 3:23pm

Database admin decides he needs to save some space on their sql servers, so goes through C:\windows and deletes all files whose filenames are blue (opposed to normal uncompressed black), thinking that meant they were backed up and redundant.

Happy with his work, he scripts it, and runs it across another 23 servers before he cops the first one has keeled over.. and, like stars winking out in the night sky, the rest gradually follow suit

LoganRice · 30-01-2015 3:25pm

have you got any chewing gum plz

Magico Gonzalez · 30-01-2015 3:58pm

Wossack wrote: »

Database admin decides he needs to save some space on their sql servers, so goes through C:\windows and deletes all files whose filenames are blue (opposed to normal uncompressed black), thinking that meant they were backed up and redundant.

Happy with his work, he scripts it, and runs it across another 23 servers before he cops the first one has keeled over.. and, like stars winking out in the night sky, the rest gradually follow suit

If I was his boss I would have spent the weekend building a medieval catapult with which I would fire him from the top floor of the building face first into the street below, it would be my gift to the human race.

InReality · 31-01-2015 12:00am

IrishAlice wrote: »

I had a previous boss call me at my desk to come into her office and take a folder out of the press beside her.

Class

InReality · 31-01-2015 12:02am

montyrebel wrote: »

I work in a pound shop, the amount of times in a week you get asked "how much is this" makes you want to punch a fluffy animal in the face

pound shops cheat a bit now , somethings are not a pound

InReality · 31-01-2015 12:28am

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I can't get over this rage all the IT drones here are expressing at the fact that the "higher-ups" of their company don't know the ins and outs of their software systems.

Of course they don't! If they did then they wouldn't bother paying you to sort out that stuff.

Just to pre-empt the shrill cries of "You think they'd at least learn the basics!!". It's a complete waste of time. If I have a problem printing off a document, or connecting to the internet, then its a complete waste for my firm to have me crawling around on all fours pulling wires in and out of a computer. I get paid to do a job that very few other people can do and thus am remunerated accordingly. It would cost the company a fortune to have me sorting out trivial IT problems. It's much more efficient to call one of the scruffy lads from 'the dungeon' to come up and sort it out whilst I get on with more pressing issues.

A very special set of skills ?

Lau2976 · 31-01-2015 12:38am

Working in a cinema - I was asked to pause a movie. To go to the food court to get some one a burrito and if I could melt someone's malteasers on to their popcorn in the staff microwave.

thelad95 · 31-01-2015 12:42am

Lau2976 wrote: »

Working in a cinema - I was asked to pause a movie. To go to the food court to get some one a burrito and if I could melt someone's malteasers on to their popcorn in the staff microwave.

You should have crapped on their popcorn. Someone with the IQ to ask for something like that probably wouldn't notice the difference.

Most stupid requests you've ever had at work?

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