Stupid Things People Say

[Amaris]

Quesadillas have been pretty common in restaurants all around the country for several years now, well over a decade and not just places like Taco Bell, Mexican Restaurants and Family Restaurants all usually feature a quesadillia on the appetizer menu.

It also seems to me, though this may do with my slight knowledge of Spanish, that "queso" being the Spanish word for "cheese" is pretty common several other dishes have this too (Chili con Queso being one.)

It's not absurd to think that most people should know that a Quesadillia has cheese in it by definition. I mean at the very least people should think to themselves "How would it hold together without cheese?"

It's the fairly common thing of people just not thinking before they speak or ask for things. I've joked with co-workers, who think I should do this, that some April Fool's Day I should just make signs for all of the items in out case that say "These", "This", "That", "Those" because all too many times when I ask people what I can get for them they just sort of point, even though my line of sight and their's are very different and the counter obscues my view of their hand, and say "give me two of those." Rather than just saying what they want, I mean everything is clearly signed and marked with very good discriptive signage. Or they'll name the cut they want but not the specific size of type. There's four things in our case that can be called a "sirloin" and people will just point -again in a way that's not visible to me- and say "give me two sirloins."

As if I'm just supposed to know what they want. Or "give me a pound of hamburger" even though we have four kinds of "hamburger" in the case.

People just don't think. They just want to hit the the feeder-bar and get their food pelets. Without having to think of silly things like, "If I tell this guy exactly what I want rather than just using an un-precise word, pointing, or not giving them the full name of the product which I can read right in front of me he'll be able to more easily be able to help me without playing a back-and-forth play of questions."

It's fine if people don't know exactly what they want and need help selecting something, getting the best cut, or the best lean-burger for their dish then, sure, ask questions. But too many times I have conversations that go:

"How may I help you today sir?"
"Yeah, give me two of those?"
"Yes, sir. Two of which, I can't see where you are pointing."
"Oh, sorry. Two sirloins."
"Ok, sir. Do you want the 8oz sirloin fillets, 5oz sirloin fillets, the sirloin steaks or the sirloin-strip steak.s"
"I want two of the 8oz ones."
"Yes sir, I get that ready for you right away!"

See, it's a back-and-forth battle of asking questions when it could've been made simpler:

"How may I help you today sir?"
"Yes, give me two of the 8oz sirloins."
"Yes sir, I'll get that for your right away!"

Oh, and if you want it specially wrapped like individually or whatever. Say something. I can't read your damn mind.

So, back to queso thing it's just a nother sample of people not thinking. Sure, there's going to be people out there who've -somehow- missed that "queso" means cheese and that all "quesadillias" have cheese in them. But from what I run into all of the time, every damn day, many people out there just simply are-not thinking. They stand there drooling, dumb-founded and with no clue what they are doing and, sure, I'll help them as much as you can. But sometimes I get the feeling that these people need me to go home and cook for them too. I hate to see how they buy things like a car or a house.

It's really no trouble, though. When I ran the Meat & Seafood counter at Kroger, I was just more concerned with getting the order correct than any extra step involved in the selection process. There were times when my inquiries to which item in the case [to which they were pointing] was met with the words "that red one, the one that's red", and I would patiently guide them through until we figured out which one it was.

The literacy rate isn't very high where I live, so I was always more patient because I knew that there would be people, older usually, who wouldn't be able to read the signage. It's always better to apologize for their error if it's something small, anyway. Something like "Oh, I'm sorry, sir, I must have misunderstood". It builds trust.

 

[Deckerd]

Sorry, I'm just not into threads like this. Several of the quotes people have posted don't seem that stupid or deserving of scorn, and in the cases where people are clearly ignorant, they're seemingly being met with snide remarks rather than an attempt to educate a person. I don't get that mentality.

You're quite right. It had the potential to be quite funny but it's just turned into a prejudicial bitching session.

 

[Amaris]

"No offense, but..."
"Bless your heart."
"Now, I don't mean anything by this, but..."

I use "Bless your heart" all the time, except I really mean it, not as an insult or anything like that. I also use, "Well isn't that sweet!" and "Well aren't you just the cutest thing!".

Sometimes I wonder if I may have been a genteel southern lady at some point in a past life.

 

[ares93]

"No offense, but..."
"Bless your heart."
"Now, I don't mean anything by this, but..."

I use "Bless your heart" all the time, except I really mean it, not as an insult or anything like that. I also use, "Well isn't that sweet!" and "Well aren't you just the cutest thing!".

Sometimes I wonder if I may have been a genteel southern lady at some point in a past life.

i use it as well. mostly "bless your heart". dunno why it would be an insult...

 

[ancientone51]

Stupidest things people say..."Watch this"

 

[Guartho]

I had someone tell me yesterday that they wanted me to slown the burning speed down for a CD-R copy, 'cause otherwise it would decrease the life of the CD-R.

That's like saying running real fast will make the day shorter, or washing a car will extend the life of your car. I tried explaining the reality to him (who fed him that bunk???) but he ended his reply with "Still" and insisted I slow it down; translation: he didn't get it.

NOTE: I'm not slowing it down. I'm not dumb.

You're right that burn speed should have no impact on the useful data life of the disc, but slower burning does increase reliability on a greater number of devices. Not all optical drives are created equal. Some are better at reading or burning than others. A slower burn can help mitigate those deficencies. Most importantly, you should never burn at a higher speed than the disc is rated.

So I have a question. Are you saying that you ignored your bosses orders and burned as fast as you felt like anyway? If you did that to me more than once, I'd probably fire you. I do a lot of DVD burning at work. Whenever I've experimented with burning at the full rated speed, I've always regretted it. Usually in a run of 20 or 30 discs, one or none come back fro
the customer as unplayable. When I burn at the full rated speed it's more like 4 or 5. In both cases, each disc has passed verification against the master disc image.

 

[B.J.]

Quesadillas have been pretty common in restaurants all around the country for several years now, well over a decade and not just places like Taco Bell, Mexican Restaurants and Family Restaurants all usually feature a quesadillia on the appetizer menu.

It also seems to me, though this may do with my slight knowledge of Spanish, that "queso" being the Spanish word for "cheese" is pretty common several other dishes have this too (Chili con Queso being one.)

It's not absurd to think that most people should know that a Quesadillia has cheese in it by definition. I mean at the very least people should think to themselves "How would it hold together without cheese?"

I think you overestimate how many people know Spanish, and specifically the Spanish word for "cheese". Even those that do know the word wouldn't necessarily follow the logic that the quesa- in quesadilla is the same as queso.

Also, I think the fact that many menus have a "Cheese Quesadilla" is working against you.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

"No offense, but..."
"Bless your heart."
"Now, I don't mean anything by this, but..."

I use "Bless your heart" all the time, except I really mean it, not as an insult or anything like that. I also use, "Well isn't that sweet!" and "Well aren't you just the cutest thing!".

Sometimes I wonder if I may have been a genteel southern lady at some point in a past life.

i use it as well. mostly "bless your heart". dunno why it would be an insult...

Where I come from, "Bless your heart" is code for 'the person I am talking to or about did or said something stupid and I am saying this instead of saying they're an idiot'.

 

[captcalhoun]

woman walks up to the counter in my shop.

me: can i help?
her: yeah, can i have a pack of 20?
me: *pause* uh, 20 which?
her: cigarettes.
*thinks* No, shit lady me: uh, you'll have to be a bit more specific...
her: oh.. 20 [whatever]

it's just so annoying when people are so bone-headedly vague. like saying 'are these drinks on offer?' when some are and some aren't without specifying which they're referring to.

 

[Lindley]

I had someone tell me yesterday that they wanted me to slown the burning speed down for a CD-R copy, 'cause otherwise it would decrease the life of the CD-R.

That's like saying running real fast will make the day shorter, or washing a car will extend the life of your car. I tried explaining the reality to him (who fed him that bunk???) but he ended his reply with "Still" and insisted I slow it down; translation: he didn't get it.

NOTE: I'm not slowing it down. I'm not dumb.

You're right that burn speed should have no impact on the useful data life of the disc, but slower burning does increase reliability on a greater number of devices. Not all optical drives are created equal. Some are better at reading or burning than others. A slower burn can help mitigate those deficencies. Most importantly, you should never burn at a higher speed than the disc is rated.

So I have a question. Are you saying that you ignored your bosses orders and burned as fast as you felt like anyway? If you did that to me more than once, I'd probably fire you. I do a lot of DVD burning at work. Whenever I've experimented with burning at the full rated speed, I've always regretted it. Usually in a run of 20 or 30 discs, one or none come back fro
the customer as unplayable. When I burn at the full rated speed it's more like 4 or 5. In both cases, each disc has passed verification against the master disc image.

I don't know about CD-Rs, but when burning DVD-Rs, the burn speed definitely matters. I discovered experimentally that if I burned a DVD-R at 4x or 8x, it wouldn't play properly in a PS2. If it played at all it would be very jerky. However, after burning at 2x it worked fine.

Quesadillas have been pretty common in restaurants all around the country for several years now, well over a decade and not just places like Taco Bell, Mexican Restaurants and Family Restaurants all usually feature a quesadillia on the appetizer menu.

It also seems to me, though this may do with my slight knowledge of Spanish, that "queso" being the Spanish word for "cheese" is pretty common several other dishes have this too (Chili con Queso being one.)

It's not absurd to think that most people should know that a Quesadillia has cheese in it by definition. I mean at the very least people should think to themselves "How would it hold together without cheese?"

I think you overestimate how many people know Spanish, and specifically the Spanish word for "cheese". Even those that do know the word wouldn't necessarily follow the logic that the quesa- in quesadilla is the same as queso.

I certainly didn't know that before this thread. However, I also wouldn't have ordered a quesadilla to begin with. I'd expect anyone actually ordering one to know more about them than I do.

 

[John Picard]

I attend evening classes to pursue my Bachelors, and it's amazing that usually every semester or two there's some chronic complainer there to expound on his/her life story about not having time to complete the homework, meet with study groups, or anything else required for the class.

Why the hell did you sign up for the class then, ace? This isn't like 8-year old league sports where everyone gets a trophy for participating.

 

[Goliath]

During my first year as a History professor, I had a teaching assistant named Shawn.

Nice guy. Hard worker. Never did finish his degree, unfortunately.

At the time, I asked Shawn if he wanted to give a lecture to my World History class. He said yes. I said, which one? He suggested a lecture on Kennedy presidency in the USA.

Sounded great. Go ahead, I said.

Shawn's lecture was actually going quite well--until he got to Kennedy's assassination. At which he point, he said something like: "While most people nowadays believe that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, my own research has convinced me that there must have been a conspiracy. We know, for example, that there was more than shooter..."

On and on he went, spinning out his own pet Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theory. I sat there, aghast, feeling like one of those guys in the movies, leaping in slow motion trying to stop a disaster, saying "Nooooooooooo..."

Not wanting to undermine Shawn, and not being an expert on the subject, I didn't contradict him. But at the beginning of next class, I did make some remarks about how controversial such theories are, and encouraged the students to research the question themselves, if they were interested.

I then took a poll. "Let's have a show of hands," I said. "How many of you now think that President Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman?"

One student, in the back, put up his hand. But when he realized he was alone, he glared at the rest of the class, and said: "You're all stupid!" The whole class cracked up.

I still invite my teaching assistants to give guest lectures. But ever since that day, I've asked to see an outline first.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Is it just me, or does this thread seen to be going in about four different directions: first humorous observation, then overt soapboxing, then weary irreverence, and now fastidious nitpicking. Fascinating.

woman walks up to the counter in my shop.

me: can i help?
her: yeah, can i have a pack of 20?
me: *pause* uh, 20 which?
her: cigarettes.
*thinks* No, shit lady me: uh, you'll have to be a bit more specific...
her: oh.. 20 [whatever]

it's just so annoying when people are so bone-headedly vague. like saying 'are these drinks on offer?' when some are and some aren't without specifying which they're referring to.

I was half expecting her to finish with "Surprise me!" in a Fat Tony voice.

You should have presented to her the most expensive brand in the shop and charged her at a premium. Maybe next time...

 

[ITL]

I said something stupid once. I think it was something to do with fish.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I say stupid things all the time.

Well, they're stupid to somebody... usually someone who thinks they never say any stupid thing ever, when the contrary is actually closer to reality. [You can add "self-parodying meta-referential navel-gazing" to your list - someone]

 

[Goliath]

I say stupid things all the time.

Everyone does.

A few years later, while teaching the same World History class, I was lecturing about the impact of the First World War on the world outside of Europe. Specifically, I was talking about how India contributed large numbers of soldiers and labourers to the British war effort.

This included an Indian Corps on the Western Front from 1914-15, which was eventually sent to the Middle East, partly because the British didn't like their South Asian soldiers fraternizing with white women.

What I meant to say was, "British officers didn't like the idea of Indian soldiers having sex with French prostitutes behind the lines."

What I actually said was, "British officers didn't like the idea of Indian soldiers having sex with French prostitutes in the rear."

As the dirty chuckles began to spread through the class, I then compounded my error by saying "No pun intended."

I don't think I'll ever live that one down.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Quesadillas have been pretty common in restaurants all around the country for several years now, well over a decade and not just places like Taco Bell, Mexican Restaurants and Family Restaurants all usually feature a quesadillia on the appetizer menu.

It also seems to me, though this may do with my slight knowledge of Spanish, that "queso" being the Spanish word for "cheese" is pretty common several other dishes have this too (Chili con Queso being one.)

It's not absurd to think that most people should know that a Quesadillia has cheese in it by definition. I mean at the very least people should think to themselves "How would it hold together without cheese?"

I think you overestimate how many people know Spanish, and specifically the Spanish word for "cheese". Even those that do know the word wouldn't necessarily follow the logic that the quesa- in quesadilla is the same as queso.

Also, I think the fact that many menus have a "Cheese Quesadilla" is working against you.

That's a bit like the menu at Tim Hortons saying "Chai Tea". Realistically, you only need to say Chai, since in India where it originates, that is the word for Tea, so it's a bit like saying Tea Tea, but for North Americans to understand what they're ordering, most restauraunts say Chai Tea.

That's to say that I agree with you. Like I said earlier, a big part of knowing what something is, is your geography. Being up north in Canada, it means I encounter less mexican food. The further south you go, the more chance you'll have to encounter it.

I went on a trip to D.C a few weeks ago, and already there, there's a bit of a culture shock when in restauraunts. I've learned that if you order tea, they'll assume you mean unsweetened ice tea, unless you mention steeped tea. That's not the case where I live in Canada.

We ate at Pusser's Landing in Annapolis, and my Dad ordered some tea. Waitress went away to process the order, and came back confused because it dawned on her that maybe my Dad meant hot tea and came back to ask him, and she came back with a number of different packets to choose from. They weren't prepared to simply brew some tea.

So, moral of the story is, just because one is familiar with something, doesn't mean that everyone will be. Culture will be different depending on the geography.

 

[Marten]

About that quesadilla, that pronunciation makes sense, except for the key-part, which should be more like ke.

 

[NickInABox]

My mom says 'irregardless'
And my dad says 'odviously'

 

[auntiehill]

...
We ate at Pusser's Landing in Annapolis, and my Dad ordered some tea. Waitress went away to process the order, and came back confused because it dawned on her that maybe my Dad meant hot tea and came back to ask him, and she came back with a number of different packets to choose from. They weren't prepared to simply brew some tea.

So, moral of the story is, just because one is familiar with something, doesn't mean that everyone will be. Culture will be different depending on the geography.

^Yes. I have to remind my English friends that, when they order "tea" in Texas, they will get it on ice and full of
sugar, unless they say "hot tea."


One of the little stupid things I was reminded of today, unfortunately, is the bizarre misunderstanding that makes some people use the phrase, "Taking things for granite."

Unless you work in a quarry or make counter-tops for a living, I fail to see how this could make any sense to anyone.

It's GRANTED---taking things for granted, not taking things for granite, you ninny!

Argh. It's a good thing my work is done over the phone, so people can't see the look on my face when they're saying these things.