I used to work for a company that specializes in aerospace fasteners (nuts, bolts, sometimes ball bearings and other miscellaneous bits of serious hardware).
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[li]Similar to Keybo’s experience: I answered the phone, and the first words out of the customer’s mouth were: “I need a screw; can you help me?”[/li][li]Some items based on military standard specs are named “STD-###-##-##”. We dealt with these items on a regular basis, and it was impractical to call out the full sequence of numbers every time. So, a couple times a month, I’d hear: “My customer wants an STD.” “Did you get that STD?” “We have a lot of STDs.” Much giggling all around.[/li][li]All items had to be sampled, checked against specifications, and counted. Thus: “These nuts are too big.” “This one’s too short, and the head is lopsided.” “It’s tight, but I think we can make it work.” “We don’t have enough balls.” After a while, this stuff flies right under your radar, and you wonder why the new salesperson laughs at everything you say.[/li][/ul]
Some years ago, I was responsible for evaluating software systems development or change requests for an in-house reporting application at a major financial institution. We’d get up to 50 of these a week, ranging from things that could be resolved with user configuration changes (“I want to see the dates for my European price quotes in Euro format”) to major system changes requiring several months of work, so one of the major criteria for evaluating them was the “Business Justification”. Something important but difficult would get resources immediately, while something that would require some amount work (not configuration based) but have little or no impact would get put on the figurative back burner or outright rejected.
This phrase “Business Justification” got thrown around so much, it was put into the online form template for submitting and documenting the review status of these requests. This weekly review was done in a small conference room using a computer and an LCD projector, so everyone could see the form at the same time, and consisted of me and 4 other people, three of them women.
One day a submission came in to change the calculation methodology of a particular value, with the vague, throw-it-over-the-wall justification of “client wants to see it this way”. This clearly wouldn’t fly without a lot more discussion, so I rejected it out of hand with the abbreviated comment “BJ not good enough, come back when you can give a better one.”
I said this out loud as I typed it in, too. Only as I hit ENTER did my own words echo in my ears with a leering hur, hur, hur.
After a few moments of silence I chirped brightly, “Let me spell out BUSINESS JUSTIFICATION…” as I went back and replaced the acronym.
And yes, the request submitter was female too. :smack:
There’s a super-competitive guy at work who’s kind of fun to mess with. Basically this guy can’t resist a challenge. “I bet you can’t do a hundred push-ups in a row”, that sort of thing.
So when someone suggested we could try to get him to do jumping jacks, I immediately blurted out: “Yeah! Let’s challenge him to a jumping jack off!”
I was explaining to my work colleagues how my wife and I met. I’d said we met at university when I used to DJ at some parties on campus, and that she “used to come back to my room afterwards to check out my 12 inches”. I obviously meant records but some of the girls in our team now look at me with a thoughtful expression on their face.
Staggeringly beautiful admin assistant to me, just now:
“All the time, I’m pulling it or jerking it, and it gets all stiff.” (Her neck, of course.)
Very difficult to keep control of my face. It seemed like an eternity. “Jerking it”? Really? Who says that about their neck?
That could get messy real quick.
“Well there’s your problem, it’s supposed to get all stiff first!”
My sister Kathy (who’s two years younger than I am, so this must have happened about the time I was hitting puberty) asked my aunt for some potato chips. After Kathy was given a generous handful, she exclaimed: “Aunt Karen’s nice when it comes to Lay’s!” Kathy didn’t understand why the old older people in the room were either blushing and/or attempting to stifle laughter.
In the library, I struck up a conversation with a young woman, who had pretty well exposed cleavage, and she was wearing some dogtags on a chain around her neck. I pointed toward her dog tags and I asked “Are those real?”
Okay, my turn. Happened just last week.
I’m part of a kid-centric church entertainment group. While I’m in my 50’s, most of the group are high-school aged. This week’s script called for me to be sitting in a chair while of few of them hurled water-soaked nerf balls at me. The script said, “make sure they’re good and soggy.” Before the show, I’m backstage looking for my props, of which the nerf balls are part of. Before my internal auto-correct could engage, I loudly pronounced, “I can’t find my props. Has anyone seen my soggy balls?” total silence & big eyes My lame attempt at recovery was “Oh grow up. It’s in the script!” <sigh> I think I’m about to be excommunicated.
Every time Inigo gets milk at the store, the cashier asks if he wants his milk in bags. He always replies, “No, I prefer my milk in jugs.”
It took me three years to figure out that he was not referring to the breasts of a lactating woman, he was actually implying he did not want the milk poured in the bags…:smack:
On a separate note, I find “Jumping Jack Flash” to be absolutely hysterical.