# Adventures In Stupidland **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 5, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554 "2004-05-05T00:04:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/41 "2004-05-05T19:15:26Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Oh sure, I understand. That’s why I suggested he develop his communications skills. He needed to guide her to what she was trying to say. Sometimes, people don’t know enough about something to frame sensible questions. And that’s not really stupidity, but easily eradicated ignorance. True enough. When I did tech support, getting around customer ignorance was something of an aquired skill. Some people had pretty ingenious methods. One guy would get users to tell him what they had typed – backwards! ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/42 "2004-05-05T19:26:07Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > One guy would get users to tell him what they had typed – backwards! This was a very smart move. It is extraordinarily difficult to proofread your own typing\*. One commonly used proofreading trick is to catch spelling errors by reading the text backwards. \*I just know there will be a typo in this somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![AveDementia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@AveDementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AveDementia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/43 "2004-05-05T20:16:05Z")
Does anybody else keep reading the OP’s name as **Captain Doe Snot**? Just me? Alrighty then. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/44 "2004-05-05T23:01:24Z")
> [@flickster](#): > > Just in case you haven’t made the connection, you would not have a job if it wasn’t for the support these ppl provide this store. Maybe your coworker has figured that out and that’s why he is patient with the customers. Were the questions and problems stupid? To most of us - yes. However, in the business world - 1 spurned customer can equal hundreds. Best advertising - word of mouth, worst advertising - word of mouth. Just to give a different way of looking at things, it has been _my_ experience that 1% of the customers cause 99% of the headaches. The customer is always right? Bullshit. In _my_ business we have gradually eliminated the 1% “true problem client”. Let my competitors have 'em. I strive for excellent word of mouth advertising by the 99% of the people I deal with and wish to maintain. It has been _my_ experience that the 1% problem folks talk with others of their ilk. Granted, this may only be true in _my_ line of work. YMMV. Professional driver on a closed track, etc. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/45 "2004-05-06T23:56:44Z")
> [@](#): > > M: What’s ‘breed’? > > C: Breed, you know, breed. Years ago, I was working at a grocery store. Like most supermarkets that sit on oh, about seven acres of land, this place had everything imaginable. Food, liquor, small appliances, hardware, video rental, some clothing, photo, and, in the summer, plants and sod. A customer wheels up to me with her cart and asks where the tools were. At least I think she asked a question. “Tools?” isn’t the most articulate way of expressing a question when you’re in a seven-acre wonderland of stuff to buy. I direct her to Aisle 19, where we had basic things like screwdrivers, plungers and picture-hanger wire, and she trundles off. Ten minutes later, she finds me again and looks peeved. Again, she asks where the tools are. I said Aisle 19, and that if we didn’t have what she needed, the True Value two blocks away probably would. “No. Tools! Tools! Bat’tools!” The mangled word “bat” jogged my mind to a promotion the store was running - we had a special deal on towels. Bath towels. I say “Ah! You want the _tow–els_. They’re at the end of Aisle 24.” It was a pretty good deal, and most of the store staff had already glommed onto the nice dark blue ones, leaving a vile orangy-peach and faded cranberry. Ms Bat Tools wasn’t too happy about this either, but she did accept a rain check.\* Same store, different day. A fairly elderly lady is hounding me to tell her where the Walgreens batteries were. “Ma’am, those would be at Walgreens, across the street.” :smack: - We got these towels in crates built on shipping pallets. Picture a 4x4 foot pallet with cardboard sides nailed to it and filled with towels. We just dragged them out to the sales floor and watched as the whole county turned out to gobble up moderately priced towels of moderate quality. It was like some sort of horror movie, the way zombified people were snatching the things as if six bath sheets would protect them from the nuclear armageddon that was going to happen in the next week. And when we ran out, they got MAD. I’m standing amid five of these huge crates, so you’d think it would be fairly obvious that we did have a lot of towels at one point and weren’t running a bait and switch scam by offering towels at two bucks each, but only having five in stock. “You’re hiding them in the back!!” No. These damn crates of towels are so big, that when they arrive on the truck, they are pulled immediately to the sales floor - there’s just no room to stash them in back. “I don’t believe you!” \ Yes, you’re right. I’m hiding towels! The manager’s office is stuffed with those fluffy, thirsty towels that you crave! I’ve hidden wash cloths in pill bottles in the pharmacy! AND YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY! Hahahahaha!! :wally “I wanna talk to the manager!” I’m sorry, but he seems to have been smothered when we stuffed towels into his office. Guess we should have let him out first. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/46 "2004-05-07T00:18:26Z")
> [@](#): > > M: What’s ‘breed’? > > C: Breed, you know, breed. During a recent visit to a local Asian restaurant, I overheard this exchange between another customer and the waitress: Customer: Excuse me, what is this ingredient? I don’t believe I’ve ever had it before. Waitess: Binkard. C: Binkard? W: Binkard. C: Binkard? W: Binkard. C: Binkard? W: Binkard. C: Binkard? Me, who has had quite enough of this: “BEAN CURD.” (Still not sure why she didn’t say Tofu) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/47 "2004-05-07T02:42:48Z")
> [@Exgineer](#): > > I think I was about 18 or 19 when I first had to open a CD case myself. It opened, all right. It never closed again, and it technically wasn’t a case anymore, but I damned sure got that sucker open. And right now I’m looking at a 2-disc jewel case that’s continuously trying to dissasemble itself. Every time I need Disc 2 I have to spend 30 seconds carefully re-aligning everything so the case properly closes again. But yeah, both parties can end up sounding pretty stupid when a basic lack of referential common ground renders them incapable to communicate the idea that needs communicating. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/48 "2004-05-07T03:17:58Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > It was a play on words due to the fact that Burns played both roles. Had it been two different actors, it would have made no sense Nope, sorry, I think you are wrong here. You are being way too literal. You refers to God, and it would have made sense…it just would have been a different movie altogether. I’ve been opening CD’s for years, and just 6 months ago discovered that you press in on that little center clustery thing to release the CD…I’ve been prying it up by the edges for years, cuz no one, my children included, told me or showed me any different. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/49 "2004-05-07T12:01:14Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > I’ve been opening CD’s for years, and just 6 months ago discovered that you press in on that little center clustery thing to release the CD…I’ve been prying it up by the edges for years, cuz no one, my children included, told me or showed me any different. :dubious: I have never pushed down in the middle of the CD to get it out. As a matter of fact I just tried with a number of different CD cases and it didn’t work for any of them. Now some, especially 2CD cases might do this, but I have always picked them up from the side. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/50 "2004-05-07T12:39:35Z")
> [@flickster](#): > > Just in case you haven’t made the connection, you would not have a job if it wasn’t for the support these ppl provide this store. Maybe your coworker has figured that out and that’s why he is patient with the customers. Were the questions and problems stupid? To most of us - yes. However, in the business world - 1 spurned customer can equal hundreds. Best advertising - word of mouth, worst advertising - word of mouth. I agree with you to a point there, flickster, but there’s got to be a cutoff at what level of stupidity you are willing to tolerate for a certain amount of time, and I believe the magnitude and duration of this particular incidence of stupidity didn’t warrant anymore tolerance. What’s she going to do? Complain to her friends that the folks at “CD World” are rude because they won’t tell you how to open it. That’s something I wouldn’t want anyone to know if it were me! She probably felt extremely stupid after she figured out how to open it and if not then you don’t really want her anyway. He is just an employee anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kneepants\_Erasmus\_the\_Humanist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/54ee81/32.png) [@Kneepants\_Erasmus\_the\_Humanist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kneepants_Erasmus_the_Humanist)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/51 "2004-05-07T13:09:10Z")
“He” is a “she”. But other than that, yes. Thank you **Merkwurdigliebe**. As far as the 2 disc cd cases go…I still sometimes have trouble with those. With some, you get to the second disc one way, and with others it is the exact opposite way. There is no way to know until you exert a fair amount of pressure onto it. They (that middle tray thingie) break off easily but as long as you don’t break it in half they are quite fixable…they’ll snap right back in. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554/52 "2004-05-07T13:45:19Z")
> [@captaindoesnotlikeyou](#): > > As far as the 2 disc cd cases go…I still sometimes have trouble with those. Me too. I wish they’d be consistent with which way that middle plastic piece flips open. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adventures-in-stupidland/243554.md?page=2)