Believe it or not, but a lot of people regard being very direct as being impolite. In many cases, asking what may appear to be a “stupid question” is simply a polite means of opening a discussion. It can also be a means of overcoming a momentary embarassment at speaking to a stranger. In far too many cases, such a question is used to elicit a response from some employee who is engrossed in a personal conversation with friends or other employees while studiously ignoring a customer with an obvious need for information.
As to asking “Do you work here?” to an employee, the question might actually have been “Do you work in this department?”. The existence of name tags and uniforms is no guarantee that a specific employee has the knowlege to provide the assistance needed. I wouldn’t, for instance, expect someone with expertise in plumbing supplies to be able to answer questions about corsets.
Me ordering fast food to take home for 4 people: “I’d like 4 big beef burritos, 2 meximelts, 2 nachos bellgrande, 2 pintos n cheese, 6 tacos and 1 large coke”
15 year old clerk: Is that for here?
Me: No
Clerk: Do you want it to go?
Me: Yes
Clerk: So you want this to go then?
Me: Yes, did you think I was going to eat all of that by myself?
I know, I know, I know. Most people are just trying to be nice (and FTR, I work way too hard to converse for more than one minute at a time, except while on break).
It’s just that at the end of the day, after 4,067 idiots have asked the stupidest questions ever (questions that are so obvious all they have to do is read to understand them), I cannot even muster up the ability to smile when, in the grand tradition of fuckheads everywhere, someone snaps at me or yells, “HEY! YOU WORK HERE?” That question grates on my nerves. I cannot stand it.
I’m all for manners. A simple “Pardon me, ma’am,” or “Excuse me, miss” will suffice.
This job has, in all honesty, made me lose some of my faith in the human race.
SuaSponte - Give me a date and a time, I’ll be there in a white dress.
If you really intend to pass the bar exam, let us hope, for the sake of your future income, that at least some of the human race doesn’t lose faith in you.
Sure I may be reading too much in to this post, but something struck me here. Does her response mean that sometime in the past someone ordered 8 railcar loads, and didn’t have a siding? I guess we could add to the list “Can I have 8 railcar loads of baby vomit delivered to my fourth floor apartment?”
I worked at Subway in high school and got some of the stupidest questions. My favorite was the dipshit who walked up to the counter and concentrated really hard on the menu and says “Hmmmm, Ham and Cheese sandwich. What’s on that?” I said “Well, there’s ham and there’s cheese.” He looked puzzled. I thought maybe he didn’t understand the “free condiments” concept and let him know that he could get lettuce, tomato, whatever on it also. “Hmmm. Lettuce and tomato. But it still has the ham and cheese?”
This went on for the longest 5 - 10 minutes of my life.
My second favorite is kind of like Sarah’s “How long are these curtains?” customer. I currently work at a copy shop. I explain that I can make an invitation 4 to a page so that when it is cut the invitation will be 4 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches. About 30% of the time someone will say “How big is 4x5?”
perhaps the person who is asking, “Do you work here,” is trying to draw attention to the fact that they have stared puzzled at two different packages while you passed them nonchalantly for the past five minutes and that an appropriate avenue of customer assistance might have been for you to ask them if they need any help but since you haven’t they are wondering if you actually work while wearing logo clothing at this establishment or if you just ride the clock.
mebbe some of the stupid questions are just an attempt to fuck with your mind. You should hear me ordering pizza.
Them: Thank you for calling Bill’s Pizza. This is Charlene. May I help you?
Me: Can I speak to Charlene.
Them: uh, speaking.
Me: Yeah, Charlene, can I order a pizza?
Them: What would you like on that?
Me: On what? Etc.
Often it makes their day. Having worked these types of jobs, I’ve found that a bit of humor can make someones work a little more interesting. Of course, if the person is real busy or starts to get annoyed, I back off. Look at it this way, if people didn’t ask these questions, you wouldn’t have had anything to post!!!
I must relate a story involving my late Father-in-law. He was a kind, stereotypical Jewish Father, always wanting to provide for his children at any sacrifice. He always had to pay for dinner, movies, whatever. He would NEVER let me or my wife pay our own way, much less let us pay for him.
On our way to Ocean City one year, we had to cross the Bay Bridge, which has a $2.50 toll. My wife and I were in the lead car and he and his wife were in the car behind us. At the toll booth, I handed the teller a $5.00 bill and told her that I was paying for the car behind me, too. My wife and I watched in the rearview mirror as he ARGUED with the teller to take his money! When we got our beach house, he gave me my $2.50 back. Yep, he got the teller to take his $2.50 and give him my $2.50 in change. He laughed the entire time he was telling us what had transpired.
I’m sure the teller had an amusing story to tell her friends and family.
I would give everything I own for the opportunity to laugh with him for 5 minutes.
I laughed hard at it at the time, and still do, but it was one of the stupidest questions I’ve ever been asked, and worthy of inclusion in the Stupid Question Hall of Fame:
I was working in a beer store. The sign over the store read “The Beer Store,” and my shirt said “The Beer Store” over the pocket. The store also sells T-shirts and mugs and steins and baseball caps, all emblazoned with a brewer’s logo or a brand name, but the main stock-in-trade is beer. Beer is stacked nearly to the ceiling inside–all the brands you can imagine, and some you cannot, in 24s, 12s, six-packs, bottles, cans, and a few other package types.
Woman comes in and straight up to the counter, asking, “Do you sell beer?”
Yes, I laughed out loud at that one. She wasn’t at all insulted once she looked around and saw why I was laughing. She ended up laughing too.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but one that happens to me on an almost daily basis is this:
<<phone rings>>
Me: “Hello, duPont Center.”
Caller: “Is this the duPont Center?”
Me, in my head: “No, I just like to say that to throw the police off. This is actually a crack den.”
And this one, which struck me as funny, not irritating, but it’s worth sharing:
Me, to co-worker: “Hey, Pam, I just got a ferret!”
Pam: “Do they have legs?”
Turned out she was serious, so I explained a little about ferret physiology to her while trying not to laugh, because I was picturing little furry slinkies scootching along the floor…
Well, after working for 13 years as a manager for a fast food chain (before I finally got a real job), i’ve heard more stupid questions than any sane man should ever have to be exposed to in one lifetime. The one that takes the cake takes a bit of setup to get the full effect. Picture this…Lunch hour…this is a $1 Million a year store, so we’re busier than hell. I have the District Manager and Area VP sitting in my lobby, and we have a sale for 2 roast beef and cheddar for $2. Well, I’m back in the kitchen slicing roast beef as fast as humanly possible, and the employee working drive-thru steps up to the food chutes and says…“Jeff…what type of cheese is on the roast beef and cheddar?” Well, needless to say, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, customers included, stopped dead in their tracks and looked at her. So I, being a smartass reply, “<name witheld> you just answered you own Question”. To this people are starting to snicker now, and she asks the question TWICE more…before the light went on and she says “oh DUH!” Well, I still don’t know what’s scarier, because after talking with her after the incedent, she said that she was asking because the person who was placing the order was asking the same question. So technically that was TWO people asking the SAME STUPID QUESTION!
All praise and thanks be to the BEER STORE! I go up to Canada every summer on vacation. Before we get to our cabin, we swing into the beer store and grab us 2 two-fours of Molson Black Ice! I dig it the most, cats
I’m in the car. Pull up. “I’d like a 9-piece McNugget and a small Coke, please.”
“You want chicken and a coke?”
“Yeah, a 9-piece McNugget and a Coke.”
“Chicken sammich anna Coke, that’ll be…”
“No…no…I want a 9-piece McNugget and a Coke.”
“What size Coke?”
“A small, please.”
“And a 9-piece what?”
Uhm.
Er.
Does McDonald’s have anything other than McNuggets that come in 9-pieces? Maybe I could have meant nine pieces of ice? Nine french fries? Nine chicken sandwiches? Nine more IQ points added to this woman’s IQ so she could understand that whole mind-bending McNuggets concept?
(And in case anyone’s wondering, she was not from another country, English was not her second language, and there was nothing wrong with the drive-through speaker, as I could hear the person after me loud and clear through the drive-through window.)
(relationship to OP: her asking me “a 9-piece what?”)
(just trying to be clear)
(and here are another set of parentheses for y’all)
See, not to bitch too much about my job, but my specific duties don’t require me to walk up to customers and ask them if they need help. It’s a Swedish-based company, and the whole concept is “do-it-yourself.” My specific job duties (as stated in my IKEA booklet) are to administer to customers if they ask, but otherwise, I have to get the stock out. We get 5-10 trucks a day; 25% of the stock goes to my new department, and I am (or whoever works that day is) responsible for making sure it all gets out. It says right there in my manual that I am supposed to try to smile at every customer, but that’s it. If a customer bitched that I didn’t offer them help, I wouldn’t get in trouble.
At some stores, the salespeople stand around looking dumb or stock after the stores closes, but that’s not what we’re about. Usually, there is only one person who stocks 6am-10, one who works 9-5:30, and another 5:30-9:30. So it’s just me most of the time, and I really need to get those 20 pallets out.
Sheesh. I hope that explains everything.
In order to paint you a mental picture of what I’m talking about, let me tell you what happened today. I was wearing the full IKEA garb, at my workstation, talking on the phone to a customer. Since I’m looking something up for her, I am also surfing around the IKEA comp system, flipping through pages. I tell her when we are getting the speaker stand in, that it’s in-transit, or already on a truck, that it should be here in 2 weeks and we are expecting a shipment of 50. I give her the number and extension of my department, the hours we are open, I explain to her our return policy, and I give her the extension to customer service to she can ask about returning an item by mail, then I transfer her myself.
Thirty seconds into our conversation, a middle-aged woman approaches and waits for me to get off the phone. I hang up, turn to her and smile, and she looks at me blank-eyed and says, “Do you work here?”
If you cannot concieve of how incredibly, fantastically annoying that is, than I give up.
Jarbaby, that was singlehandedly the funniest story ever. I wish I could say that to customers! I told about five people at lunch and had 'em rolling in the aisles.
