# Things you've been surprised you've had to explain at work
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 13, 2021, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959 "2021-05-13T02:42:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 19
### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/362 "2021-05-22T02:44:25Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#):
>
> today I (a non-accountant) had to explain the basics of debits and credits to a Vice President of Finance/Division Controller.
Damn, someone slept their way to(wards) the top. That, or they have serious dirt on someone else.
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> am a farmer; and it’s impossible to tell people what I do succinctly. At least, unless they already know something about the subject.
They may get the details wrong, or have mistaken impressions on how much work you do, but surely “I raise X” should be sufficient?
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#):
>
> he honestly thought it was the Company’s role to unionize the employees.
Interesting thought experiment. If the Big Co. is in charge of the unionizing details … hmm.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/363 "2021-05-22T02:46:07Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> When you are a salaried employee there is no such thing as “comp time” if you do your job and put in some hours (in the week) you get paid period. You salaried not hourly so there is no requirement for 40 hours a week.
I once inherited a department where it turned out the leader had been keeping a spreadsheet for years of her occasional weekend travel, and treating it as comp time (thus freeing up a week or more of extra vacation every year). I’d wondered how the hell she managed to take so much time off.
Explaining that was no fun.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/364 "2021-05-22T02:55:13Z")
I once had to explain to a newish employee that she was expected to show up to work on time.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/365 "2021-05-22T03:03:44Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> > [@thorny\_locust](#):
> >
> > am a farmer; and it’s impossible to tell people what I do succinctly. At least, unless they already know something about the subject.
>
> They may get the details wrong, or have mistaken impressions on how much work you do, but surely “I raise X” should be sufficient?
Nope.
“I raise X” doesn’t, apparently, even tell people that livestock farmers sometimes need to be on the farm instead of going to conferences. And whether the farm’s got livestock or not, it isn’t going to tell anybody who doesn’t know a good deal about raising X how much of the year, or what part of it, is the busy season. Nor is it going to tell them whether the farmer’s doing a great deal of handwork or doing it all from the seat of a tractor (except when trying to fix the tractor) or some of both, or whether they’re dealing with multiple customers daily or weekly over a multiple-month season or selling the crop all in one lump once a year to a wholesaler, or whether they’re spending most of their time managing employees or doing the work themselves – I could go on for quite a while.
Actually, just listing everything I raise would take a while.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/366 "2021-05-22T04:22:47Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I am a farmer; and it’s impossible to tell people what I do succinctly.
But you just did tell us succinctly.
If you told me “I’m a farmer.” I’d say “Damn, that’s cool… hey, you want another beer?”
Possibly followed by “Here’s your beer. And we’ve got brats on the grill… see Ed. He’s a mechanic, and a grill meister… Hey, Ed, this is Thorny, he’s a farmer! I know, it _is_ cool… get him a brat.”
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/367 "2021-05-22T08:05:40Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I am a farmer; and it’s impossible to tell people what I do succinctly. At least, unless they already know something about the subject.
Try being an artist who doesn’t work with conventional media.
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### Author:  [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/368 "2021-05-22T10:48:09Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> Damn, someone slept their way to(wards) the top. That, or they have serious dirt on someone else.
Over the better part of the last two decades she has worked at a half dozen companies with her boss (our Unit CFO) almost the same times at each one. She started as a Financial Analyst at a firm where he was a Finance Manager.
When she was hired here no mention was made that they ever worked together before, but she was identified as the best candidate after a “global talent search” by a retained firm to whom we paid a pretty penny! At her virtual introduction she joked that her LinkedIn page had never seen so many views before.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/369 "2021-05-22T13:16:21Z")
Back story: about 10 years ago I was forced to hire someone for a senior technician position. Let’s call him Mark. I didn’t want to hire him because I thought he was completely incompetent. But it was a political decision coming from high above, so I had no choice. And I had to pay Mark more than a degreed electrical engineer. Over the past 10 years he has spent 10% of his time doing ancillary stuff (taking out the trash, moving things, etc.) and 90% of his time sitting in people’s offices and hobnobbing. Though I am his supervisor, I have no choice but to turn a blind-eye to it.
We have a plastic drawer cabinet in the lab for storing SAE screws. Sort of like [this one](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/12/5c/51/125c5148a160782ff833e24cd69552d6.jpg). Sizes include 6-32 (1st column), 8-32 (2nd column), 10-24 (3rd column), and ¼-20 (4th column). For any given column, the length of screws increase as you go down the rows. So the first row might have ½ inch screws, the second row would have ¾ inch screws, and so on. In addition, each drawer is clearly labeled with screw size and screw length.
Over the years the drawer cabinet has become a little bit disorganized. Some of the drawers are not in the correct locations. So a few months ago I asked Mark to put the drawers back into their correct places. I estimated it would be a 5 minute job.
A couple hours went by. Mark then visited my office and said, “I am having some difficulty. Could you explain what these numbers mean again?”
So I (again) explained that machine screws come in different sizes, numbers are used to refer to diameter (6, 8, 10, etc. for SAE screws), and that they come in different lengths. And that screw diameters should be sorted from smallest to largest in columns and that lengths should be sorted from smallest to largest in rows.
Did I mention that each drawer is also labeled?
So a couple more hours went by. Mark then approached a (competent) technician and asked, “Do you have a thread gauge I can borrow?”
The competent technician got a worried look on his face (knowing Mark can’t do anything technical) and asked, “Uhh, Mark, what are you doing?”
Mark showed him the drawer cabinet with the screws. The competent technician told him he didn’t need a thread gauge and simply needed to sort the drawers based on the labels, with screw diameters sorted from smallest to largest in columns and lengths sorted from smallest to largest in rows. Mark worked on it for a few more hours.
The next day I went into the lab and took a look at the drawer cabinet. The drawers were not in the correct order. I fixed it in two minutes.
Did I mention that each drawer is also labeled?
Today, Mark believes he is underpaid and deserves a big promotion. I am opposed to it, obviously, and I am now considered a “mean” person by management as a result. He will get the promotion due to his political connections.
---
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/370 "2021-05-22T13:19:02Z")
> [@digs](#):
>
> But you just did tell us succinctly.
But what you thought I meant by that may have little or nothing to do with what I’m actually doing.
> [@digs](#):
>
> Hey, Ed, this is Thorny, he’s a farmer! I know, it _is_ cool… get him a brat.”
– she.
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Try being an artist who doesn’t work with conventional media.
Oh yeah. I expect there’s other examples.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/371 "2021-05-22T13:40:36Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> who think that Excel is a program to lay out nice static lists to print out.
And for many people, that is all they need it to do. And if they haven’t received any training then not knowing it has other capabilities (adding up cells, sorting) isn’t surprising.
In my IT experience, it’s folks that want to use Excel for everything that are more of a problem. Yes, you can use it as a (really tiny) database, but please don’t. My son worked at an engineering company where huge mission-critical datasets are stored in Excel files. God help you if you try to get a senior level person to move “his” data into a real database.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/372 "2021-05-22T15:12:49Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> Interesting thought experiment. If the Big Co. is in charge of the unionizing details … hmm.
Which is why they have been illegal in the US since 1935.
The most famous of these is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, though they quickly moved away from labor issues and into awards.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/373 "2021-05-22T15:48:16Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> So a couple more hours went by. Mark then approached a (competent) technician and asked, “Do you have a thread gauge I can borrow?”
I was sure you were going to relate how Mark had emptied all the little drawers into a pile of screws.
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### Author:  [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/374 "2021-05-22T16:18:30Z")
In the toolroom office we keep files on all the molds the company runs. In each file along with other data are notes for every time one is serviced.
2 months ago we got a new junior engineer hired fresh out of college. A week or so into the job he came to us to decipher the notes to see what history there was on a mold.
Turns out he doesn’t know how to read cursive. I guess it’s not his fault if many schools don’t teach it. But damn, college educated and never decided to learn it on his own? Seems kind of important in any field that heavily relies on communication.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/375 "2021-05-22T17:11:54Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> I was sure you were going to relate how Mark had emptied all the little drawers into a pile of screws.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he would do something like that. But I think he noticed the screws had threads, and he remembered someone showing him how to use a thread gauge a long time ago and thought that somehow it would help him on the task.
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### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/376 "2021-05-22T20:37:05Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> I was on a business trip with a new staffer once and found out that he didn’t know what a “service road” was [Frontage road - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontage_road) (he didn’t know it by the name “frontage road” either). Not a big deal, but still a little bit of a surprise for me.
There’s a quiz (I think it originated in the NY Times) that purports to identify your hometown on the basis of your answer to 10 “what do you call…” questions. One of them was “what do you call a road that goes parallel to the freeway?” So it’s a regional thing.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/377 "2021-05-22T20:50:43Z")
Understood - but the young staffer was from the same region as I was. It wasn’t a huge deal - just a surprise that he hadn’t known the name of something that existed in the area he was from (but I’m sure there are things in my area that I haven’t noticed enough to wonder what they are called).
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### Author:  [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/379 "2021-05-22T21:03:13Z")
> [@duffer](#):
>
> Turns out he doesn’t know how to read cursive. I guess it’s not his fault if many schools don’t teach it. But damn, college educated and never decided to learn it on his own? Seems kind of important in any field that heavily relies on communication.
I work in a field that relies entirely on communication and reading someone else’s cursive never comes up.
I can’t read my mother’s cursive. She has perfectly consistent letter forms and it looks beautiful but the nuns taught her how to write with non-standard letter forms and it’s gibberish to me. One should assume that anyone who needs to read your cursive can’t and anyone who shouldn’t read it will. Then decide how and what to write.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/380 "2021-05-22T21:18:31Z")
Cursive is an efficient method of handwriting but not so much when it comes to reading.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/381 "2021-05-22T22:45:46Z")
> [@jsc1953](#):
>
> There’s a quiz (I think it originated in the NY Times) that purports to identify your hometown on the basis of your answer to 10 “what do you call…” questions. One of them was “what do you call a road that goes parallel to the freeway?” So it’s a regional thing
I’m in New York State (though not near the city); and I’m afraid my answer would be “Probably Old Route Something-or-other.” Because, a lot of the time, that’s what that road running along the limited-access highway is: the road people used to get around there before they put the highway in, and which is still used for that purpose by people who live or work on it or who are going somewhere between exits or who just don’t feel like getting on the limited-access.
To me, a ‘service road’ would be a road that’s not for general through traffic, but just to get to particular properties near a more major road – a lane at the back of the mall that gives access to loading docks, or those roads that give access to Thruway rest stops; that sort of thing.
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### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/382 "2021-05-22T23:16:47Z")
> **[How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=80l4400s08000j6000120000004040050j0l0180400200000j&fbclid=IwAR3gm_0PoHheY_pkxEcNaHLGN9QOYnls5O3MlFmVLngoNaY9WQFlJ5CwZ3w)**
>
> What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer all the questions below to see your personal dialect map.
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