# 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:** 3
### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/41 "2021-05-13T14:34:30Z")
I’ll bet I have something like that. I’m pretty sure I was a natural southpaw pushed into using my right hand. I have to translate so much of the world from the upside down right left mirrored image that I perceive.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/42 "2021-05-13T14:35:28Z")
Also, “the other push”.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/43 "2021-05-13T14:43:12Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> > [@nearwildheaven](#):
> >
> > I once worked with a pharmacist who didn’t know that lesbians menstruate.
>
> I’ve also had to send out a department-wide email asking people not to flush paper towels down the toilet.
At work, went to use the bathroom. As I sat down, I see a notice on the bathroom stall: “Do NOT flush underwear down the toilet”.
I don’t even want to know what promted that notice.
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### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/44 "2021-05-13T14:46:51Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> I’ve also had to send out a department-wide email asking people not to flush paper towels down the toilet.
It might be a cultural/offshore workforce thing. Our office bathroom stalls (I’m assuming…haven’t been in the office for 14 months) have signs saying don’t flush paper towels, don’t throw the paper seat liners in the trash, don’t stand on the toilet seat, etc. I’ve heard that it’s because we have a lot of people in the building who are encountering Western plumbing for the first time.
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### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/45 "2021-05-13T14:48:29Z")
> [@wguy123](#):
>
> I think clockwise and counter-clockwise are better descriptors
If that fails, try dweazil and widdershins.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/46 "2021-05-13T14:49:15Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#):
>
> Quite a few of these apply to me, and I feel compelled to – I don’t know, trumpet my lack of knowledge so you can all point and laugh at me?
When I first came to this job, I had used a computer before…in the seventh grade. The lady who trained me had to show me how to turn it on. I also remember the epiphanies of finding out that I didn’t have to close my email and open it every time I looked at it, I could just minimize it; and how I came to understand over time when to left-click or right-click. So I ain’t gonna laugh.
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### Author:  [@Gruppen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gruppen)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/47 "2021-05-13T14:53:06Z")
We work quite a bit in Excel and I once had to show my co-worker how to sort. It wasn’t just that she didn’t know how to do it, she didn’t know it could be done and was surprised by the feature’s existence. I think a lot about how hard it must have been to work in Excel without knowing that.
I just assume that anything I can imagine doing in a spreadsheet can be done in Excel, it’s just a matter of figuring out how. But she didn’t even think to check if you could sort which to me is an incredibly basic feature.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/48 "2021-05-13T14:54:20Z")
The worst:
I got a call one day from a teacher we’ll call, “Patti”. She said her computer wasn’t running at all. So, I went down to her room.
Jasmine (after a cursory inspection): “Ah, Patti, it’s not plugged in.”
Patti: “Oh, I don’t know computer stuff.”
Jasmine: 😳
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/49 "2021-05-13T14:55:27Z")
I know a woman who can’t differentiate right and left without doing a trick she learned. She holds her hands up, so that she is looking at the backs of her hands. Her left hand-thumb form an “L”, so she then knows that is her left.
Seriously.
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### Author:  [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/50 "2021-05-13T14:55:51Z")
Last year, I started managing an employee (in her 40s) whose title is Financial Analyst. While helping her correctly set up a particular spreadsheet, I said something like “…and then the delta will show up here.”
Financial Analyst: “What does ‘delta’ mean?”
🤨
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/51 "2021-05-13T14:57:01Z")
> [@Grrr](#):
>
> At work, went to use the bathroom. As I sat down, I see a notice on the bathroom stall: “Do NOT flush underwear down the toilet”.
>
> I don’t even want to know what promted that notice. -
I would assume someone flushed underwear.
:deadpan:
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### Author:  [@Uniqueorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uniqueorn)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/52 "2021-05-13T14:59:10Z")
Granted, it was the mid-90s, but since we had been using in the office for a while, I was surprised when a secretary asked if I knew Emile, who was not a new employee, but an electronic way of sending mail.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/53 "2021-05-13T15:00:02Z")
> [@jsc1953](#):
>
> I always liked the phrase “No, your _other_ right.”
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve muttered to myself, “Watch hand,” or “Non-watch hand,” when I’m reaching for something.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/54 "2021-05-13T15:12:05Z")
Having to explain the difference between waiving and electing benefits during open enrollment. “When you waive something it doesn’t mean you’re saying hello. It means you’re waving goodbye because you don’t want it.”
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/55 "2021-05-13T15:12:15Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#):
>
> But saying to turn something to the right does. If you are turning a knob to the right, then the top of the knob goes from left to right, but the bottom of the knob is actually going from right to left.
Absolutely. When I was a kid, this confused me too.
Think about it – put a wrench on a bolt and turn it “to the right.” Depending on the position of the wrench, you may actually be moving the handle of the wrench to the left.
But eventually the confusion faded away, probably because every time I tried to turn something as a kid, I had to think about it, and eventually internalized what was meant by turning to the right as opposed to turning something to the left.
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/56 "2021-05-13T15:18:05Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure I was a natural southpaw pushed into using my right hand.
I know for a fact I was naturally left-handed as a child, but was made to learn to write with my right hand.
There have been effects, of course, but nothing that terrible.
I’m not, unfortunately, ambidextrous. I can’t switch, for most things. I write with my right hand, and can’t write at all with my left hand. But I played hockey as a kid, and played left-handed. I wear my watch on my right wrist, unlike most righties.
For some reason, I dial phones with my left hand (alright, nobody dials phones anymore, but when I did…).
There’s a much more other oddities, if I really thought about it. But I never had any difficulty telling right from left (at least past the age when one would be expected to be able to tell right from left).
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### Author:  [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/57 "2021-05-13T15:18:20Z")
I recently wrote to my fellow board members that we need to develop an SOP manual, and several of them did not know what SOP stands for.
(I’m curious - am I right to think that the abbreviation “SOP” is well known? Or is it a less familiar term than I thought?)
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### Author:  [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/58 "2021-05-13T15:20:43Z")
^^^it’s less SOP than you thought.
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### Author:  [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/59 "2021-05-13T15:22:57Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> I know a woman who can’t differentiate right and left without doing a trick she learned. She holds her hands up, so that she is looking at the backs of her hands. Her left hand-thumb form an “L”, so she then knows that is her left.
>
> Seriously.
My daughter has this problem, but the L hand trick doesn’t help because she also has trouble with which way around letters should go. She pretty much has to pantomime writing something, and whichever hand she uses she knows is her right hand.
She’s young, and has been working hard to overcome her left/right handicap. She’s getting better, but it did not at all come naturally to her.
She’s right handed, and as far as I know was not forced into it in any way.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-been-surprised-youve-had-to-explain-at-work/941959/60 "2021-05-13T15:28:04Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#):
>
> I’m not, unfortunately, ambidextrous. I can’t switch, for most things. I write with my right hand, and can’t write at all with my left hand. But I played hockey as a kid, and played left-handed. I wear my watch on my right wrist, unlike most righties.
As a kid I was mixed up on a lot things like that. I was too young to understand the concept when pushed to learn my right hand, it seemed to be a totally arbitrary designation, like how would I know if I was somebody with my right hand on the other side.
I learned to do most things right handed. I kept trying left also, but was constantly being told I was doing it wrong that way. Over time my right side became much stronger and more coordinated simply from doing things right handed so much. Many years later in my 30s my right hand ended up in a cast and I had to write left handed. I could barely do it, but people remarked that my left hand writing was more legible than my typical right hand chicken scratches.
It’s not a problem telling my right hand from my left, I know which one it is, but descriptions referring to left and right can take me some time to get straight without imagining my own right hand for reference.
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