I book travel for credit card holders who have points they wish to redeem for travel. 9/11 spawned a whole shitload of new ULs, many of which are related to air travel. There are plenty others listed on Snopes.
That the Geneva Convention says I couldn’t shoot someone with a .50 Cal, as it is used only for equipment.
They are wrong. Their wrongness is based on incomplete understanding of physics, nature, etc…they are aware of some factoids, which when taken out of context tend to support the wrong conclusions. They hang onto this stuff because they find it interesting. They heard it from their shooting buddy, or their flight instructor. While it may be annoying to you that you have to do it over and over again, explaining the bigger picture will generally cure such folks of their misconceptions, and the honest ones will be glad not to be spreading such nonsense any farther. They will probably look into the matter a little deeper next time their buddy tells them something that doesn’t quite seem right.
This is a little different than typical urban legend stuff that is generally made up from whole cloth, and gets repeated because plays to common fears (Psycho in the back seat, murderous gangstas driving with no headlights) or it supports a moral or political position.(“I’m a bad American”, Bloomingdales cookies)…the folks who fall for this stuff generally do so because they want it to be true. They heard it on Paul Harvey, or a coworker sent them an email. These are the people who get pissed off when you send them a link to the snopes page debunking their glurge, because it “doesn’t prove anything”. They will never stop forwarding the email glurge to us.
So my point is that I think the first group of dumb-shits deserve far more sympathy than the second.
Coast Guard:
Jimmy Buffet was in the CG, but was kicked out for doing/selling/smuggling drugs.
Jimmy Buffet was never in the CG. Why this seems to be the #1 UL in our service I have no idea.
If you’re on a cutter that sinks, you never have to go to sea again.
Bzzt - wrong. You’ll go wherever the hell they tell you to go. Detailers may take your history into account, but no such policy exists regarding shipwreck survivors.
If you’ve sailed the seven seas (however that’s defined!) you may wear a gold hoop earring while in uniform.
Bzzt - wrong.
Popeye was, in fact, a Coastie, not Navy. Early episodes had the sailor sporting a USCG tattoo on his forearm.
Partially true. While Popeye’s creators stated he was just a general sailor type, there was one episode where he did in fact serve in the Coast Guard. (in other eps, he was also Navy, and Army, IIRC) The ep was “Popeye meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves” (1937). He was stationed at a Coast Guard Station, and at one point he did in fact state: “Stop! In the name of the Coast Guard!” I purchased the DVD of this episode to put this one to bed once and for all. To my knowledge, however, Popeye never sported a USCG tattoo.
There are plenty more, but those are the ones that come to mind.
For the record, the M16A2 and M16A4, the two main models used by the US armed forces today, have a barrel with a 1:7 left-hand twist.
There is an entire subsection of porn dedicated to nursing.
We don’t perform those types of procedures on patients. Really.
Post Office:
Sorters find a postcard addressed to “God”. It’s from a little old lady who, through no fault of her own, has become financially destitute, and is asking God for $200 (the amount varies) to cover the rent (or electricity, etc). The postal workers feel sorry for her, and pass the hat around so they can mail her some cash. However, they only raise half of what she asked for. A week later, another postcard turns up in the system, also addressed to God. It is thanking Him for the $200 “but those thieving bastards at the post office must have stolen half of it!”
Librarians don’t really have any urban legends as all the stories of naked patrons, patrons having sex and “I need a book. It has a blue cover, that’s all I know!” are true.
Weight of the books sinking the building? Or does that originate with patrons, not staff?
That’s it!!! That’s the one I couldn’t think of! I knew there was another and I was trying to think for like 5 minutes before I gave up and just hit submit. This is exactly the one I was thinking of when I said “I’m sure there’s more that drive me crazy, but that’s all I can think of right now.” Good call. I’m so totally sick of hearing that one.
The other higher ed one that always astonishes me is the one about how long you are required to wait for a prof who’s late to class, depending on his/her rank.
My office is stuck smack-dab between two classroom, so I overhear a lot of chit-chat among students. On the whole, I’d say our students are pretty unsophisticated. We’re an open-enrollment associate-degree-granting institution with a large percentage of first-generation college students. Yet they ALL seem to know this “rule.”
Ah, okay. I can agree with that. Yea, I do take the time to explain “why” the misunderstandings are out there and the actual physics behind what’s happening. As you can no doubt tell from my frustration, I do it quite often 
Sometimes, though, it just doesn’t sink in and I have to go into an hour tangent discussing fluid dynamics or magnetic flux or god knows what just to get people to believe me when I contradict something they’ve been taught in the past.
But you’re right though. They are happy to learn the truth and are sure to pass on that knowledge (enlightenment) to others.
And anyway, I’m not so frustrated with the group of dumbshits who were taught incorrect information. I’m pissed at all the people doing the teaching. If you are in a position where people will believe your every word, you have a responsibilty to not spew out some nonsense or some bullshit that you heard one day.
Well I’ll be damned, you’re right.
I know there’s no official college-wide rule for when students are allowed to leave, but nearly every professor I’ve had has spelled out the lateness rules on the first day of class.
I actually got to take advantage of this rule once. The professor’s policy was that if he didn’t show up 15 minutes after the start of class we were free to leave. At 15 after I’d say more than half got up to leave and I later heard the profressor showed up around 20 after and was surprised most of us hadn’t left sooner. He also sent the rest of the stragglers (maybe 3 or 4) on their way.
Duh, everybody knows the Five Minute and Ten Minute Rules.
You can leave whenever you want, you’re paying for it anyway, right?
Bear_Nenno, can you (or somebody else familiar) educate me on this specific point about the GC? I, while not being in the armed forces, have also heard about the GC designating weapons that could be used against infantry, and weapons that were designed to disable equipment, and you couldn’t use certain weapons solely to kill humans. Turns out I was misinformed, but can you elaborate on the Straignt Dope?
The deer, the dog, and the bambulance.
Oddly enough, my co-workers and I had no trouble accepting that call at face value, because if you’ve been doing this job for any time at all you’ve definitely dealt with weirder things.
I don’t know that it was the weight of the books that did it, but UMASS Amherst has an exclusion area around the library, and an armored entranceway, because due to some kind of fuckup between the plans and the consturction, the facade of bricks on the outside of the building is being compressed with enough force to occaisonally force a single brick to ‘pop’ out of the facade and fall down.
The story that I’d heard on campus was that the original plans for the building had been for a 13 story office building, but for reasons that I can’t recall, they chose to use the plans for the basis for a 26 story library, instead, with only minimal changes made to plans. The explaination was that a large part of the problem was the weight loading on the building was so much more with a library than office space would have, contributing the majority of the compressive force on the facade.
I don’t know how much of the back-story I have is right. I do know that there is a fence up around the library preventing pedestrian access within about 50 feet of the building. And that the sole entrance/exit is an extra thick roofed galley.
I work for the govt. Ours are:
An intern put the wrong RIC on a purchase request, so the material came from the contractor to here.
An old timer had been phased out mostly, but his only job now is to change the thermostat temperature.
We’re all making $80,000+ per year (can’t wait until the builders/real estate agents in Maryland find out most of us are interns at 40K!)
DUPLICATE