We’ve all been given unsolicited advice, but I’m curious if there’s any that you still remember and not because it was offensive or meanspirited towards you or others (as in no “You’d look so much better if you lost some weight” kind stuff)
I remember I got a sunburn on my arm at the beach because I left my waterproof watch on and the watch must have rubbed the sunblock off after I first applied because I then got a red outline of the watch and strap on my arm.
I told my coworker this and they immediately went on a 10 minute explanation of “Truckers Arm” and how if you’re driving for too long the sun will still sunburn you through the windshield. This had literally nothing to do with the beach or how I got to my actual sunburn they just decided to warn me against truckers arm.
This is arguably offensive, but I wasn’t offended, so…
Years ago, I was talking to this guy Larry about his chronic illness. I replied, “I have chronic depression, so I understand what it’s like to be low energy all the time,” or something.
Back when I was a rookie financial advisor, I was given pages of account names and phone numbers to call and try to engage with. It was a month of making shitty cold calls, and I hated it. But every person who talked to you was at least a chance to work on phone skills and seeing if I could actually be of service.
This was 10 years ago, and I still remember it plain as day. The woman who answered seemed interested. She had a life insurance policy with us, and there were updates and alerts she needed to be made aware of, which many times could lead to other business that would actually make me some money.
She took the next 15 minutes getting me to write down a bunch of bible verses as she weaved her way between asking actual questions about her policy and alternatively trying to save my soul. I was too early on the hang up on her, since every call was being recorded.
I worked retail in a sleazy motorcycle accessories place with a guy. We’d get lunch from a crappy burger joint next door and pretty much eat at the counter while we worked. One day, he says to me I shouldn’t eat onion-rings because of the smell.
This guy was a chain-smokers with yellow fingers. His breath, hair, clothes and whole body and the surrounding space simply reeked. And he tells me I shouldn’t have onion-rings with my burger.
Okay, weirdest. Mere days after my dad died, leaving me his house (I’m an only child, and my mom was already gone), one of his fellow Knights of Columbus guys, a real estate guy, wanted to come over and look at the place and talk to me about having him sell it for me.
So I let him look it over, and then, at the end, we were standing in the front yard, and for reasons I have never been able to ascertain, he started giving me a lecture on stretching exercises I should do every morning before getting out of bed. Dude got down on the ground, out there in the front yard, pretending he was lying in bed, and started doing these stretches that would have probably looked like writhing around in pain to a casual observer, while explaining what he was doing. Pretty weird, in large part because there was nothing that led into the whole demonstration. After that, I was damn sure glad when he left.
I never knew whether anything he told me was the real deal because I was too busy going “Uh, what’s going on here?” to myself for any of the information to sink into my brain.
Wow! So, what was Aaron Burr like? Did he tell you to talk less also?
For me, when I was in college my dad told me that I should take some business classes, just in case. Since I was studying computer science at MIT, I figured I was not going to have any trouble making a living.
I didn’t.
I suppose some may have found this offensive but I simply found it funny.
My wife’s family is deeply blue collar. Her generation is the first to finish high school. My wife is the first in her family to attend and complete college.
In 2019 I was hired by my local community college as full-time remedial English teacher (I have both a BA and an MA). That year over Thanksgiving dinner while people were casually chatting my wife mentioned my new job at the college. Well, she mentioned that I had been hired by the college but failed to say what I had been hired to do. Her uncle then made a comment about how he had heard through the grapevine that the school had been looking for a new groundskeeper and promptly congratulated me on my new landscaping job – and proceeded to spend ~15 minutes giving me advice on how to maintain large, open park-like manicured grounds.
He had no real concept of higher education and apparently it never occurred to him that anyone in the family would be doing a job that required any kind of education past middle school.
Whenever I get told I should smile I put the most horrific, Jim-Carrey-doing-an-impression-of-Jack-Nicholson-as Joker grin on my face, and say, “Is this better?”
Recently? I’m getting a lot of it. It seems everyone wants to be a Life Coach now.
A relative admonished me to finish all my antibiotics because: “It’s the only way to get rid of a virus.”
Traffic guy on local news: “If you find you’ve driven onto ice, immediately shift to the lowest gear so you’ll have better traction.”
Weather gal (same station): “You should get a CO detector because all generators produce carbon monoxide when they’re running.”
Same weather gal: “Never, ever, bring a propane appliance into the house for heating.”
Maybe there are weird corner cases I don’t understand where this advice is useful, but it’s definitely wrong. Antibiotics don’t kill viruses. Dropping into “L” when you find yourself on ice is a good way to meet Mr. Guardrail. Propane generators don’t produce CO, assuming they’re correctly tuned and have the proper sized demand regulator. And yes, there are propane heaters designed specifically for indoor use.
If I’m wrong about any of this, someone correct me. I’d hate to be a walking example of the Dunning Kruger effect, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
This reminded me of a time from my early 20s. I needed a new place to stay in a hurry (the landlord’s drug addict brother in my current flat had started taking the extra key to my flat and stealing from me). I found out a friend of a friend, who I didn’t really know at all personally, wanted to rent out a room in his house, so I took him up on it without really knowing what I was getting into.
The owner of this new place worked on cars and other vehicles as a hobby. He would do stuff like buy two non-working Jeep Wranglers and cannibalize them into one working Jeep. As a result, he had vehicle parts literally everywhere on every horizontal surface of the house-- the kitchen counters, the dining room table, ect. If I sat down at the table to eat a meal, I’d have to clear away alternators and fuel pumps. The bathroom was under constant renovation for the entire few months I lived there, so you had to wear hard-soled shoes in there so as not to step on screws or other rubble.
But if I left a dirty dish or drinking glass in the sink without immediately washing it, he’d get angry and lecture me.
This is why you should have a CO detector. I mean, when someone says you should have a fire alarm because your house has electricity, we don’t say that electric service doesn’t cause fires when it’s correctly installed and used.
My wacky advice was given to me nigh on 30 years ago. Some apparently homeless guy outside the A&P told me I shouldn’t swing my arms when I walk… it causes cancer. I have to say, I’m taking my chances rather than walk like Joe Friday.
When I was probably 13 or so, I was at softball practice and one of the younger girls was talking to me. Somehow my size came up - I have always been tall and fat, even at 13 - and she told me “give me a week and I will help you lose weight” or something to that effect. She said I could come stay at her house. I declined.
I still think about that incident all the time. She must have been around 11 years old. What was she going to do? I seriously think she wanted me to come stay at her house and run laps all day and not eat anything, then I’d be fixed.
an acquaintance was getting rid of a kids power wheels jeep and I said I would take it since my wife and I had a 2 year old that might get some use out of it. He mentioned that the motor had been removed but it didn’t matter and that, to save money, I could just get a battery and directly connect it to the wheels and it would work. I tried to explain that no, actually you needed a motor to convert the electrical energy to mechanical energy to power the wheels, but he was adamant that was not the case.
Eons ago when I was a kid, the girl who lived next door told me that I shouldn’t touch window screens (metal back in those days) when lightning flashed because I’d be electrocuted. She’s also the one that said when you fall asleep, your heart stops beating. I used to go to bed with my hand over my heart to see for myself.
I’ll just assume she meant well and she wasn’t deliberately screwing with my head.
She sounds like she’d get along well with Opie Taylor’s friend: “Johnny Paul Jason says that if you put a horse hair in stagnation water, it’ll turn into a snake.”
I was too early on the hang up on her, since every call was being recorded.