Overheard at the Office #51

Former boss on the phone with a customer who is not getting something that he's explained poorly a couple times.

FormerBoss: OK lady, why don't you go in the back, grab the smartest MAN you have back there, and put him on the phone.

Needless to say, they weren't a customer much longer.

May I Please Speak to the Man of the House?

So I recently came across this nugget of a post on Slashdot recently.  In a nutshell:

I like to hire women for level one.  They're always so polite.  And pretty! *Giggle*
Then I like to hire a competent tech to sit between them and do the actual thinking.  You know, a man.
And finally, ex-military types are great too.  They're used to the abuse I intend to dish out!

Sadly, I've worked for a few places that operated with some or all of this logic.

Overheard at Best Buy #1

This exchange happened years back before Best Buy started thinking themselves to be a cell phone store.

Sales Drone: How may I help you?
Me:  I'm looking for 1GB of DDR2 RAM.
Sales Drone: *very smugly* Well, DDR2 is pretty new and I doubt your computer can use it.  What brand is it?
Me: I built it myself this weekend, it doesn't have a brand.
Sales Drone: All computers have a brand. It's usually right the front of the case.
Me: Yes, the manufacturer of the case is written on the front. But that doesn't change the fact that I built the system.  And the motherboards manual clearly states it takes DDR2.

This back and forth goes on way longer than necessary until I tell him point blank that if he doesn't want the sale I can walk 2 doors down to CompUSA and I'm sure they'll gladly sell me what I need.

So I get the RAM finally, take it home, and it works perfectly in my new build.  I wonder if their sales people today know more about cell phones than they did about computers back in the day?

Edit: I better make this Overheard at Best Buy #1.  There's no way it can be the only one.

Overheard at the Office #50

Coworker: Hmm, today is Cinco de Mayo.
Other Coworker: Yes it is.
Coworker: I have to call my friend. She's Puerto Rican.  I need to wish her a happy Cinco de Mayo!

Overheard in the Barracks #1

Let me set the scene.  It was 1997 or 1998, we just got phone service in the Barracks which let us finally get on the Internet.  I was showing my roommate around the Web and then we decided to jump on IRC.  I was showing him how to use mIRC.

roommate: No, stop. I don't want to make any long distance calls.
me:  WTF?  Your ISP is local.
roommate: You're calling Phoenix!  That's long distance.
me: No, it's a server in Phoenix on the Internet.  There's no long distance on the Internet.
roommate: I don't know about that, that doesn't sound right.

I was connecting to the Phoenix Undernet server.

Overheard at the Office #49

I have no idea what the context of this exchange was, but it make me chuckle.


Coworker1: Interns?
Coworker2: No, people.

Overheard at the Office #48

Coworker: We should leave AppleTalk enabled.
me: Why? It hasn't been used in decades.
Coworker: $HIGHERUP uses a MacBook.
me: So?
Coworker: So what if he needs to print?
me: You want to leave AppleTalk enabled on 500+ printers because $HIGHERUP has a MacBook? NOBODY USES APPLETALK!
Coworker: You never know....