It’s often a challenge to explain to strangers exactly what I do in the aerospace industry. At one gathering, I didn’t even try. I just said, “I’m a defense contractor.”
One of the guys was intrigued. “So, what do you put up mainly? Chain-link?”
—JOHN MCGEORGE
A tree in our front yard was weeping sap, so I visited the office of the U.S. Forest Service for advice. When I explained my problem to a staff member, he stepped to the back of the office and called out, “Anyone here know anything about trees?”
—JIM BRADLEY
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street. I was walking with a coworker of mine, when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for.
“It signals to blind people when the light is red,” I said.
Unhappy with my explanation, she shot back, “What on earth are blind people doing driving?”
—RINKWORKS.COM
In my job with a delivery company, I was getting directions to a customer’s home. The woman very specifically said, “From the main road in the center of town go two lights. Look for the bank. Turn right onto the next avenue. Go 1.2 miles. Drive past a yellow hydrant and then take the next left. Go 200 yards. My driveway is the third on the right, and the number is on the mailbox.”
As I entered the information into the computer, I asked, “What color is your house?”
The woman paused a second, then said, “Hold on. I’ll go check.”
—MELISSA A. DOOLEN
A customer called our airline’s reservation office to pay for his ticket with a credit card. My coworker asked him, “Would you please spell the name as it appears on the card, sir?”
The customer replied, “V-I-S-A.”
—CATHY MOSELEY
A customer at the post office called to complain that she hadn’t received a package. “Can I have your name and address?” I asked.
“All of that is on the package,” she snapped.
“Yes, I know,” I replied, “but—”
“Just call me when you find it.”
“Can I have your phone number then?”
“I can’t remember. But I’m listed,” she said, and hung up.
—CHESTER D. STANHOPE
A customer walked into our insurance office looking for a quote. But first I had to lead her through a litany of questions, including: “Marital status?”
“Well,” she began, “I guess you could say we’re happy—as happy as most other couples nowadays.”
—SHIRLEY WALKER
Meeting with my new pastor, I asked if I could have a church service when I eventually die. “Of course,” he said, grabbing his date book. “What day do you want?”
—EDITH KRZYWICKI
I was waiting tables in a noisy lobster restaurant in Maine when a vacationing Southerner stumped me with a drink order. I approached the bartender. “Have you ever heard of a drink called ‘Seven Young Blondes’?” I asked.
He admitted he’d never heard of it, and grabbed a drink guidebook to look it up. Unable to find the recipe, he then asked me to go back and tell the patron that he’d be happy to make the drink if he could list the ingredients for him. “Sir,” I asked the customer, “can you tell me what’s in that drink?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s wine,” he said, pronouncing his words carefully, “Sauvignon blanc.”
—CHRISTIE ECKELS
I was going out to a business lunch with two other people, one of whom volunteered to drive. After the driver unlocked the passenger door, I decided to hop in the back to avoid one of those awkward scenes where you hem and haw over who sits where. But I had trouble getting the seat back to fold forward. I pulled the lever under the seat to slide it forward, but it only moved a few inches.
Not easily discouraged, I hiked up my skirt, and was about to dive into the back when the third member of our party intervened. “Wouldn’t it be easier,” she said, “just to use the back door?”
—JENNIFER DUFFIN
Working from home as I do, I need a professional-sounding voice-mail greeting so everyone will know I’m hard at work. While I was recording a new message one morning, my wife was across the hall from my office, folding clothes with my six-year-old daughter, who had just emerged from the shower. My message ended up sounding like this:
Male voice: “Hi, this is Jeff Hill with IBM.”
Female voice: “Look at you! You have no clothes on!”
Male voice: “I’m not available right now…”
—SUE SHELLENBARGER
When my husband ran for local public office, I was asked if I could do some research on the cost of getting his campaign literature printed up. So I visited a large printing chain to gather pricing information on copying costs. The clerk read off the various prices for color copies, color paper, one-sided printing, two-sided, multiple-color ink, etc.
Since I could not write as fast as the clerk could read, I requested a pricing list. “Sorry, Ma’am,” she said. “This is my only copy.”
—KAREN ENDRES
“Weston’s been watching Mad Men again.”
At the nature park where I worked in Hawaii, cliff divers often filled in as lifeguards at the falls. On chilly days, however, they wore sweatshirts that covered the lifeguard badges on their swimsuits, so it wasn’t apparent that they were safety officers. One day three preteen daredevils ignored my coworker Nancy when she told them not to dive in the pond’s shallow edge. Challenging her authority, one boy said in defiance, “Who says?”
“THIS says!” Nancy replied, lifting her sweatshirt to display her lifeguard badge. Seeing their wide-eyed stares and feeling cool air, Nancy only needed a second to remember that she had already removed her wet swimsuit earlier in the day.
—SHIRLEY GERUM
Employee of the Month is a good example of when a person can be a winner and a loser at the same time.
—DEMETRI MARTIN
An absent-minded coworker and I went on a business trip. True to form, he left a book on the plane, arrived at the hotel with someone else’s luggage, then lost his camera in a restaurant.
Returning home a week later, we headed to the airport parking lot to get his car, only to discover that he had no keys; he had left them in the trunk lock the week before. Fortunately, someone had turned them in to an attendant. My colleague was driving me home when I noticed the gas tank was empty, so we stopped at a service station. After paying for the gas, he hopped back in the car and drove off. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone at work that I left those keys in the trunk lock,” he pleaded. “Okay,” I agreed, “as long as I can tell them that you paid for gas and left without pumping it.”
—MICHELLE A. BETZEL
Our intern was not very swift. One day, he turned to a secretary. “I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do?”
“Just use copy-machine paper,” she said to him.
With that, the intern took his last remaining piece of blank typing paper, put it in the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies.
As a salesperson, I do a lot of business over the phone. One man who called to place an order had a nice voice, so when he asked if I wanted his number, I took the opportunity to offer mine as well.
“Um,” he stammered, “I was talking about my purchase-order number.”
—IRIS MADDEROM
As a personal-injury attorney, I often get clients who have unsuccessfully attempted to settle their claims themselves. During a phone interview one woman told me that having lived on both coasts, she was more than capable of handling her claim, but the insurance company was giving her trouble. “Where did the accident occur?” I asked.
When she answered “Washington,” I inquired, “Washington State or Washington, D.C.?”
There was a slight pause. “Hold on,” she said. “I’ll check the police report.”
—CHRISTOPHER J. CARNEY
My daughter attends Oregon State University and works part time at a groc
ery store. With the holidays approaching, she worried about having enough time to study for finals, so she penned a memo to her manager. “It is absolutely imperative that I receive four days off,” she wrote. “Otherwise I will not have time to study.”
The next day her request was tacked to the employee bulletin board along with a note from her boss. “If I allow these days off,” read the reply, “it is absolutely imperative that I know who you are.”
—JANEY POWERS
When a client died, her daughter told our agency that she would cancel the home policy the following week, once her mother’s belongings were removed.
Simple, right? Here’s the note that was placed in the client’s file: “Deceased will call next week to cancel moving her things out.”
—KARLA WYNDER
Working as a server at a sushi bar, I saw a customer trying to get my attention. “What’s up, babe?” he asked in a strong foreign accent. “Everything is fine, sir,” I replied. After a while the patron hailed me again, asking “What’s up, babe?” Puzzled and annoyed, I gave the same reply. Observing this was my supervisor, who called me over. “What did that customer ask?” he inquired. When I told him, he smiled. “He doesn’t want to know how you’re doing,” my boss said with a laugh. “He’s asking for wasabi!”
—VIJAY KRISHAN
“I don’t dare leave my desk, dear. Ferguson’s waiting to pounce on my job.”
While auditing one of our departments, an assistant asked me what I was doing. “Listing your assets,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I have a good sense of humor and I make great lasagna.”
—ALEC KAY
I was on the phone at the end of the day when my boss walked in and pressed a sticky note onto a nearby filing cabinet. I had already put away my glasses and was in a rush to leave, so I quickly scanned the slip of paper and called after him, “I have feelings for you, too!”
He looked back at me quizzically and was gone. Then I took a closer look at the note. It read, “I have filing for you.”
—MELODY DELZELL
Tourists say some odd things when they charter my boat in Key West. “How many sunset sails do you have at night?” asked one. Another wondered, “Does the water go around the island?”
But the most interesting came when I asked a customer why she’d brought along a dozen empty jars. She answered, “I want to take home a sample of each color of water that we’ll be going in.”
—DENISE JACKSON
As an amusement-park employee, I am often asked for directions to specific attractions. Although detailed maps are given to each customer who enters the park, some people need more help. One exasperated guest approached me after she’d gotten lost using the map. “How come these maps don’t have an arrow telling you where you are?” she asked.
—J. B. HAIGHT
Here’s an ad for a job that should be filled quickly: “Animal Hospital is seeking an Assistant. Must be flexible, reliable, and irresponsible.”
—MARGERY JOHNSON
A blonde was settling into a first-class seat for a flight to Los Angeles when the flight attendant asked to see her ticket. “Ma’am, you can’t sit here,” the attendant explained. “You have a coach ticket.”
“I’m blond, I’m beautiful, and I’m going to Los Angeles first-class,” the blond passenger declared.
So the flight attendant went to get her supervisor, who explained, “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to move to coach because you don’t have a first-class ticket.”
“I’m blond, I’m beautiful, and I’m going to Los Angeles first-class,” repeated the gorgeous young blonde.
The two attendants went to the cockpit and told the captain. He came back and whispered something to the blonde. She jumped up and quickly took a seat in the coach section. Astounded, the flight attendants asked the captain what he had said. “I told her that first class wasn’t going to Los Angeles,” he replied.
—CORY CAMPBELL
A friend stopped at a convenience store, but the automatic doors wouldn’t open. Thinking there was an electronic eye, he began to wave his arms. An employee inside the store waved back. My friend then wedged his fingers between the sliding glass doors and created an opening wide enough to enter. “Your doors are out of order!” he hollered to a clerk. “Why didn’t you help me?”
“Sir,” he replied, “we’re closed!”
—KEVIN J. SHANNON
At the funeral home where my husband works, the funeral director asked a recent widower, “Did your wife’s illness come out of the blue?”
“No, she’d been sick before,” he said. “But never this bad.”
—JACKIE WISSMUELLER
While working in a clothing store, I noticed that people had no shame about returning items that obviously had been worn. One rainy morning I walked in and found a discolored blazer hanging on the rack with other returns. “People return the most filthy, nasty things,” I commented to my supervisor who was standing nearby.
Eyebrow raised, she said, “That’s my jacket.”
—JOYCE A. WATTS
A fellow nurse at my hospital received a call from an anxious woman. “I’m diabetic and I’m afraid I’ve had too much sugar today,” she said.
“Are you lightheaded?” my colleague asked.
“No, I’m a brunette.”
—PAM FORST
Plate-glass windows cover the front of the office where I work. One day a military plane on maneuvers caused a sonic boom that cracked one of the windows. My boss called the local air base to file a claim and was finally transferred to a woman who handled such matters. After she carefully asked him the pertinent details of the incident, she had one final question: “Did you get the ID number off the plane?”
—MICHELLE BURTON
A customer called our service line demanding help with her TV set, which wouldn’t come on.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t send a technician out today due to the blizzard,” I told her.
Unsatisfied, she barked, “I need my TV fixed today! What else am I supposed to do while the power is out?!”
—ARIELLE MOBLEY
Our new assistant, Christy, 16, was in her first office job. Coworkers were giving her basic instructions as the boss stepped out of his office and the telephone rang. Christy answered professionally, but then burst out with, “He’s in the restroom now.”
“Oh, no,” one employee whispered to her. “Say he’s with a customer.”
“He’s in the restroom with a customer,” Christy told the caller.
—JIM OTTS
As I was waiting for my wife at the reception desk at a spa, a flustered woman entered. She apologized to the receptionist for being late. “I walked up and down both sides of the street for 15 minutes trying to find the entrance to the spa,” she said. When she finished her explanation, the receptionist’s first question was, “Have you ever been here before?”
—ED SWARTZACK
During a conference, I was pleasantly surprised to be seated next to a very handsome man. We flirted casually through dinner, then grew restless as the dignitaries gave speeches. During one particularly long-winded lecture, my new friend drew a # sign on a cocktail napkin. Elated, I wrote down my phone number. Looking startled for a moment, he drew another # sign, this time adding an X to the upperleft-hand corner.
—KARI MOORE
“The plan is to re-establish confidence in my leadership abilities.”
Following the birth of my second child, I called our insurance company to inquire about my short-term disability policy.
“I just had a baby,” I proudly announced to the representative who picked up the phone.
“Congratulations! I’ll get all of your information and activate your policy,” she assured me. After taking down basic facts like my name and address, she asked, “Was this a work-related incident?”
—HEIDI TOURSIE
My colleague used to work as a receptionist at an upscale salon. Afte
r greeting clients, she would ask them to change into a protective gown.
One afternoon a serious-looking businessman entered the salon, and was directed to the changing room and told the gowns were hanging on the hooks inside. Minutes later he emerged.
“I’m ready,” he called out. My friend gasped. Instead of a gown, the man was wearing something another client had left hanging in the room—a floral blouse with shoulder pads.
—SHERRIE GRAHAM
Standing in line in a hardware store, I noted a woman looking at a rack full of signs priced at $1.79 each. She took one out and put it back a couple of times. Suddenly she held up the sign that read “Help Wanted,” and asked the clerk, “Is there a discount on the sign if it’s just going over the kitchen sink?”
—NANCY M. BAUMANN
An art lover stopped by my booth at a crafts fair to admire one of my paintings.
“Is that a self-portrait?” he asked.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“Who did it?”
—FLORENCE KAUFMAN
The secret to why librarians spend their days shushing people. Here are actual questions asked of librarians:
“Can you tell me why so many Civil War battles were fought in national parks?”
“Do you have any books with photos of dinosaurs?”
“I need to find out Ibid’s first name for my bibliography.”
A sign outside a nursery: “It’s spring! We’re so excited, we wet our plants!”
—BECKY ADAIR
Applying for my first passport, I took all the relevant papers to the passport desk at the post office. The clerk checked over my application form, photos, marriage license, and other identification. All seemed in order until she came to my birth certificate. She handed it back to me and said, “This isn’t any good. It’s in your maiden name.”
—JACQUELYN S. CAIN
A woman called the county office where I work and asked me to look up a “Mark Smith.”
“Is that ‘Mark’ with a ‘C’ or ‘K’?” I asked.
“That’s ‘Mark’ with an ‘M,’” she corrected.
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