stupidest thing a customer ever said to you...

[tbone]

The most technologically inept person in this entire organization just got an iPhone. This has been pretty entertaining. I had to explain to her earlier that she isn't being hit with extra charges by Google when the Safari app stays open in the background on google.com. Also, she refuses to wrap her mind around the concept of shutting off the touch screen before she goes to wipe her fingerprints off of it, which she is compulsively compelled to do, and the utter confusion that results from this behavior is pretty priceless. This manages to confuse her so much that she attempts to try to ask me how to fix whatever is going on, but has absolutely no clue what happened and how to formulate a question about it, so she just makes an exasperated grunt sound and stares at me.

[lemur68]

Guys walks in the store just now:

"I've got something to trade you for a couple of DVDs...."

<rummages around his jacket's inside pocket, pulls out something wrapped in an opaque white plastic bag, sets it on the counter and it makes a heavy *clunk*>

What's that?

"An antique knife".

All I could manage to do was to gaze at a spot on the floor about 15 feet in front of me, with a look on my face that must have been the look someone gets when they're contemplating why they're doing what they're doing with their life, or how people can possibly be so fucking stupid as to think they could barter a fucking pocket knife in my store as if I were Jean-Baptiste Du Fucking Sable and this was the 18th century.

I dunno, you might be onto another revenue source there.

"I'll tell you what - stab yourself for saying that and I'll see what I can do."

i prank call these people like all the time.

i usually ask them something like.. do you guys have a jeff gordon battle axe. or something along the lines of

"uhm hey im getting ready to go on a quest" lol

i love these people

[offal]

jeff gordon battle axe

Stop right there. I'll volunteer for drums. Lemur, you play guitar, right? I know BC plays bass, so I'll give him dibs if he wants in. Any vocalists interested?

[BadComrade]

I'd have to play my 12-string bass exclusively (through two Ampeg 8x10 cabs and two Marshall stacks) in a band with a name like that. I don't think my bank account or my right hand would be able to handle that right now.

[offal]

I'd have to play my 12-string bass exclusively (through two Ampeg 8x10 cabs and two Marshall stacks) in a band with a name like that. I don't think my bank account or my right hand would be able to handle that right now.

I hear you, but until the windfall from the first single hits the bank account, there's always this:

[Eugenius]

I bet Chris Jury could set one of these up in the best way!

[Maurice]

I'd have to play my 12-string bass exclusively (through two Ampeg 8x10 cabs and two Marshall stacks) in a band with a name like that. I don't think my bank account or my right hand would be able to handle that right now.

I do not see the words "Rusty Box" in that post. Surely there is some mistake.

[dontfeartheringo]

The most technologically inept person in this entire organization just got an iPhone. This has been pretty entertaining. I had to explain to her earlier that she isn't being hit with extra charges by Google when the Safari app stays open in the background on google.com. Also, she refuses to wrap her mind around the concept of shutting off the touch screen before she goes to wipe her fingerprints off of it, which she is compulsively compelled to do, and the utter confusion that results from this behavior is pretty priceless. This manages to confuse her so much that she attempts to try to ask me how to fix whatever is going on, but has absolutely no clue what happened and how to formulate a question about it, so she just makes an exasperated grunt sound and stares at me.

Just wipe it and put OpenFiler on it.

[bishopdante]

"OK that sounds OK but you really have to turn the reverb down" in an empty venue during soundcheck. I reply "there isn't any reverb". They say "what's that then?". I say "that's what it sounds like here". "you mean you want that much reverb?!" "No, the actual room has reverb". "of course it should! this is a professional venue right! But we want much less than that, and only on the vocals.". "There is no artificial reverb. It's real reverb, the echo is the room." "sounds more like a hall setting to me, could you find a room setting" "no, there is no reverb unit." "I know what reverb sounds like... clicks fingers into mic" and gives me a knowing look.

"OK, I'll switch everything off, you come down here, and we'll have the drummer hit the snare drum." OK... trundle trundle. See. It's all off. OK. Drummer hits snare drum. Fairly echoey, empty house. "Yes... that's exactly what we mean... you've turned the reverb up. Can you turn it down now." "Seriously, it's real echo. It's created by the sound reflecting off the walls! That's what reverberation is!" "I know what reverb is! Don't patronise me. We've got one in our rehearsal room.".

More round the houses and I'm in real pain.

"we were here before, and it didn't sound like this. It sounded like there was just a bit of reverb, it was fine. There is too much reverb for our sound. We've got a very special sound, it has to sound just like our CD. We spent months mixing it to perfection. You have listened to our CD haven't you?"

"No." "That's not very professional. Professional engineers should listen to the CD days before soundchecking the band, so that they know what sound we want." "I see, sorry about that then." "Ok, here's one, put it on and you'll hear... no it's got too much reverb now, you've put reverb on it". Produce headphones, and I tell them nope it's not going to sound like that. The bassist pipes up "Haven't you got a noise gate?".

"we want less reverb. Like it was a few months ago, we were at a gig here."

"Look, when the room is full of people, there will be less reverb, because their bodies will absorb some of the sound. OK?"

They sent angry solicitor's letters a few days later to the venue's owner saying my obstructive behaviour in outright refusing to turn the reverb down during soundcheck and during the concert had ruined their chances of getting a major record deal, and while they were in their right minds to pursue the venue for millions in lost earnings, they would go easy on us. They had driven all the way across the UK just to play this one gig which was meant to get them signed, and that we should at least pay them back their £200 for the petrol, and £X grands for hiring the venue and not inviting anybody. On a Tuesday.

[BadComrade]

"OK that sounds OK but you really have to turn the reverb down" in an empty venue during soundcheck. I reply "there isn't any reverb". They say "what's that then?". I say "that's what it sounds like here". "you mean you want that much reverb?!" "No, the actual room has reverb". "of course it should! this is a professional venue right! But we want much less than that, and only on the vocals.". "There is no artificial reverb. It's real reverb, the echo is the room." "sounds more like a hall setting to me, could you find a room setting" "no, there is no reverb unit." "I know what reverb sounds like... clicks fingers into mic" and gives me a knowing look.

"OK, I'll switch everything off, you come down here, and we'll have the drummer hit the snare drum." OK... trundle trundle. See. It's all off. OK. Drummer hits snare drum. Fairly echoey, empty house. "Yes... that's exactly what we mean... you've turned the reverb up. Can you turn it down now." "Seriously, it's real echo. It's created by the sound reflecting off the walls! That's what reverberation is!" "I know what reverb is! Don't patronise me. We've got one in our rehearsal room.".

More round the houses and I'm in real pain.

"we were here before, and it didn't sound like this. It sounded like there was just a bit of reverb, it was fine. There is too much reverb for our sound. We've got a very special sound, it has to sound just like our CD. We spent months mixing it to perfection. You have listened to our CD haven't you?"

"No." "That's not very professional. Professional engineers should listen to the CD days before soundchecking the band, so that they know what sound we want." "I see, sorry about that then." "Ok, here's one, put it on and you'll hear... no it's got too much reverb now, you've put reverb on it". Produce headphones, and I tell them nope it's not going to sound like that. The bassist pipes up "Haven't you got a noise gate?".

"we want less reverb. Like it was a few months ago, we were at a gig here."

"Look, when the room is full of people, there will be less reverb, because their bodies will absorb some of the sound. OK?"

They sent angry solicitor's letters a few days later to the venue's owner saying my obstructive behaviour in outright refusing to turn the reverb down during soundcheck and during the concert had ruined their chances of getting a major record deal, and while they were in their right minds to pursue the venue for millions in lost earnings, they would go easy on us. They had driven all the way across the UK just to play this one gig which was meant to get them signed, and that we should at least pay them back their £200 for the petrol, and £X grands for hiring the venue and not inviting anybody. On a Tuesday.

PRF Hall of Fame thread nomination right here, folks.

[Bernardo]

They sent angry solicitor's letters a few days later to the venue's owner saying my obstructive behaviour in outright refusing to turn the reverb down during soundcheck and during the concert had ruined their chances of getting a major record deal, and while they were in their right minds to pursue the venue for millions in lost earnings, they would go easy on us.

Whew, what a break you caught there! Nice guys after all.

[madmanmunt]

"sounds more like a hall setting to me, could you find a room setting"

Amazing!

[tbone]

The most technologically inept person in this entire organization just got an iPhone. This has been pretty entertaining. I had to explain to her earlier that she isn't being hit with extra charges by Google when the Safari app stays open in the background on google.com. Also, she refuses to wrap her mind around the concept of shutting off the touch screen before she goes to wipe her fingerprints off of it, which she is compulsively compelled to do, and the utter confusion that results from this behavior is pretty priceless. This manages to confuse her so much that she attempts to try to ask me how to fix whatever is going on, but has absolutely no clue what happened and how to formulate a question about it, so she just makes an exasperated grunt sound and stares at me.

Just wipe it and put OpenFiler on it.

Haha! Oh man, I have since found *so many* other hilarious little easter eggs around that network left by the ineptitude of previous IT staff. You have no idea. I recently gave a presentation for the six month account review that really could have just been the two slides I put in there of before and after pictures of the server room and gone "OK, any questions?"

[Antero]

The bassist pipes up "Haven't you got a noise gate?".

AAAAAHAHAHA

[EmpireStateTroopers]

The bassist pipes up "Haven't you got a noise gate?".

AAAAAHAHAHA

The best response would have been to say 'oh yeah!', then pull out a roll of gaffers tape and tape his mouth shut.

[enframed]

The five days before Christmas everyone expects a deal on a tree, same thing at Halloween and pumpkins. Inevitably I'm asked some variation of:

"Is everything on sale yet?"
"What are you gonna do with these after the holiday?"
"Is everything half-price?"

[Eugenius]

The bassist pipes up "Haven't you got a noise gate?".

AAAAAHAHAHA

He probably said this because the last sound guy they annoyed the hell out of shut them up by saying that he would use a noise gate to solve the imagined problem with the sound and "hey presto" everything was awesome!

[enframed]

Also, "Do you have a garbage?" is a stupid question.

[dontfeartheringo]

The most technologically inept person in this entire organization just got an iPhone. This has been pretty entertaining. I had to explain to her earlier that she isn't being hit with extra charges by Google when the Safari app stays open in the background on google.com. Also, she refuses to wrap her mind around the concept of shutting off the touch screen before she goes to wipe her fingerprints off of it, which she is compulsively compelled to do, and the utter confusion that results from this behavior is pretty priceless. This manages to confuse her so much that she attempts to try to ask me how to fix whatever is going on, but has absolutely no clue what happened and how to formulate a question about it, so she just makes an exasperated grunt sound and stares at me.

Just wipe it and put OpenFiler on it.

Haha! Oh man, I have since found *so many* other hilarious little easter eggs around that network left by the ineptitude of previous IT staff. You have no idea. I recently gave a presentation for the six month account review that really could have just been the two slides I put in there of before and after pictures of the server room and gone "OK, any questions?"

I think of you often and wish you luck with that, seriously. At my old job, there were all these guys who had been mainframe guys in the '80s and '90s and they just WOULDN'T RETIRE. They still had way too much input on policy and they had all these hack shortcuts, were so used to being the smartest guy in the room that they thought they could bullshit anybody, and they deeply resented the rise of personal computers because it put their Special Talents into the hands of normal people. It was hilarious when the 24-year-old Linux kids would come in and ask questions like "Why are we running 24 processes on 24 machines? You guys have heard of virtualization, right?" and they'd hem and haw about resources and allocations and try to bullshit their way out of admitting that Yes, they'd HEARD about virtualization, but.... well... LOOK, KID...

They were so used to not having any oversight and being able to just do whatever the fuck they wanted that when the FBI started calling us, saying "Y'all got some boxes that someone has been using to tickle the Pentagon's firewall," they'd just change all their passwords and not come into work any more. Then we'd come in and find just insane shit, as you can imagine.

Yes, enframed- we had a garbage.

[Goddamn Miracle]

jeff gordon battle axe

Stop right there. I'll volunteer for drums. Lemur, you play guitar, right? I know BC plays bass, so I'll give him dibs if he wants in. Any vocalists interested?

As long as we can bust out a cover of the Commadore's "The Night"; I'M IN!