Beware, Idiots At Work!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

This is a short selection of stories taken from the internet. I have no idea whether they are true or not, but they are amusing, and as we know, stranger things have happened.

Enjoy.

We had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a 'large' enough motor on the opener.

I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower.

He shook his head and said, 'Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.'

I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4.

He said, 'NO, it's not. Four is larger than two...'

We haven't used Sears repair since.

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My daughter and I went through the McDonald's take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter.

She said, 'You gave me too much money.'

I said, 'Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back.'

She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request.

I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said 'We're sorry but we cannot do that kind of thing.'

The clerk then proceeded to give me back $1 and 75 cents in change..

Do not confuse the clerks at McD's.

- - - - - - - - - -

I live in a semi rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road.

The reason: 'Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! I don't think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.'

- - - - - - - - - -

My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for 'minimal lettuce.'

He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg lettuce.

- - - - - - - - - -

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, 'Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?'

To which I replied, 'If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?'

He smiled knowingly and nodded, 'That's why we ask.'

- - - - - - - - - -

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it's safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine.

She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for.

I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red.

Appalled, she responded, 'What on earth are blind people doing driving?!'

She was a probation officer in Wichita , KS

- - - - - - - - - -

At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker. She was leaving the company due to 'downsizing.'

Our manager commented cheerfully, 'This is fun. We should do this more often.'

Not another word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the- headlights stare.

This was a lunch at Texas Instruments.

- - - - - - - - - -

I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the sake of her life, couldn't understand why her system would not turn on.

A deputy with the Dallas County Sheriffs office, no less.

- - - - - - - - - -

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it.

We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver side door.

As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.

'Hey,' I announced to the technician, 'Its open!'

His reply, 'I know. I already got that side.'

This was at the Ford dealership in Canton , MS.

- - - - - - - - - -

And finally!!

When I left Hawaii and was transferred to Florida I still had the Hawaiian plates on my car, as my car was shipped from Hawaii .

I was parking somewhere (I can't remember) and a guy asked me "Wow, you drove from Hawaii to here?"

I looked at him and quickly said "Yep. I took the Hawaii/San Francisco Bridge".

He nodded his head and said "Cool!"

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The Life And Times Of Col Dan Raschen

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I’m sure you have never heard of Col Dan Raschen. I would guess that very few have. I only found out about him and his series of autobiographical works thanks to a mention by Mr Stephen Pile in his Heroic Failures book. Born in 1925, Raschen was in the British Army for thirty-three years and retired with the rank of Colonel.

Whilst Col Raschen cannot be classed as either stupid or a failure, he does nevertheless rate a mention in the fasab blog because his journey through the military ranks was not without a few bumps and bruises.

His four books of autobiography are written with a self-effacing modest humour and if you are interested in that kind of work, well worth a read.

They include adventures such as…..

After Wellington College and Peterhouse, Cambridge his service in the Royal Engineers took him, at the end of World War II, first to a new campaign in the East Indies then back to India for the country's partition from Pakistan (Book, “Wrong Again Dan!”).

When he was on his way to India to join his regiment he lost all his underwear and his only pair of pyjamas while washing them out of a porthole. All the ship’s cutlery went the same way when he threw out a basin of dishwater. The troops had to eat with their fingers for the rest of the voyage.

On arrival he was instantly accused of murder. The case only foundered when he pointed at his supposed victim grinning cheerfully in the growing crowd of onlookers.

So enthusiastic was his performance during tests for a commission that after the obstacle course he had to wait for other less interesting candidates to finish so they could come back and rescue him from beneath a railway sleeper.

Whilst in charge of three amphibious tanks, he lost all them in one week. Two got stuck in a pond and one went through the wall of his own accommodation.

After completing his degree at Cambridge, Dan volunteered for the Korean War, where the pheasant shooting was of high repute. Because the pheasants lived in or near minefields, which were Dan's particular concern, he managed to combine pleasure with eighteen months of war (Book, “Send Port & Pyjamas!”).

For one so exquisitely disaster prone a career in explosives was the inevitable course.

Back in England efforts were made to train Dan in military technology, and his subsequent soldiering was unusually varied in scope. After a spell in a weapons design team, he went to the Central Pacific to command an independent unit and to advise on coral blasting (Book, “Don't Step on a Stonefish!”).

After an intense period of training he arrived at the South Pacific to blow up some coral reef, never having attempted it before. His finest hour came when he moored his own boat to the very bit of reef that was receiving his closest attention.

In his own words he says, ‘One likes to think that there have been people who have been worse, but admittedly it does seem unlikely’.

Home again, Dan was an ammunition instructor before returning to Cambridge to command the University Officers Training Corps. His second command was of a Royal Engineers regiment in Germany. Then he and his wife, Judy, were delighted to spend three years in Sweden with Dan being the British Military Attaché (Book, “Diplomatic Dan”).

On his return to England Dan was Project Manager for Infantry Weapons, and then a Colonel at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire. After retiring from the army in 1979, he continued to work at the College as a scientific civil servant for a further twelve years. While there he invented "Raschen Bags", an indestructible cushion for use under mortars.

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Another Few Funnies For Friday

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”



It’s Friday again so time for another few funnies. This time another batch from the insurance claim file. I hope you enjoy.



"I was driving along the motorway when the police pulled me over onto the hard shoulder. Unfortunately I was in the middle lane and there was another car in the way.."



Q: “Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident?”
A: “Travelled by bus?”



"On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke."



"First car stopped suddenly, second car hit first car and a haggis ran into the rear of second car."



"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention."



"The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal."



"My car got hit by a submarine."


(The Navy informed the wife of a submariner that the craft was due in port. She drove to the base to meet her husband and parked at the end of the slip where the sub was to berth. An inexperienced ensign was conning the sub and it rammed the end of the slip, breaking a section away, causing her car to fall into the water. The Navy paid the compensation claim.)



"I bumped into a lamp-post which was obscured by human beings."



"The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week."



"I knocked over a man; he admitted it was his fault for he had been knocked down before."

"A house hit my car."

(A house was being moved by a large truck. My friend had his car parked on the side of the road correctly. The house began to tilt off the truck and eventually fell off the truck, landing on my friend's car. He eventually had the insurance paid, after lengthy explanation and the moving company confirming the story.)

You’d Think It Should Be Easy, But You’d Be Wrong!

“Fight Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

One of my best friends is a farmer. Or was, he sold up a few years ago, tired of the long hours in all sorts of inclement weather. But he did it for many years and has a host of good stories about incidents that happened during that time.

He was a dairy farmer for a good part of his farming career. As a result he has a healthy respect, but also more than a little contempt for cows. In fact he says they are probably the stupidest animal he has ever come across. (He hasn’t met our dog that thinks it’s a cat yet!)

He says that a cow is probably the only animal that is stupid enough to get stuck behind a open gate. Actually I’ve seen this happen myself. If a field gate is partially open at least one of them will get between it and the hedge or fence and they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to reverse and take a new route out of the field.

If you’re having a laugh at that, good. It’s even funnier when you see it in person I assure you. But there’s something even stupider than the cow I fear. That is people, some people! Take this lady in the video below.

All she has to do is reverse her car out of the garage.

Simple?

Of course not!

Have a look (I’m not sure I would like her driving my kids around, would you?)

(Acknowledgements and thanks to Pradeep for finding this one)

Little Dumb And Large Dumber

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”



Are there some people who are too dumb to live? 


It’s an interesting, if not much asked, question.


Certainly people do get killed in unusual ways. Of course that is not always their fault. Sometimes they are the victims of circumstances beyond their control. No one can plan for the drunken idiot who slams his car into another. Nor should we live our lives in fear of such things. Take as much care as necessary without impacting on your own life and enjoyment is the best we can do. And usually that is more than enough to get us by.


Back to the initial question. 


I think there is a lot of evidence to show that there are indeed some people who are just too dumb to live. There’s a thing called the Darwin Awards that every year highlights some of the people who have, as they put it, strengthened the gene pool by doing away with themselves under the stupidest of circumstances. Some of them are very amusing indeed and I hope to feature other examples in this blog from time to time.


This one is about two people meeting their end in a peculiar, and for the rest of us, funny way. 


It happened in the little town (called a city) of George, in Grant County, Washington. As well as being a play on the President’s name, George, Washington, with a population of little over 500, is famous for the similarly sounding Gorge Amphitheatre. This is a 20,000+ seat concert venue located above the Columbia River, that offers lawn-terrace seating and “concert friendly weather”.


Actually it is considered to be one of the premier and most scenic concert locations in the US, and some say even the world. It has been the host to artists such as The Who, David Bowie, Coldplay, and Pearl Jam, the latter even releasing a box set album featuring their entire performances from 2005 and 2006.


However the group that caused the trouble for the two intrepid zeros who are the subject of today’s blog post was Metallica. When they were playing at The Gorge, Robert Uhlenake (24) and his friend, Ormond D. Young (27) decided they wanted to go along.


However, unable to get any tickets for the sold out gig the two instead decided to stay in a nearby parking lot and drink. By the time the show had started they had made their way through eighteen beers.


That was when they did something that stupid people, especially drunk stupid people, should never do.


Yes, they hit upon an idea.  


And that idea was to scale the seven foot wooden security fence around the perimeter of the site and sneak in. The rest of the plan involved moving their truck up to the edge of the fence, get on top of it and simply jump over the fence.


So far, so good.


Then they decided that Young would go over first and assist Uhlenake later.


Again, so far, so good.


But what they had not figured into their plan was that, while the fence was seven feet high on the parking lot side, there was a twenty-three foot drop on the other side.


Young, who weighed around 255 lbs and was quite inebriated, jumped up and over the fence and promptly fell about half the twenty-three foot distance before a large tree branch broke his fall AND his left forearm. 


Not content with that he also managed to get his shorts caught on the branch.


There’s a kind of a rule in life, I don’t know whose it is (it’s not Murphy’s, maybe I’ll claim it for fasab if no one else has it), that when things start to go wrong they have a tendency to keep on going from bad to worse. So it was for young Mr Young.


He was now in a lot of pain and his broken arm made it impossible for him to extricate himself and his shorts from the tree in the normal manner. But hanging there and looking at the bushes down below, he thought the thing to do was to cut his shorts off and fall to the ground. The soft bushes would cushion the impact of his fall.


This he did and when he cut the last bit of fabric from himself, he suddenly plummeted to earth.


As he did so he also lost his grip of the knife.


The "soft" bushes that Young had cleverly spotted from fifteen foot up in the air hanging from the branch were actually holly bushes and landing in them caused a massive number of cuts, and jags.


All that would have been bad enough for a mere mortal but Young wasn’t done yet.


He also had the misfortune of landing squarely on a holly bush branch; effectively impaling himself.


Then the knife, which he had accidentally released fifteen foot above where he landed, now joined him stabbing him in his left thigh. 


Apparently, he was in a lot of pain.


Enter his friend Robert to the rescue.


Robert Uhlenake had apparently observed the last bit of this fiasco and, despite his inebriated state, had the awareness to realized that his fiend Young was in trouble. 


Then he also did that thing that stupid drunk people should never do. 


He hit upon the idea too, this time of lowering a rope to his friend and pulling him up and over the fence.


The problem with this plan was that Uhlenake was outweighed by his friend by a good 100 lbs. But undaunted by this he was still determined on a rescue bid and figured he could use their truck to pull his friend Young back up.


Unfortunately, because of his state, Uhlenake put the truck in reverse, rather than drive, broke through the fence, landed on Young (killing him), and subsequently died of internal injuries himself.


The two were found dead at the Gorge Amphitheater after the show. Uhlenake was in the pickup that was on top of Young at the bottom of a 20 ft drop. Young was found with severe lacerations, numerous fractures, contusions, and a branch in his anal cavity. He also had been stabbed and his pants were in a tree above him, some 15 ft off the ground. 


For a while it was a mystery but the story as outlined above was eventually pieced together.


The final words on the story should perhaps go to Commissioner Appleton who summed it all up saying, 


"So that's how a dead 255 lb man with no pants on, with a truck on top of him and a stick up his ass came to be".

Drivers Ed. Exam Answers

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Still on the theme of driving today, but in a bit lighter vein than yesterday. This time it isn’t drunks, although one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these bozos were ‘well oiled’ when they took their test.

The following are a sampling of real answers received on written exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school. Some of those taking the exam may have deliberately trying to be funny, but sadly I suspect the vast majority were answering as best they could.

Here you are.

Enjoy!

Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?

A: What for? He can't see my license plate.

Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?

A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, 'Guns don't kill people. I do.'

Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing your car?

A: Always wear a condom.

Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?

A: Your car.

Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident?

A: Be too sh*t-faced to find your keys.

Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving.

A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.

Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?

A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.

Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?

A: Make eye contact and wave 'hello' if he/she is cute.

Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?

A: The color.

Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?

A: Heavy psychedelics. 

Some people like these must have passed their driver's exam. Check out the video.