Sometimes you just have to wonder . . .

General Discussion FSM Ready Room
1

Eaglecash recently made this statement;

“If you mix up the two caps it will set off a reaction that will slowly kill both bottles…the Amazon review section on this epoxy is loaded with the “This is junk! It just hardened all by itself in the bottle!” tales of operator error. Just be careful not to cross-contaminate your bottles and you won’t end up like those people.”

And it got me to thinking; “Are these folks really that ‘slow’ (for lack of a better, less critical word)?” I recently saw an ad for lace-up military boots with a side zipper. One of the 'reviewers commented that the boots were junk because he could not put them on laced up but with the zipper down, as if that was the reason for the zipper. He apparently did not know that the zipper is there just to make it easier, but you still had to loosen the laces. So, as I was saying, I really wonder if there are that many people out there that are that ‘slow’. Wow! or rather, Yikes!!

2

Heh…and just think, Hooyah, those people are the ones who were at least intelligent enough to actually review the product in giving it 1 star. There are so many reviews that complain about how long the shipping took for this and that on Amazon. Those people haven’t figured out that the review section is supposed to be about what they thought of the item they got.

My favorite one though, which is right up our alley on a modelling forum, was one particular individual who was very upset that the MODEL KIT (said so right on the product description) didn’t look anything like the picture and that it was just a collection of plastic parts that had to be put together. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how some of these oxygen thieves have managed to live as long as they have.

3

I used to think people were dumb, then I worked in an office and most proved it.

I try hard not to judge people because even though they may be cannon fodder…they may have a useful talent yet to be seen. There is ONE exception to that but a different forum for that.

My bad side is showing here as I agree, how on earth can someone blame a product to be bad when they have no idea how to use it. I think they are called Darwin Nominees.

4

Personally favorite: Warning on automotive fan belt. ‘Do not change belt with engine running.’

5

Ask any customer service rep…or liability lawyer…how clueless and addlebrained even the most educated individual may sometimes be, and you’ll realize why nobody ever lost money underestimating the ‘common sense’ of the average citizen.

It’s part of the human condition that we all have the capacity for moments as what my British-born grandfather would call a ‘dozy beggar’ – mostly harmless, but capable of dazzling displays of ineptitude, if not downright stupidity.

In a world where fast-food restaurants are forced to print “Careful – contents may be hot” on cups for hot coffee, none of us is untouched by the ‘stupid fairy.’

6

I am with armornut about trying not to judge people who are airheads, but they always seem to amaze me with their lack of common sense. Maybe if we took away warning labels, natural selection might strengthen the gene pool [:P]

7

I spent 30 years designing signage systems for large buildings like airports.

First thing you learn is that most people don’t read signs.

Did some ski resorts. One client told me that he had come to the conclusion that peoples IQs drop 10 points when they put on ski boots.

All in fun,

Bill

8

take a look this link as definitely not worth the money. more money then brains as the saying goes. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/304054399264?hash=item46cb0df120:g:I2AAAOSwyoxg3v2m

9

PT Barnum was right…a sucker is born every minute. Bet that E-Bay seller will have a bidding war, just on “human nature and principle” . except for here there seems to be very little intelligent life LOL.

It is also a fact that the smartest perdon in the world may not be able to tie their own shows…but I can’t truly do quantum physics.[8-|]

The difficulty lies in the middle ground, that smart person knows how to manipulate the system under the guise of “safety” while the unwashed masses do a face palm. So is life my friends.

10

Heh…speaking of airports, we say pretty much the same thing about people who come to the airport I work at. We have theorized that the control tower must be putting out some kind of signal that cuts IQs in half for those who aren’t immune to its power. We see some pretty strange things happen on the roads going to and from the tower.

I also get them coming into my office, looking for the Testpro Center that is in the next building down. It got so bad that I put a sign next to my door that says “Testing center not here. Next building down.” with an arrow pointing in the direction of that building. I still have people walk up to my door, read the sign, and then ask “Is this where the testing center is?” [bnghead]

Classic line from Dodgeball comes to mind. “You couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a boat!”

11

WHEW!!! I guess I gotta sell my models, don’t I??! Hehe

12

I majored in applied math, I’ve been an engineer for some 40 years and I’m thankful for the patience I received as a gift from my mother. I never stepped on anyone, always thought it better to bring them along despite my frustrations.

And I will say when I worked as an engineer for Oracle I realized what it meant to be the dumb guy in the room - worked with exceptionally brilliant people… first time I ever struggled to keep up … whew! It’s relative

13

I’ve been a designer for some 40 years and I’m thankful for the skills with people (shut up!) I learned from my father.

When I worked for the Salk Institute I realized what it was to be in the same room with a Nobel L- Francis Crick, and someone who was even beyond that; Jonas Salk…

I was on the point of writing John earlier this evening to express my, well disturbance about how we tend to evaluate how people suceed in the most mundane of things in life, but he beat me to it.

Back to a comment I posted before.

I give you digital data- “I live at 887 Rumsfeld Road”. You creep along looking for a number on a mailbox.

I say- I live on the 800 block of Rumsfeld Road, big brown house with the American flag".

That’s me at the front porch.

Bill

14

Something tells me you struggle with living on Rumsfeld road lol

15

I’m closing in on 9 years working for General Electric Appliances. When I was hired, there were a whole lot of hoops you had to jump through; background tests, testing, orientation (unpaid), training, just to get a job here. Fairly simple stuff that basically boiled down to “can you follow written directions?” and “do you come to work?”

It was a place people retired from after finally getting a GE union job. The hiring event I applied at began online at 6:00 am and ended when they had 3000 applications. The hiring website shut down before 6:45.

Five years ago, we were sold to a Chinese appliance corporation called Haier. The standards virtually vanished. They set up kiosks in the mall for people to apply.

While we do still get some very good employees, many (as an old Army saying goes) “Couldn’t pour p!ss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.”

Workers don’t care, they don’t even want to work. So many are just here “half a–ing it” to collect a paycheck. We’ve had folks just walk away from the assembly line during a break and not return to the next day. Back in the day, that was called “job abandonment” and your ID badge wouldn’t work the next day.

I do have a long time employee who works for me. She is around 60 and has been at GE for 27 years. She is probably the dumbest person I have ever worked with.

We recently started running a new refrigerator model. Our normal model has a right and left hand door with a bottom freezer drawer/door. The new model is similar, except the top two doors are shorter and a center drawer has been added below the right and left hand doors above the freezer drawer. It is called “the center drawer” and can hold beverages like cans of drink or be used as a deli tray or put a pizza inside.

She’s a tester and the computer screen gives prompts on what do do on all units being tested. Testing is really easy, takes about 10 seconds and goes like this:

Open LH & RH door
Look for Model Number Label
Close LH & RH doors

Open Center Drawer (these two steps were added for the new style fridges)
Close Center Drawer

Open Freezer Door
Close Freezer Door

This genius was failing units because she was never trained on how to open the center drawer. She says, “No one trained me, I don’t know what the center drawer is”.

I told our boss that if you work at Subway, you don’t have to be retrained every time they add a new type of bread or meat. “I haven’t been trained on how to add extra cheese.”

She’s done other things that were quite stupid and usually says something like, “I’m not dumb.” I used to think she just played dumb, but after six months of dealing with her on this easy job, I’ve learned it is not an act.

16

Holy smokes Rob that really happened. Wow, you have the patience of a saint…me I’da probably slapped her, then again maybe not cause fecal matter tends to splatter.

17

The epoxy glue problem is real. The mixing is not purposeful, but it is easy to do accidently. Most caps now are keyed in such a way that you cannot mix up the caps. But, it is easy enough to have some resin or catalyst on one of the spouts that gets transferred to the other when you put the cap on. Yes, you are supposed to wipe spouts before putting caps back on. Sometimes, especially when you are using fast set epoxy you neglect that.

I have also, when in a hurry tried to put the cap on reversed. Saw right away what I was doing, but too late. Transferred enough catalyst to set up in epoxy nozzle.

18

But, you recognize that it was your own mistake that caused the problem. You didn’t vow to never buy that epoxy brand again due to it being junk as did the Amazon reviewers I was referring to. Cross-contamination is the reason I bought my epoxy in separate bottles, because the side-by-side syringes, no matter how careful you are, ultimately end up cross-contaminating. Its also easier to get a more accurate amount of each, since you don’t have linked pistons on a syringe, where one or the other invariably lags behind the other.

19

Heh…I often have to interrupt hour-long discussions at work, among very smart and very experienced guys, about different theories as to what might be causing an avionics issue with the simple question…“Has anybody been on the aircraft yet?”. Very rarely is it anything that requires a team of rocket scientists to solve, and asking that question has never gotten anything other than a “deer in the headlights” look. Drives me nuts. LOL

20

I witnessed a team of engineers try to over pressurize the APU compartment…by forcing air into the iol cooler intake. Made alot of noise and nearly blew a hole in the fuselage, I told them it wouldn’t work and got the same look you got Eaglecash. Lesson being…stay in your pay grade LOL.