I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control centre. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter into the Emergency room right away.
Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the field decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, they were quite surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator that is activated when the raft is inflated. They are no longer employed there.
I worked for a while at a Wal-Mart store, selling sporting goods. As an employee of Wal-Mart you are sometimes required to make storewide pages, e.g., ‘I have a customer in hardware who needs assistance at the paint counter.’ One night a tentative female voice came over the intercom system with the (I kid you not) following message: ‘I have a customer by the balls in toys who needs assistance.’
I was in a car dealership when a brand new
motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need
of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in ‘Twister.’ I
asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the
cruise control, then went into the back to make a sandwich.
My neighbour works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees out in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks that had this question: I’ve got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?’
This week, ALL our phones went dead, and I had to call the phone repair people. They promised to be out between 8:00AM and 7:00PM. When I asked if they could give me a smaller time window, he asked, ‘Would you like us to call before we come?’ He also requested that we report future outages by e-mail. (Does your e-mail work without a telephone line?)
My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the individual behind the counter for ‘minimal lettuce.’ He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg.
I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed.
When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature on the credit card with the signature I just signed on the receipts. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared that signature to the one I signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbour call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason: Too many deer were being hit by cars and he no longer wanted them to cross there.
Sighting #1: I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when the airport employee asked, ‘Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?’ I said, ‘If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?’ He smiled and nodded knowingly, ‘That’s why we ask.’
Sighting #2: The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it is safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged co-worker of mine when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals to blind people when the light is red. She responded, appalled, ‘What on earth are blind people doing driving?’
Sighting #3: At a goodbye luncheon for an old and dear co-worker who is leaving the company due to ‘downsizing,’ our manager spoke up and said, ‘This is fun. We should have lunch like this more often.’ Not another word was spoken. We just looked at each other like deer staring into the headlights of an approaching truck.
Sighting #4: I worked with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the life of her, could not understand why her system would not turn on.
Sighting #5: When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told that the keys had been accidentally locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger’s side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered it was open. ‘Hey,’ I announced to the technician, ‘It’s open!’ ‘I know,’ answered the young man, ‘I already got that side.’