PA and Secretary Community - Deskdemon.com

 :-\ Still thinking about this one but still cannot understand it.

Light strip above my desk has stopped working - obviously needs replacing.  Simples.  Call estates department who when told of the problem, said to me "have you tried switching the light on at the switch?"   ::)

There was silence for a moment while I worked out if he was joking - he was not - tried hard to think of something to say but everything sounded rude.  Said they get a lot of calls saying lights don't work but nobody has thought of switiching it on.  Can't believe they do but he said it happens. ???

Was initially irritated  ::) but now making me smile ;D

Have you ever been stuck for words when being asked a question!!??

Morning Cathy.

I have heard some things in my time but not that one.  I just think some people don't want to work. 

Why don't you leave it until all the lights go out and then you can say you can't work in the dark....see what response you get then! ;)

My silly question of 5 minutes ago:

Electronic Purchase Order for:

• Flights (zero rated VAT so at full price)
• Hotel (Standard VAT so price shown ex VAT)

First e-mail was to ask me to change my order because the invoice didn't match - so I pointed out the hotel price including VAT would make it match. 

Finance confirmed that was alright then but could I just change the flight prices to show them as ex VAT?

Why am I explaining VAT rules to the Finance Department? ... perhaps the lights have gone out in Finance here and they cannot get the bulbs replaced.

When they do come to fix it Cathy make sure there is enough room for the ... how many people does it take to change a lightbulb these days?

Yes Gee - think you are right.  Their building is a long way from mine - perhaps they were hoping I would do it to save them the bother. If I wait until it was too dark for me to work they would probably say they cannot work in the dark - health & Safety and all that....... . Ho hum.

Update - they have just rung.  They will be here on Friday - can you believe it - apparently too busy to replace it before then  :o

Cathy - like your VAT issue - does make you wonder doesn't it.  At least we are all sane...........  ;D

Cathy (Stephenson) - your company bean counters have clearly changed their lightbulbs to the new low-energy ones.  They come on far too slowly and give a dim light!

RW

Like a former VICE PRESIDENT of INTERNATIONAL sales who couldn't understand why he couldn't get soneone on the phone in Seoul at 3PM.  That's 3PM Eastern Standard Time in the US....

Maybe because it was something like 4AM in Seoul??

Reminds me of a press release recently supposed to go out from our Marketing Dept in another state.  Our company received a prestigious award from a customer which my boss flew to another state to accept at a big gala dinner.  Pictures were e-mailed to me the next day of him receiving the award.  I sent them to Marketing and requested the press release.  They are PAID to write these types of announcements.  I get a response to send the article.  HUH?  I sent the overview of the details.  A few weeks went by and my boss asked if I had seen a press release yet?  I realized I never had.  I followed up.  The response I received was "this was so long ago, why announce it now?"  Because this needs to be announced, it is insdustry news was my response.  A couple weeks later I received a draft, asking me who should be quoted in the release.  Does soemthing seem a little off here?  I am the Executive Asst.  They are the Marketing pros paid to do this type of work.  Anyway, I gave them the answer.  Have not see a final release yet.  Crazy huh, or is it me?

Silly people as opposed to silly question, but had to share....

I put in a stationery order last Friday to our goods inwards guy, who let's say, is not the most affable person on the planet.

He arrives with my delivery this afternoon and off he goes.  As I unpack it all and tick everything off I see one item has not been sent and another item has had something else sent in it's place.  I mean, is it me, or do lever arch files look nothing like box files. ???  I swear this person just sends what he can find regardless of whether it's right or not or whether the people in my department need a lever arch file or a box file, and then that reflects badly on me for not ordering the right thing....grr!

How on earth these people get on at their annual appraisal amazes me, and not only that, when the rest of us get a pay rise.......so the flippin' heck do they!!

My silly questions recently have come from my husband, who ought to know better.

I told him one morning last week, hmmmm my cell phone battery didn't charge last night, as I came downstairs in the morning. At which point he said, you probably forgot to plug it in. I told him, no I had just taken it off the charger. When it happened a second time during the same week and he AGAIN asked me if I forgot to plug it in, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Seriously? Do you really think I am that stupid that I would TWICE forget to plug in my phone and then on top of it, if I HAD forgotten to plug in my phone, it wouldn't occur to me that it might be the reason why my cell phone battery wasn't charged?  ::)

He's an IT guy, so granted he does sometimes get some pretty stupid users, but you would think after being married to me for 19 years and knowing my level of technical knowledge, he would know me better than that. He didn't have a good answer for me.

It was a little chilly around our home that morning...  ;)

Today I go to pick up my replacement phone. The old phone's charger port went bad. (Ha! Take that! Hubby of the silly questions!)

 

And imagine if the tables were turned Marie and you had said same to him - men!

Where the sayings, man the decks, man the lifeboats, man-hole, man-oeuvre, and so on ever came from, I have no idea.....any wonder we have the men-opause!

LOL Gee

Marie - you should probably be grateful he didn't give you the standard IT response - Please turn it off and turn it back on.  If it still doesn't work please log a support call ...

LOL Cathy  :D

My silly question came from me.  The day before the hubby and I had spent the entire day doing yard work, we have almost an acre to maintain with lots of hardwoods.  We came out on our deck the next morning to see a huge limb had fallen.  My husband looked at it and said,  "Where did that come from?"  I (being blonde) of course said - "that tree?"  His look was priceless.

There are times you type LOL and actually you maybe only smirking and smiling.  This thread has made me really laugh out loud.  I have done a ton of these, but just can't think of any right now.   Actually there was one time my monitor didnt turn on and I had to call our IT deptartment and it turned out my monitor wasn't plugged in!  In my defense, I didnt un plug it!  It LOOKed plugged in (plug was just a bit loose).  I think it was one of my "duh" moments ahahha.  It was a slap in the head and thought, why didnt I try the plug.  Shh don't tell my IT friends I admited to that..

I did one at home - well not so much a silly question as just being completely stupid .....  ;)

I have Sky+ in the main living room and a secondary Sky only box in the main bedroom.  Often my hubby will watch football or something and I will veg in bed and watch the Discovery channel.

Hubby was cooking dinner and said there was something we might both want to watch in the living room.  I used the remote to try and change the channel but it just wouldn't work and I was getting really annoyed (had a bad day) as the Sky+ box is a bit on its last legs.  Only when hubby pointed out to me that somehow I had left the other room with the remote to the other box and was trying to use it did I have a 'doh' moment ..... the remotes aren't even the same colour but I was cursing away for a good 5 minutes before he walked in and spotted it straight away.

Had a silly question this week thought I would share.  Hubby was ill and called the doctors office for an appt.
The receptionist asked, "Are you sick"?  He wanted to answer, No, I just want to come in there and pay to say "hi" to the doctor.  LOL 

In the words of comedian Bill Engdahl "Here's Your Sign"  LOL.

Okay I'm 0 for 2!  My oven light has been out for about a week and really bugging me.  This is a dh job.  He calls me at work to ask me if I knew it needed two bulbs?  No, I didn't and both are burned out?(duh nevermind!)
Happy rainy Monday in Georgia!

My silly office moment goes back to the late 1990's when I was working in London.  The departmental fax machine wasn't working.   Couldn't  get it to do anything that I tried.  Ended up calling out an engineer who when he arrived took great delight in showing silly me that the standby button had been put on - probably by the cleaner when doing the nightly office clean.  My face was obviously very red and I still flinch now when recalling what happened.  Made sure I didn't repeat myself next time round.... :-[

Two today  ;D

First one, my bossie, rang IT, PC does not work (read here ranting and raving also) - after getting him to do this and that, find out that his screen is turned off (something he never does).  Problem sorted.  However, am keeping quiet   :-X that it was me who turned screen off previous evening after being on there  :-[ 

Second one, me, busy shredding and it jammed. No amount of pushing or pulling could get it going again.  Rang estates who deal with this sort of thing - first question they ask me "did you put paper in it" - I say "yes" with a puzzled voice - (thinking, what else do people use these things for? ???) - they say, well there's your problem.  We'll come over to sort it. Seriously.  Still trying to work it out.

Don't worry, you can buy our silence with chocolate and we won't rat you out on the monitor. ;)

How long had you been shredding? Many shredders automatically shutoff after a certain amount of shredding time to prevent overheating. They usually can restart in about 5 minutes.

BIG bar on its way  :D.  I still feel guilty when I go into his office and look at his screen - still, what he doesn't know .............. .

My shredder is not so high tech I am afraid.  Apparantly, now the man that knows has been down, it was jammed because as it shreds, some of the paper wraps itself around the teeth and eventually stops them turning.

Have taken it away to sort out.  Could be about a week and no spare shredder around - I'm either going to have a massive pile building up or will have to get busy with the scissors  :-\

I've a ton of these :(

I used to operate a busy hospital switchboard.  Often, in response to the question, "The line is busy, do you wish to hold?" the callers would ask, "How long will they be?"  I was b0110cked for a rhetorical "How long is a piece of string?" and so from then on answered, "Only until they've finished their conversation!"  This seemingly gave them enough thinking time from their response, "Yes, but how ... OK"!

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In my youth I worked in a hotel  The pest control guy came in and was strategically placing the boxes of poison.   Written on the box (about the size of a small box of tablets) in big, bright red letters was printed "POISON: DO NOT EAT" - big enough to cover the entire surface.

"Isn't that counter-productive?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" asked the puzzled pest control guy.

"Well, the mice will know not to ... never mind."

(Yes, in Colin's world, mice can read!)

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Working as a medical secretary (different hospital) I was audio-typing a letter to Dr Jefferies.  The dictation began, "Dear Steven" ... or was it Stephen?

I looked through the patient's notes to see if there was a clue on previous correspondence, but nothing.  So eventually I just rang the surgery.

"Does Dr Jefferies spell his name with a PH or a V?" I asked.

"Neither.  Double-F." came the reply.

Medical receptionists!

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This isn't so much a stupid question as my potentially all-time embarrassing moment, but it just seems to fit with these other stories.

One morning, I realised I was going to be late.  I hadn't been sure of the bus times but it was now too late to walk and there was no sign of a bus.  Private hire cars aren't supposed to stop (you need to call and book), but they often will.  So I tried flagging one down.

Eventually, a car stopped and I jumped in.  "Could you take me into the town centre?" I asked nicely.

"OK." said the driver.

When we were getting close, he asked where I'd like dropping off.  "Is it OK to go on to the next set of lights?" I asked nicely - and I don't mind admitting that I was rather hoping he might not charge me, since he was driving into town anyway, presumably returning to the taxi office.

When we approach the lights, I tentatively asked, "What do I owe you?"

"Oh, nothing, that's OK." he said to my relief.

"That's very kind of you." I said, thanking him and then asked for his card.

"Card? What card?" he asked, puzzled.

"Your firm's card, so I can use this taxi company next time I need one." I clarified.

"I'm not a taxi." said the bemused driver!

Exit crimson Colin!

I was quiet that morning at work and the supervisor eventually asked me what was wrong.  I hadn't realised I'd been so quiet and when I told them, the laughter could be heard upstairs!

LOL thanks for sharing those Colin ... and what a great good samaritan giving you a lift like that - nice to hear.

Cathy

What fun stories to share Colin. Welcome to DeskDemon! :)

Marie