What's the dumbest thing you've ever had to do at work?

[dragonhead]

Tellin ADHD 12 year olds that had to be still and quiet for 2 hours untill they left school.

 

[Ambrus]

I used to work in bank in a small midwestern town. A customer walk in who we special order two dollar bills and Susan B Anthony dollars for(according to him the government can trace you through the money you use!) Anyway, he comes up to my window and the conversation goes something like this . .

I was once working a morning shift in a Blockbuster when I hear a knock at the door. If you've ever walked into a Blockbuster you'd realize why knocking before entering seems odd. Me and my coworker turn around and look at the door and see a mature woman standing there (we could see her since two entire walls of the storefront was unobstructed plate glass. I raise my eyebrows questioningly at her, the lady frowns at me and keeps knocking thinking me rude for making her wait outside. I shrug to my coworker, walk over to the door, push it open (it was unlocked naturally) and ask her: "Can I help you maam?" She asks "Is this a video store?" I lean back, look over my shoulder at dozens of rows of shelves holding nothing but movies. Looking back at her I deadpan: "No." She says: "Ah. Alright. Thank you." and wanders off.

I know I shouldn't have done it, but I couldn't help it. I was overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation. People can be unintentionally really funny sometimes.

 

[Ranes]

My current job: I'm working from home. The company has just given me access to my company email through a secure web portal. Checking email goes like this:

Enter username and password. Read subject headers. Identify first relevant email. Click to open. Enter username and password. Read email. Click reply. Enter username and password. Reply. Click to close email. Enter username and password. Don't get returned to inbox. Click inbox. Enter username and password. Identify next email. Click to open. Enter username and password...

The work is great but the process is painful.

 

[BOZ]

man, that would be irritating.

 

[Nareau]

Likely an urban legend, but still funny, are the "Dilbert Management Quotes Contest" winners:
http://www.comedycorner.org/89.html
My favorite:

"As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks." (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond WA)

Spider

 

[Pyrex]

One of my previous jobs was watching dirt.

Well, almost. I was working for a security guard temp-agency. There was a construction company just outside of town who would dig up dirt, haul it half a mile to the Air Force base, then sell it to them to build runways (no, really). My job was a 5pm to 5am shift wandering around this dirt pile making sure no one vandalized the backhoes & dump trucks.

However, my most glorious assignment for the same company was as Babysitter. A high-school group had come into town for some event or other. The teachers hired my company to send a guard out (me) to make sure the kids stayed in their rooms all evening while they went out to party. *looks around, sees Eric's Grandma, decides to stop there*

 

[Hijinks]

When I was in college, I worked as a security guard on a large campus with three buildings and some ponds out front. There were bluegills in the ponds. So every weekend when it was nice out, we would have to go out and tell fishermen to move.

One high-up muckety-muck of the company lived right down the road, and whenever he was driving by, he'd call us to tell us there were people fishing in the ponds (we couldn't see every pond from the front desk).

Once I had to go out and tell a guy, who had a bucket of dead bluegills, to throw them back in the pond because he was not, under any circumstances, allowed to take the dead fish with him.

Also I had to throw out a lot of people teaching their kids to drive in the large empty parking lots. I understand why the company didn't want the liability, but it was dang near impossible to explain that to yuppie parents who don't like being told "no" by rent-a-cops.

 

[Hypersmurf]

One of my previous jobs was watching dirt.

Spider Robinson describes his job before becoming a published author as "guarding a hole in the ground to make sure nobody stole it".

-Hyp.

 

[WmRAllen67]

I currently work at a theater complex attached to a major University, so I usually have lots of goofy theater things ("No, you can't twirl flaming batons on stage") and other goofy university things (Set up a full sound system outside, for a 60-second speech, then take it all back down again...).

But this year I have to nominate the annual "Self-Evaluation and Upcoming Goals" paperwork from Human Resources. Not only do the goals that administration usually set basically amount to "Keep doing the same thing you're doing now..." but this year, even though I'm leaving in two weeks, they still wanted me to fill it out...

Since I'm going to Graduate School, I put down things like "Be on time to all my classes" and "Study Hard"...

 

[der_kluge]

Not part of my job, but...

In college, I worked at the local Wal-Mart stocking toilet paper, et al (department 13, for those in the know). Anyway, I was just about to graduate, and transfer to the corporate office, so they had hired my replacement. This guy was a loon. I gave him a box cutter to help open up the boxes of TP and paper towels we had on the shelves. There, we just stacked the boxes up on the shelf, and just cut the boxes open.

I come back from the back (gone 5 minutes) and I come back to see (you guessed) the dude standing there in a pool of his own blood. He'd cut some major blood vessel in his palm near his thumb, and was just bleeding all over the place.

I had to babysit the guy to get him a bandaid and to clean up his blood. I don't think he lasted long.