Stupid People Sunday

My FAVORITE blog day!  It's Stupid People Sunday! I have only one that specifically happened to me this week, a couple that happened to some of my co-workers, and even an old classic that happened before my blogging days!

My friend/co-worker "A" works at a different insurance office in town.  We had several people report damages this week because of the storms.  "A" received a call with some questions from a customer about their report, so "A" called down to our claims office central to see when her customer could expect someone out to their property to survey the damages.  Because of the high volume of claims that our claims department receives, each individual report is assigned an identification of letters and numbers and then assigned to a team.  In order to speak to the team, you have to have that identification ready.  "A" made her phone call and told the lady "We haven't been given an identification number yet for this claim, but I do have their policy identification on hand." (Also another way of accessing).  This particular policy had an "E" and a "P" in it.  When "A" finished giving the policy to the claim representative, there was dead silence.  A few moments later, she asked "A":  "Did you just give me a phone number? "  Yes genius.  The population of the United States is SO large now that we are using letters in our phone numbers.  Congratulations on cracking the new code.

I also had a claim to handle this week.  A lady totaled her vehicle in a terrible accident.  We take possession of the vehicle in a total loss like this. When something likes this happens, our "genius" (see previous paragraph) sends us paperwork to have the customer sign and the check to pay for their vehicle.  In return, we collect the title to the vehicle, as well as any extra keys or remotes that belong to that vehicle-to sell off to salvage yards to repair and resell.  So this dear SWEET woman calls and asks if we had her paperwork ready.  I set the appointment for her to come in, and she asks what she needs to bring.  I tell her to bring her title, spare keys and remotes.  She responds, "Oh honey I don't have the spare keys or remotes anymore.  I threw them away."  Genius me responds with: "In the garbage?  You actually threw the keys away in the garbage?"  She explains, "Of course I did.  The car isn't mine anymore, so I didn't need the keys."  Oh dear.

Let's stay in the insurance theme and do the oldie, but classic.  Then I will switch gears to a Wendy's drive through.  I was reminded of this classic at work, and had to share it with you all.  I am going to try to do a classic each week so that you all can see into some of my life BEFORE my blog days.  They really are some of the best "stupid moments."

A few months ago, I had a lady that had a car accident.  The usual Bowling Green road construction was going on, and she wasn't paying attention and her car got to close to the edge of the road and partially dropped down into one of those "holes" they like to dig.  She called and told me she had an accident, but it wasn't her fault.  It was, indeed, the roads fault.  The ROAD caused her car to fall and damage itself.  It had nothing to do with her driving too close to the edge of the road, or not realizing that there was road construction around her, resulting in millions of "CAUTION: ROAD WORK" signs around her.  Oh no, it's the roads fault.  She insisted on trying to sue the city of Bowling Green because of this evil, deceptive piece of blacktop. 

Needless to say, she was unsuccessful.  So she had to call down to our "genius" claims department.  See first Stupid People paragraph if you need a refresher.  In order for her to call, I had to give her the phone number.  (This number is totally made up, just for emphasis.) The following is the rest of our telephone conversation.

Me: "Ma'am, you need to call 859-899-7548."

Customer: "Wait what? 859-what?"

Me:  "859-899--"

Customer: "But you already used the 8 in the number."

Me: "Yes, you can use the 8 more than once.  The first part is the area code."

Customer: "What be an area code?"  (Yes, she said "what be" AND asked what an area code was."

Ignoring her, I reply with the number again.

Customer:  Ok.  I think I got it.  Can you look at it though and tell me if it's right?"

Me:  "No ma'am.  I'm sorry, but we are on the phone and I cannot see what you are doing."

Customer: "Oh.  Well bye then."

Seriously, I have no smart alec comments to respond to this.  Leave it as is.

Let's finish by what happened to another one of my co-workers, "D", at the Wendy's drive-through this week.  He managed to order exactly $4 worth of food, and when he pulled around, he handed the man at the window a 5 dollar bill.  The man put it in his drawer, stared at it for a minute, and looked back at my co-worker and said "Weren't you supposed to get back a dollar?" 

D: "Uh, yeah man, I was supposed to get a dollar back."

Wendy's dude: "Well, sorry, my machine says you don't."

D: "Well tough, you still owe me a dollar."

Really?!  What?!

You. Can't. Fix. Stupid.

Happy Friday!

My truest apologies.

I have absolutely NOTHING interesting to say tonight.

My brain had a fart last night and couldn't come up with anything for Things I Love Thursdays.

Two days since I've blogged?!!! Shameful.

Let's hope tomorrow will be better.  I'm sure I'll have some wedding or house updates.

Stupid People Sunday is going to ROCK.

Wordless Wednesday

Really?

Of course I didn't forget to put a place on my wedding RSVP cards for my guests names! And of course they aren't all putting return addresses on them or writing their names on them-and starting to get responses with meal selections that we DON'T know who they are.  Of course Jason and I wouldn't do something THAT silly!  HA HA! Maybe I should be the subject of my own Stupid People Sunday!

Stupid People Sundays

Have you been at the edge of your seat? I'm sure you have for these HUGE laughs from stupid people I have encountered this week.

This week, instead of allowing them to get the best of me and ruin my day-I embraced them.  I allowed their stupidity to make me laugh, and I found myself in a much better humor at the end of the day.  Let me say, I don't always leave work angry.  Just when the full moon comes around, because that's when THEY come out.  That's right-the stupid people.  Normally, when THEY come out, my boss has to remind me almost hourly "You can't fix it Paige, you just can't fix stupid."  It's a statement that really helps.

First of all, let's start slow.  As most of you know, I work for an insurance company where I sell insurance and assist customers that have current policies with us.  My entire office takes turns answering the phone.  So it's not like the first person to ALWAYS answer is a receptionist.  

With that said, I answer the phone in my professional greeting and I get "Paige? Is B or D available? B & D are coworkers that I am keeping names private as they probably don't know I'm blogging this.  I respond VERY politely "No ma'am, D has a customer with him currently and B is on another line.  May I take a message or try to assist you?"  Her response?  "Well, do you work there?"  Ummm.  Nope.  I actually was going for a nice walk down a very busy road in our area and heard the phone ring and thought I'd stop in. Can't fix stupid.

My next encounter (shortly after someone questioned my employment) was a guy that was around my age coming in to get a price quote on a vehicle. Bless his heart.  He was going through a divorce and was needing insurance on a new vehicle.  I asked him what he was currently driving and he said "It's the white car.  My wife has it insured here already."  Ummm. Sir, we don't have pictures of your cars IN our computer, I need a name of the customer and the type of vehicle.  "The white car" just won't cut it.  Unfortunately, he couldn't remember anything about his old vehicle except its snowy white exterior. First experience of it.  Can't fix stupid.

But oh, how it went on.  He brought me a VIN (vehicle identification number) of a new vehicle he was considering.  In case you don't know, the VIN is a 17 digit combination of letters and numbers on the title and dashboard of every car that are unique to that vehicle that tell us insurance people about the year, make, model, etc.  Anyway, this VIN he brought me was VERY unique.  He stated "I don't really know why those two T's were upside down on the VIN, but they were.  They may be L's, but I'm pretty sure they are upside down T's. But I don't know how you type those in the computer."   SAY WHAT?!  Allow me to just flip my keyboard upside down, maybe that will work??  Sad thing is, he kept talking.  He said "Miss, I know that is correct.  Because if I looked at the VIN the other way, all the other letters and numbers would have been upside down."  WHAT?!  Surprise surprise, the VIN did NOT validate, and we had to manually attempt to determine exactly the specific model of this vehicle. I'm not sure how close we got.  I do know that I had to get up, go to my boss's office and proceed to laugh with tears down my face and snorting (how embarrassing) in order to regain my composure to finish assisting the poor man in my office. Thank goodness for having to "get a second opinion" excuses.  You can't fix stupid.

Let's switch gears and move to my Dad.  My Dad works for UPS and spends his days delivering to people in several counties.  Of course, he has specific guidelines he MUST follow for each individual delivery.  One type of delivery that has special rules is called a C.O.D.  In case you don't know, that stands for Cash On Delivery-no money, no box.  Simple, right?

Dad was attempting to deliver a C.O.D. box when he realized the customers were not home.  A friendly neighbor began to shout to my Dad, "HEY! You can just leave that here with me!"  My Dad politely told him that it was a C.O.D. box and the guy said "Bring it over anyway!"  So my Dad did.  When he got there, he told the man the amount of money he needed and who to make the check out too.  The man became very perplexed and said "Oh I don't have a check or any money on me.  Just leave it with me and they will mail you a check."  My Dad told him that he couldn't do that because it was a C.O.D. and that he could not leave the box without money. The man became very angry and said "I SAID they would mail it to you, it's not that big of a deal, just leave the box!!" Needless to say, my Dad did not leave the box.  Maybe he just didn't realize what C.O.D. meant.  Or maybe the letters were upside down there too and that is why he couldn't quite grasp the concept.

You. Can't. Fix. Stupid.

Things I Love Thursdays

It's that time again!!! Things I love Thursdays!

1. I LOVE reuniting with old friends. Thanks to Facebook and blogging, I have reunited with three friends in the past few weeks. Check out Fort Cox, The Adventures of Christine, and Dave and Brit Plus One for these awesome blogs! I went to elementary school with Fort Cox and Christine, and also to church with Christine as we grew up. It's been wonderful catching up on each other's lives and having these friends in my life again!

I went to Governors School for the Arts in 2003, where I met Brit. She and I were in the same RA group together, and one of my favorite people during that time in my life. We spent three weeks at Transylvania University, and unfortunately lost touch afterward. We have recently begun sporadically messaging each other, and I love her blog! She is expecting her first child in May, so keep her family in your prayers for a healthy last few weeks of pregnancy and an easy delivery.

Brit is also hosting a giveaway on her blog right now in honor of her 100th post! She is giving away an adorable picnic basket with a monogram on it! Head over to her blog for details!

2. I love being an aunt to the sweetest baby in the world. She has recently started giving out kisses, and we even convinced her to blow kisses to me the other day. She melts my heart and makes my entire world so much better.

3. I love sushi! My friend Amanda and I were just talking about sushi a few minutes ago, so it is definitely on my mind and I am craving it!! I'm not into EXTREME sushi though. I love Philidelphia rolls, California rolls, crunchy shrimp rolls-that kind of sushi. The "weenie" sushi. Yep, I'll admit it. I'm a huge weenie that can only eat weenie sushi. But I sure do love it!

4. Today, I love stupid people. I've chosen to embrace them today. They say 15 minutes of laughter a day can lengthen your life by strengthening your heart and do some other science-y stuff that I don't know. Anyway, laughter is truly healthy for you. Today, I've extended by life by probably 10 years. I'm embracing the funny stupid people-stay tuned for my first "Stupid People Sunday" to hear all about it!

Now it's your turn! What are some of the things you love?!

Wordless Wednesday