how the hell did you get this job?

[JaddziaDax]

guru O.o i shouldnt type when i first wake up

[JaddziaDax]

"there are less horomones in soy milk than cow milk"

That' actually true

weather or not thats true it had nothing to do with geometry

[Otohiko]

That's also true.

And soy milk also (usually) has more pesticides, so that kinda defeats the argument

[requiett]

[godix]

I used to work in Best Buy in the computer section long long ago. In the interview they asked me three semi-technical questions. The only one I can remember is 'what's better, EGA or Super VGA?' Uh, right. Even if you didn't know the answer wouldn't most people think 'well super has to be better' and get it right? As a total side note even though this was back in the 90's the question was pretty fucked dated even then since EGA hadn't been seriously used since the 80's.

Other fun things, BB had a pre-release copy of Win95 to show off (I said this was long long ago). The thing had a 45 day trial. After the 45 days BB had a blue screen telling everyone our copy of 95 was expired to show off. They didn't actually do anything about it. They could have removed the display, set the date back on the computer, reinstall, or something like that. Instead they just left the blue screen up for a couple months till we actually got a machine with 95 preinstalled to put up. Yippie for computer salesmen who just don't give a fuck about making microsoft look good and managers too stupid to know how to make microsoft look good.

One of the computers had a built in video capture card. Back in the mid 90's this was some cool shit so we hooked a VCR up to the thing to show it off. I did a screen cap of the FBI warning and made that the background. No one ever bothered to change it back. And here you probably thought playing with copyright issues was a recent org only thing.

Once I stumped all my coworkers by screen capturing the computer just after it booted up when it was showing the icons and start bar then making that the background. Next I deleted the icons and hide the start bar. Every single one of them would click on the background image of the icon or start button and getting nowhere figured it'd lock up. No matter how many reboots they tried it just kept locking up on them though, weird isn't it? A few days later I just put things back to normal, played minesweeper on it for a few hours, then told everyone it was tough going but I got it fixed. Other tricks that stumped all the computer salesmen: swapping left and right mouse buttons, printing out 'Error 12b55lc - call technician' and putting it on top of the paper in a printer then feeding it through so my coworkers saw it print the error message, and ending task on the start button (you could do that in Win95. Ctrl esc. esc. alt -. up arrow. enter. They fixed that in 98). Computer salesmen didn't know how to deal with those things but they sure as fuck knew SVGA was better than EGA.

At a store meeting the store manager went off because someone unnamed employee told a customer that Packard Bell were pieces of crap and recommended buying a different brand. Whoops, I didn't think I'd ever get caught on that. I figured the customers weren't so stupid that they'd go talk to a manager about it. Anyway she was bitching because it took her half an hour to talk the customer into believing packard bell was a good quality product. It takes a true moron to allow themselves to be talked into buying a piece of shit even after being told it was a piece of shit. Oh well. At least they never caught on that I was selling extended warranties by telling people that just before the extended warranty expired to hook up some jumper cables from a car battery to their motherboard. BB would have to replace the computer then and in three years even the lowest end computer available would be better than the computer they just fried. 6 or 7 years later I ended up working with someone I had told that to and they confirmed that they did get a more powerful computer shortly before their warranty expired. AFAIK this still works.

Considering the shit I did perhaps I should mention that I quit Best Buy, I was not fired. That right there is probably another huge sign of stupidity on their part.

Some major theft was going on and BB sent in a loss prevention specialist from their headquarters to find out what was going on. The guy quickly determined it had to be an employee so he brought in a bag that had a hidden camera and 'accidently' left it in the managers office overnight. The camera clearly showed a manager putting unpaid merchandise in his coat. The manager threatened to sue since he was caught with a hidden camera that wasn't one of the stores cameras. Best Buy backed down and the manager was still working there months later. Eventually the manager quit but not over this, he quit because he got reported for telling an employee that the only way to become a supervisor was to suck his dick.

I learned a valuable lesson from that job. If you walk into a big box store and have any question other than 'How much' or 'Is it in stock' then you are totally fucked.

[Otohiko]

moar like farming legends


Did I ever tell my teacher story?

Anyway, back in Russia, there was quite a few teachers who hated my guts - for the fact that I never took their word for anything, and if they were bullshitting - I argued.

So, we had this subject called "Civil Safety", taught by a HUGE dude (scarier teacher than Madbunny) who in the Soviet times taught the same subject when it was called "Civil Defense/Military Preparation". The subject was kinda hilarious, we'd still be learning stuff like... what to do in the case of a nuclear attack, or how to avoid being a victim of a crime, or something like that. The teacher of course could intimidate the hell out of pretty much anyone; and if you misbehaved in class or did something he didn't like, he'd make you stand in the corner or in particularly bad cases, outside the classroom door.

Once in class, after a particularly bad case of police abuse was in the media in Russia, he launched into a rant about how "our Russian police are great and honest [and a lot of other great descriptives of them I needn't mention], while in America if you come up to a policeman, he'll punch you in the face"

Now, I'm not an Americaphile or anything, but as soon as he uttered that, I stood right up, in broad view of everyone, and loudly declared BULLSHIT. Everyone just froze. The teacher stared at me in amazement, and said sternly: "Krylov, go stand outside the door, or I'm going to send you to the principal's office!"

To which I nonchalantly answered "no need, I'm leaving myself" - and marched out of class, heading straight home. On my way out I think I saw his jaw drop.

I refused to come to his class again, and later he did see my mom and was apologizing to her and all. I returned to the class next week, but he NEVER mentioned anything or even called on me in class again. He just totally left me the fuck alone ever since

[Flint the Dwarf]

That's awesome. Reminds me of one time I really pissed my English teacher off. I'd been sick a few days so I missed out on a lot of lessons, and when I came back she was going through homework, and had a student up at the board to answer it. He couldn't answer it, and she was stumped as well. She asked for volunteers to answer it, and when no one stood up, she said, "doesn't anyone do their homework?" I couldn't help myself, so I said, "how do you expect us to do our homework when you can't even solve the problem?"

Her eyes got enormous, she looked so indignant. I felt bad later, cuz she was actually a pretty cool teacher. I was just upset cuz I'd missed a few days and was lost.

/off-topic

[madbunny]

Report back results, if you don't mind.

Sure I can do that. Honestly, if a student uses a word I don't know I'll just look it up. Just like when they ask me to teach them to make web pages, and teach programming for game design. I tell the I know jack all about either one, but I'll get them a book.

My class rules (they are posted)

Show up, or don't. - no excuses.
Do your work, or don't - don't make stuff up.
Don't ask me for favors if you're not doing your work

[Arigatomina]

I had a blowout with my highschool Pre-Algebra teacher. He was teaching us the "greater than, less than, or equal to" signs. He said if a number isn't "less than" it's automatically "greater than" and if it isn't "greater than" it's automatically "less than". I pointed out that it could be "equal to" as well.

He told me I was wrong, made a mocking speech about me trying to teach him how to read his own text book, I tried to show him the textbook and got sent to the principal's office. The next two days I got bad grades on my homework because I refused to do it his way (the wrong way). My mom ended up having to come in, show the textbook to the principal, and have the Pre-Algebra teacher talk to the Calculus teacher (since clearly a student or a parent weren't sources of authority). The next week he gave a mocking appology to the class because they had a test coming up and now they would do badly because there wasn't time enough to "relearn" the lesson.

I had people hating me for weeks after that. And I never did get credit for those "failed" assignments where I was doing it right and he was grading it wrong. On the other hand, the Calculus teacher really liked me after that. He'd been saying for years that the Pre-Algebra teacher was screwing kids up so he had to start all over with them when they got to his classes.

[Ileia]

Man, Ari, had that guy even looked at the textbooks he was using in class?

I had a sociology teacher who would give tests where something he lectured about in class would differ from the textbook. And I'd get answers wrong on tests because I'd go by what the book said. Every test, I'd get it back and point out where in the textbook it was that said the answer. And he'd argue that he said in class what the answer was. So I asked him which it was, him or the textbook. His answer was obviously himself, so I picked up the book and asked if I could throw it away, since it was useless. I didn't get an answer, but I found the questions on the tests started changing.

And I've also discovered that some teachers hardly pay attention to "smart kids" once it's been established that they're smart. I noticed it with one of my English teacher (who once also sent back a report on alliteracy with the "spelling error" in alliteracy corrected to illiteracy), who had a habit of returning tests that I KNOW I made a few errors on with 100% grades, and a history teacher who didn't read my weekly current events reports. The latter brought some entertainment for the whole class, when I turned one in that linked matters in Iraq to dinosaurs, mutants and eating babies, and it was returned to me with full credit. I showed it to him again and asked if he noticed anything odd (I was tricksy though, because my first and last paragraph made no mention of anything out of place) and he gave it back to me with a shrug. And every week, one person volunteered to read their report, so I read mine. He was a pretty nice teacher, and he knew when he'd been caught, he just grinned sheepishly and hid his face behind a folder while everyone laughed.

Not to say that this is the case with every teacher. Everyone is human, and everyone can get bored with the same ol' same ol' and become lax in their habits. There are still a lot of great teachers out there.