“There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” I’m sure you, like me, have heard this phrase a countless number of times – usually it’s coming from the mouth of a teacher or supervisor of some sort. Well, I was put here on this earth to prove those people wrong! Now, I could give you a multitude of examples of truly stupid questions I’ve asked, but I’ve reserved this place to tell you about the quintessential stupid question.
I used to be an auditor in a public accounting firm, and I traveled around to various client offices to perform financial statement audits. In the course of my work, I got to know personnel at each of my clients; however, some clients were fairly sizeable, so I didn't know all of the personnel. I’ve got pretty good at calling up someone from a client’s phone list, introducing myself and then going to meet with them in person. Okay, I think that’s enough background. One fine day I needed to call someone in the credit department at my client’s office. The room I was sitting in was practically in the middle of the credit department, so I knew when I phoned “Amy” that she was, most likely, sitting right outside my door. In fact, as I was talking to her on the phone, I noticed a girl right outside my door who was also on the phone. Her back was toward me, though, so I couldn’t verify it was her. So, in all my brilliance and professional training, what was it I asked so as to verify it was her?
“Are you on the phone right now?”
2 comments:
Wow, that was a pretty good one, I asked a similarly "dumb" question a few weeks back, but I can't fully remember the details. All I remember, is asking if something traveled better with the windows down, to aleviate the weight of the air trapped inside ... of course this was directed to David and our Pastor, both really spatial/smart/sciency guys. Erin won't ask me for help with science, that's for sure! Whew!
I see things at work that leave me baffled sometimes. Since we have to verify our applicants' income we often have to clarify a verification with an employer. To keep accurate records, we write out our questions and then record their verbal answers below. I was looking over a file one day and read an assistant manager's clarifiation which left me dumbfounded. Here is a list of questions that she actually called and asked his employer...
"I see that he is paid a salary, can you tell me what that would be in an hourly rate?"
"If he is paid semi-monthly, is that 24 or 26 times per year?"
and my personal favorite...
"Does he receive his annual bonus yearly?"
After laughing for quite some time I just kept thinking, this man's employer must think we're idiots!
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