I love when people assume they know about me.
Sometimes I purposefully dumb myself down once I can detect a certain air about someone, just so I can use my wits later.
Because I can immediately tell what they assume about me. I know it's petty, but so are they.
Why can't we all just lead with authenticity?
That's a question for the ages. Until the ages pass, I'm gonna have some fun.
Redditoru/7t9h50andthena2wanted some insights about duping people who may assume many of us are dupable by asking:
Has anyone wrongfully assumed you were dumb and in the process made themselves look really dumb? What's your story?
More often than not people who lead with assumptions about others end up proven wrong. And it's embarrassing and hilarious. When I waited tables everyone just assumed I was too stupid to live. So I would often fashion their ignorance against them. It was wonderful. I know petty. Whatever.
Okay!
Love GIFGiphy"Customer yelled at me for ten minutes about how her two $5.99 pizzas were $12 when "FIVE PLUS FIVE IS $10." She called me a freaking idiot, so I smiled and said, "Okay". Then she got all smug and left without her food. I wonder how she's doing sometimes."
Paddle Away
"As a lifeguard we had a rule that very young kids needed an adult in the water within arm's reach in the main pool. I saw this mom and her 5 year old walk in. Mom is wearing jeans and on her phone, clearly not planning on swimming. I anticipate the issue and go to talk to her before the kid gets in."
"I explain our policy, that the pool is 4 ft deep minimum and that the policy is for the safety of the child, that having a parent close by who can respond in case of drowning immediately is by far faster than relying on the lifeguard to get down, jump in and swim all the way out for a rescue."
"She says it's a stupid policy, that her kid is a fantastic natural swimmer, that they take him to the lake and he swims just fine, that I'm just harassing her, that I just don't want to do my job, all the classic offended parent BS."
"Literally while she's telling me this, the kid runs and jumps into the pool, dog paddles about 10 feet away from the edge, and then goes into active drowning, requiring a rescue from my other lifeguard, who thankfully was basically already there to catch the kid."
"She signed the refusal of care and left quicker than anyone I had ever seen. Felt bad for the kid, she seemed almost mad at him for making her look like an idiot."
Password Fail
"I was a service desk technician at a hospital helping a doctor reset his password. He kept misspelling the temporary password (it was welcome12345). Turns out he thought welcome has 2 L's and freaked out at me citing his education and my (at the time) lack thereof as evidence that he was right. After going back and forth he got frustrated and handed me off to his nurse and left, she got it on the first try then apologized to me for her boss' behavior. Funniest part was as she was hanging up I heard her talking to another nurse saying "yeah Dr. Dumba** couldn't spell welcome again."
People Share The 'Dirty Secrets' That Their Bosses Don't Want Customers To Know
There's a lot businesses hope their customers believe, and there are many business practices you wouldn't dare believe. These are some of the secrets Reddit ...The Look on her Face
"Our school's schedule got revamped which meant that one of our classes that was two periods long was cut in half to accommodate for all the changes. When I brought this up to the teacher I was co-teaching with, she called me an idiot and told everyone sitting in our table group that I wasn't very good at math as everyone laughed. A few minutes later, the principal cleared up the new schedule, only for her to realize that she was wrong in the first place. Felt so good to see the look on her face when she realized she was the dumba** and not me. "
Oh I get It!
Sandra Come At Me GIF by SuperstoreGiphy"Retail, man. A lady called me stupid because I didn't understand that "buy 1 get 1" was a trick and that she should just get 3 products to save even more money. So she left without the second free item with smug approval. I'll never get closure for that moment."
Jobs in human interaction is a treacherous minefield. That's why we should all work from home, or we should stay home until we are cleared to be able to be decent to others. That's what this boils down to, human decency. Right?
Customers Suck
designer animator GIFGiphy"Guy tried to tell me he knew my job more than I did because he "went to school to be an engineer" and I just sell the machines."
"Emailed him info directly from the manufacture on why he was wrong. He's not my client anymore. Don't care, forget him and anyone who uses education as a reason to be a fool."
Off the Tilt
"When I was in 8th grade, we'd just learned about the seasons and earth's rotation and all that; to my surprise, my teacher taught us that the Earth is actually closest to the sun during winter! But it's cold because of the tilt on the axis, not because of proximity to the sun. The tilt determines the seasons."
"And then soon after that I went to math class and my math teacher said something about how it was freezing because we are so far from the sun. And of course I piped up to tell him he was wrong according to what Mr. Science Teacher had just taught us. My math teacher went off ripping into me so hard in front of the class! (It was lighthearted— he was known for being funny and making fun of kids all the time)."
"Him and I were going back and forth for a while, and I specifically remember him saying "oh yeah, cuz when I'm cold I move away from the fire!! Yeah that makes perfect sense!" And I kept arguing "No no it's because of the Earth's tilt!" And so finally he googled it and I was right! He at least gave me credit and admitted he was wrong after that lol."
Power Off
"I had a boss who thought everyone was an idiot."
"One morning, the computer in the office wasn't working. She asks me if I know anything about computers. I tell her that I've used one before. She tells me to check the computer in the office and see if I can figure out why it stopped working. I press the power button and she calls me a moron, telling me that she had already tried that herself."
"I get under the desk for a moment then come back up. I tell her to press the power button again. It comes right on."
"She asks me what was wrong with it."
"I tell her it was unplugged."
Lost in Translation
"A Dutch couple visited my workplace (tourist visitor center) and insisted that the French translation on our map was wrong. The reasoning was that "Groenland" shouldn't be there because it was the Dutch word for "Greenland", not the French one. I told them that "Groenland" was also the French translation, to which they chided back, "And how would you know?"
"I'm bilingual. I speak french." I informed..."
"Clearly, not very well!" they insisted, then proceeded to ask for the wifi so they could use google translate."
"Well, I gave them the wifi, and to google translate they went. Sure enough! "Groenland".
"They didn't even apologize, they just said "I guess the map is correct then" and left. Morons."
Deep Boil
Trippy GIF by BagelNetGiphy"Had a friend in college who was VERY full of himself. One morning while eating breakfast in the cafeteria someone said, "I wonder how bagels are made."
"I said, "I'm pretty sure bagels are boiled." The pompous friend then said, "What are you stupid?! Bagels aren't boiled. That's f***ing ridiculous." Someone did a quick Google search to find that bagels are, in fact, boiled. People seemed genuinely intrigued by this information."
Stepmoms...
"This didn't happened to me but to someone else My step mom used to be an occupational therapist and would help the elderly in the hospital. One patient she had to work with was Vietnamese so he didn't know English. He came with his son so my Stepmom decided to ask him about his father but her coworker interrupted her saying "I don't believe he speak english."
"This whole time the son hasn't said a word while my stepmom was working with his father. When they were done the father and son left and as soon as the were at the door, the son turned around and said "Remember, I don't speak english". The coworker was dumbfounded when he said that and all my stepmom could do was laugh."
- Zemunda
When Touring...
"A tour group had a dad in it who insisted on trying to give his 2 cents on my animals and proceeded to put his fingers in the tank (despite my warning and practically yelling at him not too) with our stunted gators saying how hatchlings couldn't hurt a human only for the male to shoot out of his favorite hide and latch onto his hand... yea I had to bite my tongue to stop laughing."
So Rude
insulting dan levy GIF by CBCGiphy"Didn't necessarily make anyone look dumb, but certainly made some people feel bad."
"I lived in Germany for a year after high school as part of an exchange program, and there were several times where I had to make phone calls. I had to call doctors, employers, program coordinators, etc. so I got fairly used to the whole telephone garb in german. I could speak pretty fluently on the phone, but since it's not my native language I would of course make small grammatical errors and stuff like that."
"This led to the unfortunate situation where people would assume I was german when on the phone because I spoke well enough, but since I kept making mistakes I was also stupid. People were quite rude to me over the phone, assuming that was due to the assumed stupidity. After revealing I was actually a foreigner they always sounded so surprised and complimentary of my German and were much more helpful and polite afterwards."
SAND What?
"At work one day writing a menu board for lunch specials. A couple comes in and start chuckling behind me. The lady gives me this snide look and says "What's a SAND-wich? It's spelled SAMWITCH, honey. Hahaha she wrote SAND, like in the desert!"
"I just smiled and didn't even correct her. That cocky stupidity was truly a sight to behold."
Ask the People...
"I am an application developer in the public sector. I have made many of the computer programs where I work such as the Human Resources, incident reporting, and some of the case management systems."
"Several times I have had people try to tell me, wrongly, how to use an application that I made. I especially like it when they tell me I should "ask the people at the company" uh, what company would that be? I tell them that it is very flattering that they think that the software was made by an entire company instead of by me alone in my office."
- imk
From the Sun
sun GIFGiphy"Was asked by my brother and girlfriend which planet is first starting from the Sun. Was then belittled for twenty minutes after answering Mercury because they were adamant it was Venus. I was just disappointed because we are in our twenties."
I Hate Retail!
"Oh working in retail has those moments constantly. People don't read the signs right and one guy didn't get the right chips for the deal and was getting mad at me and told me to come and he'll show me the sign. I had already dealt with people not reading the fine print on that deal so I told him "I'm not going to look at anything, you can go look for yourself and read it then come back with the right product". He came back without an attitude because he knew he was wrong and from that point on I always had my guard up when I saw him come in and I was ready for a fight each time."
So Saaaavvvyyyy....
"Corporate trainer came to our offices to provide training. I popped into the room to say hello and see if she needed help. She was having trouble setting up the projector before the session. I started trying to help but I'm not really savvy with projectors. She was getting frustrated with me as she assumed I was the IT dude, and obviously not a very good one."
"We eventually got it fixed, and I offered her a coffee. She was a bit rude to me by that stage. I got her one anyway. Fast forward to the session itself, and I introduced her to the room of 40 people and thanked her for coming. She realised I was the head of the division and was the one paying for her to be there. I felt very smug at that point."
Never Forget
"Oh sure but... I find the opposite a better teaching environment. Playing street fighter in a 7-11. We had been playing it for I think years and felt pretty confident in the game. Some 14 year old comes in and starts telling us about the "guile handcuffs" We scoffed and laughed at him."
"Guile doesn't have handcuffs. And holy crap he showed us the damn move. Granted it was a bug but I never forgot that. I use that story whenever I need to."
Huff and Puff....
paper bag GIFGiphy"When I was in the Army, me and a group of specialists were standing in a circle, taking a break in the motor pool. A lieutenant came out and said he needed a forklift driver, went around the circle, pointed at each male and asked them if they had their license. None of them did; he huffed and walked away."
"He had clearly, obviously skipped over the other female and I in the circle. That was fine; we were the only 88M (heavy vehicle operators) and forklift licensed people there; the dudes were all paralegals and HR specialists. Everyone laughed. What an embarrassing moment for him."
When you don't know, you don't know. And when you know, be classy about it. Just because you're right a few times doesn't make you a God. Until then, I'm gonna keep having some fun with the mental bait and switch.