Did you understand me?
Working at a theater box-office ticket window poses many challenges in dealing with people. When a disgruntled customer at a window exclaimed, “No Tickets?” What do you mean NO TICKETS?” The women waiting on him smiled sweeting. “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she replied. “Which word didn’t you understand?”
Phone company gives something for nothing
Dear Ann,
I think I can top the person who wrote complaining about the idiocy of the phone company. Talk about garbage in, garbage out!
When AT&T split with Bell, we had three phones in our house. The equipment belonged to Ma Bell and the service belonged to AT&T. After we returned all the phone equipment to Ma Bell, we received a bill for $0.00. A few weeks later, we received a check for $5 and a note thanking us. Several months later, we received another computerized bill for $0.00. We called again, got nowhere, so we sent another check for $0.00. A few weeks later we received another $5 refund with the same thank you.
This went on every three months for two years. Now we are down to once a year and have given up trying to straighten this out. We just cash the $5 and forget about it.
– Linda K. R. in California
The Imperialists are back
Brezhnev, a former ruler of Russia, was thought not to be too bright. He comes to address a big Communist party meeting, and starts:
“Dear Comrade Imperialists,”
The whole hall perked up – “what did he say??” Brezhnev tried again…
“Dear Comrade Imperialists,”
Well, by now the hall was in pandemonium – was he trying to call them Imperialists? Then, an advisor walked over to the podium and pointed to the speech for Brezhnev. “Oh…” he muttered, and started again:
“Dear Comrades, Imperialists are everywhere.”
There was a famous anecdote that the reason Brezhnev’s (a former ruler of Russia) speeches ran six hours is because he read not only the original, but the carbon copy. In fact, there was a report near the end of Brezhnev’s life that he went down to south Russia to deliver a speech on science, and accidently gave the wrong speech – on culture – and didn’t even know it until it was over.
