Tuesday, June 26, 2007

...and this meme is worth it if only to check out the one I'm linking to...

...which would be jewgirl's.

And also, I had too much Diet Pepsi with dinner, so I'm up anyway. Might as well do a meme.

OK, so this meme goes like this:

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you have ever been asked? Why was it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

This actually happened recently. I am moving, and I wanted an estimate. So, I tried to find some information online, but all the online options involved sending my phone number and email out into the ether and waiting for zillions of panting moving companies to call with quotes. So, against my better judgment, I do. A woman calls, and she not only has a bad cold and is talking through her nose, but she is also chewing gum or eating while she is talking to me. And I started asking her some questions about how much the move would cost, and luckily I had the weight from our last move (7180 pounds, by the way - yes, we have that many books), so I gave her that and she was able, after putting me on hold for a long time and dealing with some confusion on her end, to give me an estimate.

Then, I asked about their packing services, because, what the hell, right? Might as well ask.

And so here's the dumb question: she asked me, "How much stuff do you have - how many boxes?"

If I knew the answer to that question, wouldn't that mean that I had already packed them?

Then she put me on hold, only she didn't quite hit the button, so I could hear her asking her boss for help because she couldn't "figure out what [I] wanted." I had thought that she'd give me a range - "x many kitchen cabinets is generally between $- and $--" - but no, she needed to know the number of boxes.

Then she asked, "Is 40-50 boxes about right?"

I said the only thing I could say: "I really have no idea."

So she gave me an estimate for packing 40-50 boxes, and I made a little note next to the name of her company that read "um...completely incompetent? Don't hire."

And obviously, I still don't know how many boxes I will need.

Please consider yourself tagged if you'd like to be.

Now I'm going to go drink some more pop and eat leftover Mexican food.

1 comment:

SkippyMom said...

It as Bill Engval says "Here's your sign."...I am going over and meme this on my blog because Skippyhusband was asked the stupidest [word?] question last weekend.