June 13, 2023 | Jess Silverberg

That Backfired: People Share A Time When A Fake 'Expert' Was Exposed


Some people enjoy showing off their self-proclaimed expertise. Most times, they'll try to jump in at the appropriate time with their wisdom. Other times, they'll just barge in without warning to flex their intellectual muscles at whoever is around. And sometimes, they'll go head to head with someone who has a bit more experience in that field.

It could be a person with a degree or someone in a major position. In these moments, sheer embarrassment awaits these condescending individuals. If there's anyone else present to witness the debate, the incident will make them look even more foolish.

These select people have had the misfortune of running into know-it-alls. As expected, things got a bit uncomfortable for the pretentious people who tried to show off. If you ever feel like thoroughly explaining something to a stranger, don't act on it. They might just surprise you with their vast knowledge.

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Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!

#1 Reaching For The Rail

I'm a railroader as well as a railfan. I've had other people who don't know about my professional experience try to explain all sorts of things that I do every day. It's always fun to let them finish, then tell them, "Yeah, I know what you're saying, at work the other day we..." They always turn bright red after and immediately regret trying to take the upper hand over me.

There's an odd dynamic in our hobby where railroad employees are treated like royalty by the railfans (which I've never understood), and as soon as you out yourself as an actual worker, anything you say is the word of God himself. But before that? HA!

#2 Doctor, Doctor, Give Me The News

I was a combat medic in the army, then a private bodyguard, and I'm now working corporate security. One of our requirements is to be first aid certified, so I had to do a short course. My boss was aware I knew far more than required, but rules are rules, so he told me to just get it over with. The girl training the course was explaining something (related to seizures, I think).

I corrected her. She asked me how in the world I thought I knew more than her. Well, I was a combat medic in an elite unit and worked as a bodyguard where I had dealt with over a dozen seizures among other medical emergencies. She shut up quickly and I passed the course.

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#3 Wrong Field, Pal

I was at the gym and I ran into this stereotypical alpha guy that I talk to out of obligation because my boyfriend is friends with him. I am currently getting my master's and teaching credential in education and I previously graduated as an education major with a math minor. When I told him where I wanted to teach in the future, this guy started telling me about funding in the educational system.

He told me where it's supposedly best to go to get the most of out my salary. I was a little annoyed so I just smiled and waited for the whole thing to be over. He verified his information by telling me that he used to work in the police department for five months.

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#4 Written In Stone

I was in Nemo, a museum in Amsterdam where they hung these tablets with a game on it that helps with research of youth learning capabilities in language. I was talking to this lady, probably a mom of one of the children playing on the tablet. She tried to help one child but she was making a mistake in her explanation.

Out of impulse, I corrected her. She turned around and told me, "What do you know about it!" I was quite taken back by this since we had been talking nicely up to that point. When I recovered I said, "Well, I wrote that software." It was so satisfying to see her face after that.

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#5 It's Heating Up

A Home Depot employee was trying to explain to me why I shouldn't get the water heater I was trying to purchase. I did tech support for this specific water heater manufacturer for four years; please don't try to tell me that propane water heaters are a scam and that the natural gas models will work exactly the same. That employee is going to cause so many fires telling people this.

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#6 Send Us A Signal

I work in IT. I had a user tell me their brilliant idea that 'the servers' should actually be out in the office where people worked. He didn't know I was in IT, and when I asked why, he gave me an eye-roll and told me it was "common sense." Apparently, if the servers were in the middle of the office instead of downstairs in the server room, they'd be closer to the workstations.

This supposedly means the signal wouldn't have as far to travel and everything would be quicker. When I started to explain the many, many reasons why that was a complete and utter lie, he put up a hand and said, "Look, my brother's an electrical engineer, I think I know a bit more about this stuff than you."

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#7 Rolling Away From The Madness

I had a colleague explain to me the differences between quadriplegics and paraplegics once. I was born with spina bifida and have been a paraplegic all my life. This particular person is known for being unable to read situations and apply correct appropriateness in a lot of situations. I just wheeled away once she finished her speel. It still amazes me though and makes me laugh.

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#8 Another Day At The Library

I'm a library technology clerk. A woman wanted help rotating some images she scanned. The first was an image file which opens in Windows Photo Viewer (a program that has buttons to rotate the image clockwise or counterclockwise). The second was a PDF file, which opens in Adobe Acrobat Reader (a program that has several options, but not to rotate the document).

I tried to explain to her how the two "images" were different file types, and how to change the scanner settings so the second image could be scanned as an image file. She kept butting in with, "I scanned both of them the same way," to which I replied, "Apparently you didn't because they aren't the same file type!"

I tried reaching over to change the scanner settings myself and she wouldn't even let me do that, because she really wanted to know how they ended up as different file types even though she scanned both images the same way. Right as I was making some headway on getting her to understand, she just blurts out, "Never mind, don't worry about it."

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#9 The Heat Is On

I had a co-worker at a pizza place claim that he knew a guy who could hack a computer if he knew the IP address, then make the computer overheat and permanently damage itself. I told him that's not how it works, but he insisted that his hacker friend was really good at hacking and could do it. Computer processors are designed to shut off if they exceed a certain temperature. When they shut off, they will stop producing heat.

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#10 Getting Misinformed About Health

Pharmacy student here. A lot of people don’t understand that pharmacy school covers a lot more than just medicine and how it works. We learn a lot about disease states. It’s a doctorate program so it is pretty intensive. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert yet, but I know a lot more than people who get their information from the “Mom’s Against Vaccines and GMOs” Facebook page.

I absolutely hate it when people try to explain to me how vaccines are bad for you. They don’t understand any of the nuances of these issues. One time, someone told me that the flu shot doesn’t work and that it's just poison. I proceeded to go on about how the immune system works and I went through every ingredient in flu shots in order to explain that they are okay.

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#11 Where's The Spaghetti, Though?

I was 41 weeks pregnant, in the summertime. I had just been sent home from the hospital after my induction was started. I had suffered through twelve gruelling hours of misoprostol contractions, then nothing because there was an emergency elsewhere in the maternity wing. Unfortunately, my doctor was the only person qualified to oversee the induction.

I was an exhausted, sore, sweaty wreck and just wanted ice cream. A man asked when I was due and I tensely answered, "A week ago." He then told me all the things (raw pineapple, castor oil, spicy food) that I should be buying to get labor started. Because it's all surefire, obviously—some spicy meatballs and that baby will shoot right out, right?

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#12 Strike Up The Band

I was on a Boy Scout trip to the National Jamboree, and we got to stay at a military base near Washington DC. The night we got there, we went to the base bowling alley. My first turn came up, and my patrol leader, who was 14, decided that 11-year-old me needed coaching. He proceeded to take five minutes to explain how to bowl, in detail.

I thanked him, then stepped up to the line and rolled a strike. I turned around and told him that I'd been bowling since I was five. I bowled a 156 that night, the highest score on the team. Needless to say, that patrol leader never tried to assume anything about my abilities or experience ever again. Not too shabby for 11-year-old me.

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#13 Not Their First Rodeo

I was attending a mediation session in another city with a barrister on behalf of my defendant employer. The plaintiff was a lawyer, represented by his own barrister, and the mediator was a former local judge. The plaintiff and his counsel asked the mediator to explain, for my benefit, how mediation sessions worked.

Before he gave a scripted overview, the plaintiff's counsel condescendingly tells me that I have to be ready to compromise and that their case is so strong the mediation wasn't even necessary. He then offered to explain anything I didn't understand (even though my barrister is there), and promised to keep the "legalese" to a minimum so I could keep up.

My counsel chuckled and the mediator paused before reading his script. I thanked the mediator for his time, then looked at the plaintiff and his counsel to tell them that I'm a lawyer. I told them that I have been one for many years, that I've done several dozen mediations all across the country, and that I'm well versed in what he believed constituted a compromise. I then suggested he skip his brief since it was a carbon copy of the pre-trial brief he submitted four months ago. The plaintiff and counsel went white. My mediator chuckled again, and then we began.

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#14 The Capstone Of Higher Education

One time I wore a University of Alabama hat to the grocery store and the cashier mocked me. He called me a “bandwagon fan” because Alabama has a giant college football program and he thought most people just jump on the trend to fit in. My family lives in Alabama and my dad and brother have degrees from the university.

I even went there for my freshman year. I’m born, bred and Roll Tide fed. When I informed him I actually picked the hat up in Tuscaloosa (where the university is) the last time I was there, he looked at me and said, “Where??” I just smiled and told him to have a nice day.

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#15 Kiss The Asphalt

I was at a bar and there was a strange smell. I knew it was from the parking lot a few buildings down that was being worked on. I asked what the smell was and a guy told me it was asphalt. After disagreeing with him a few times and him insisting he was right, I told him I worked at an asphalt plant, and it most definitely was not the smell of asphalt.

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#16 Too Much Monkey Business

I was waiting for an operation reading of the famous book "Social Evolution" by biologist Bob Trivers. It has chimps on the cover. Someone, who later turned out to be the chief of surgery, said: "Evolution is all about monkeys isn't it?" Err, no, I explained, even though monkeys and humans have a common ancestor (I teach evolutionary theory). "Well, those are monkeys on the cover, aren't they?" she asked. No. They are not. Didn't you study biology at medical school?

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#17 Getting The Right Shot

I like to visit local areas that are photo-worthy. Somehow, I always get asked to help take a photo and it’s always fun when I'm asked to change the settings on the camera. It's not fun, however, when the person or group thinks they already have the correct settings. It may be overstepping a little, but I still try and tell them otherwise.

I have experience using different types of point and shoot cameras because of a prior stint I had at a theme park. After a while, it gets a little maddening when folks try and tell me how to use the shutter button to take a picture. Them: “It’s the silver button on top.” Me: “Oh, you mean just like the one on my large DSLR that’s hanging around my neck?

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#18 Lights, Camera, Action!

As a film graduate with an educational background in practical TV and film production, I often explain how things work in the industry when people around me make assumptions or interpret it the wrong way. For example, film history. My friend, a gardener, stated that the first film for audience consumption was released in the 1940s.

I proceeded to explain the history of film and rebutted that the first film featuring commercial sound was actually released in 1927. He then informed me that the history I explained was probably a different one that didn't apply to audiences. Just to be clear, I spent six years studying film history... but I contained my rage and just said, "Oh yeah, probably." Then I left the room.

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#19 Use Your Inner Voice Next Time

I sold a high-end storage component system for seven years and I’m an expert on how it works. When my husband and I moved into our house and were setting it back up, he started telling me how he thought we should do it. “See, the problem is this right here, it looks like we should probably do that," etc. He just kept going on and on, saying everything that was on his mind and trying to work through the problem.

The whole time, I was just standing there staring at him. Eventually, he stopped and looked at me, and I was like “I’ve literally taught people how to do this a million times.” He got kind of red and said, “Aw man, I forgot”. He wasn’t condescending, he was just trying to work out how the system worked out loud. But funny nonetheless.

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#20 Used To The Hate

I work in finance. A faculty member tried to explain to me their department's budget, which I administer. I don't go into his lab and start telling him how to do his job, but that didn't stop him from telling me how to do mine because I don't have a Ph.D. Clearly, that means I couldn't possibly have anything valuable to contribute.

He was arguing with me over the bottom line of his budget, which said he said had a surplus when it actually was in deficit due to his reckless spending ($800 on a freaking pingpong table for his students out of operational funds... No wonder I audited him). I had to point out to him that in the university's accounting system, things in parentheses are credits, not debits.

The $50,000 he insisted they had was actually $50,000 in the hole. Such had already been explained to him in a dozen emails that go back to last year, but he insisted the accounting system was wrong. I insisted the meeting was over and wound up helping slash his budget for the net fiscal year to reclaim the overage. He hates my guts, but I give zero care.

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#21 Dressed To Impress

I've been in martial arts (taekwondo, specifically) for 14 years, and I'm a 4th-degree black belt. I don't claim to know everything, not even close, but I do know what I'm talking about for the most part. At my university, I decided to try out the taekwondo club on campus. I already expected that there wouldn't be as many people at my level, but I just wanted to see how it was.

It was my first day, and I didn't know if we were supposed to wear uniforms or not, so I went in with workout clothes. I still brought my full gear though, just in case. Before the class started, one of the leaders (who was wearing a 2nd-degree black belt) came up to me and started explaining the general protocol of class. He also offered to stand next to me during the class to show me how to do the different steps.

Throughout all of this, he seemed annoyed that he was having to explain everything as if he didn't want new, inexperienced students. I politely agreed and asked if we should wear our uniforms for the class. He explained that if we had them we should, but it wasn't a problem if I didn't have one. I explained that I did have one, and said I'd be right back. I changed into my uniform and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw me walk out with my instructor's uniform and 4th-degree belt.

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#22 Latte Isn't Hurting Anyone

When I was pregnant, I was drinking a decaf iced latte. I had some woman in line at the pharmacy tell me that caffeine was going to rearrange the genes in my baby’s brain. I work full-time as a geneticist. I actually couldn’t even come up with a response. I just stood there somewhat dumbfounded at the absurdity of it all.

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#23 Familiar With Broken Bones

I was picked up by an old taxi driver on my way to a skatepark with my skateboard. He rudely demanded to know where I had been skateboarding and informed me that if I collided with someone his age on the sidewalk, they had an 80% chance of dying from a brain hemorrhage. I politely informed him that this was unlikely.

I hadn't even been skating on the sidewalk. He then told me to "ask anyone in the medical profession" as would confirm it. I then politely informed him that I was an ER doctor and he changed his manner with me completely. All of a sudden, he became very respectful once he realized I wasn’t just some skater punk.

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#24 What's In A Name?

My little brother's friend who has worked in marketing for only six months tried to explain how he "cracked" Google's SEO algorithm and could get anything to the front page of Google. I've worked knee-deep in SEO for almost a decade and I still have little to no idea what drives the algorithm other than speculation and trial and error. I just smiled and nodded while he told me image file names play a huge role in page ranking.

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#25 Just Press The Button

I had a cashier get snotty with me when I told him he needed to hit F5 to get back from the credit card screen. He went into a rant about how he had been using the software for years and that what I told him was not going to work. He then explained something about computers. After he kept going on and on about how I was clearly wrong, I finally had to interrupt him: "Dude, I helped write this software, and nothing you said is right." He then stormed off from the register and I just stood there awkwardly until a manager showed up. The manager pressed F5.

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#26 Turn Up The Bass

My friend's brother wanted to install new speakers in his car. The amplifier was rated for 4 ohms, so according to him, there was no possible way to use two 8 ohm speakers because it would blow up the amplifier. His dad joined in and argued with me too, which was frustrating because they were the ones who asked for my help. Why ask for my help if they aren't willing to take it?

Neither would listen to a word I said until I mentioned that I was five years into an electrical engineering degree and have designed countless amplifiers, including a dozen guitar speaker cabinets. Their tone totally changed after that. Don't know if he ever installed them though.

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#27 Get In Line, Pal

I'm working on a Ph.D. in math. Every Friday, some friends from my department and I go to happy hour at this pretty chill bar downtown to play pool. There was one Friday that we were particularly sucking, but weren't exactly trying our hardest — we'd probably been trying to sink the last three balls for about four rounds at this point.

That's when a guy at the table next to ours sauntered over and in his infinite, tipsy wisdom proceeded to tell four math grad students that pool is as "easy as identifying tangent lines." It took about two minutes of this guy trying to explain this to us before my friend chimed in. "Yeah, we're all working on Ph.D.'s in math, we know plenty about tangent lines. Let me give you a counterexample to explain why you're wrong." The guy's eyes got so wide. He didn't say much to us after that.

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#28 Start Your Engines

I was an aircraft mechanic, USAF, and a student pilot at one time. I was looking at cars in a showroom. The salesman started talking to me and my friend about the V12 in the '70s Jaguar XL12. He went on about the engine and why it was so fast. "It's got the same fuel injection system as an F4 fighter jet," he said.

Taken aback, I said "Really?!" acting all impressed and surprised. "The same fuel injection as a General Electric J79 turbojet. Funny, since that burns JP4, a gasoline and kerosene mix. How does that work?" He just stopped mid-sentence and walked out of the showroom. We didn't see him again for the entire time we were there looking around.

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#29 Simply Trying To Get A Connection

The COX internet tech was trying to blame my bad internet on the WiFi being "imperfect." He said that speeds and loss vary on conditions like location and other measurable factors, etc. He clearly had no idea who he was talking to. I played along and went, "Huh, what about hard-wired to the router?" He just said yes, the same issues can occur.

I own an ISP in California. I've been a tech for 27 years. Ethernet is not WiFi, pal. I let him go all in, then dropped the truth. I told him to not assume by using industry-only jargon to try and make his lack of experience and professionalism invisible. He didn't say a single word after that. He learned a lesson about making assumptions that day.

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#30 I'm On The List

I'm a lawyer. One of my clients showed me a court ruling and demanded I start the same proceeding for him. I tried to explain that there were several reasons why it would not work for him, then proposed a different route. He insisted his case was exactly the same and that it would be an easy win. I tried to explain again. He then said, “Well, what do you know about it!” I calmly replied, “Err.... look at that ruling again. See who’s listed as the plaintiff’s lawyer?” It was me. Oh, that was delicious.

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#31 Get These Hands

I went to a boxing class. One of the newer guys started teaching me how to jab right off the bat and I just went with it. He then started teaching me how to move. I never even asked him to approach me in the first place. When it was time for sparring, I beat the heck out of him. That's when he found out he probably should have asked if I boxed before.

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#32 TVs For Everyone

I was coordinating the installation of close to 2,000 TVs on a cruise ship. One particular install was tricky because it was in a tight space and all the screens were too large. So I ducked out to a big box store to pick up a smaller screen. The salesman was explaining how difficult it was to install plasma screens.

He said I needed to hire one of their experts who knew which specific monster cable to use for optimal viewing. He kept coming out with a bunch of outright lies to try and upsell me. I ended up saying something to the effect of: “Listen, mate, I’ve installed more TVs than you’ve had hot dinners, so kindly ring up just the TV so I can be on my way.”

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#33 See You On The Court

I've been playing tennis for over twenty years and I took it very seriously for about seven or eight. Simply put, if I really wanted to, I could embarrass an amateur on the court. But I don't, because I'm not that kind of person. I was having lunch with a guy who I considered to be "potential boyfriend material."

I considered him that for maybe a split second, but I quickly came to my senses. At some point in our conversation, the subject of tennis came up. I didn't go into too many details but said that I'd been playing for a long time, mentioning that I played varsity in high school, etc. He must've gone deaf when I mentioned my background, and proceeded to explain a few simple concepts as if I was brand new to the game. After that, I suggested that we play a few rounds at a local court sometime, and he agreed. The day came and we made it to the courts. I was a little rusty at first since I hadn't played in a while.

I recall him saying something like, "Don't worry, you'll improve." Long story short, it didn't take long until I was in full form and he realized that he greatly underestimated my abilities. It was pretty clear that he was pissed off, but he didn't say anything about it. I think we only played one more time after that, but with a few more people.

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#34 Deal Turned Into A Nightmare

I had a friend ask me about a car he wanted to buy. I hadn’t sold cars in years at that point but still kept all my old connections. He ignored my advice and bought a 10-year-old, high-mileage Nissan for the same price as a newer, lower mileage Honda that I showed him at my old dealership. The next time we talked, he wouldn’t shut up.

He kept bragging about the amazing deal he got on his car and how he did it all themselves, blah blah blah. He forgot I used to sell more cars in a month than they could buy in their entire life. I showed that he overpaid by $3,000 and got screwed on the rate. Yeah. Don’t be a jerk. Now he’s stuck in that turd, the transmission is going out, and he’s upside down $3,000 still.

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#35 Please Don't Stop The Music

I have a Ph.D. in Musicology. The number of random people I encounter who give me unsolicited music advice is UNREAL. Like, it happens so often that I no longer tell people the field I'm in. One time, I had this guy who worked at a record shop going on and on about some '70s band I'd never heard of in my life.

I grew tired of it and tried to politely excuse myself. He then got super grumpy and increasingly volatile, saying out loud: "It's not like you're a music professor at Harvard and I'm not!" To which I got to reply while leaving, "Actually, I was invited to teach for a semester at Harvard recently. Have a nice day."

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#36 The Wrong Person Needs Training

I had someone argue with me on Facebook on how to play one of my own band's tracks. Yep, I wrote it. I even linked him to a YouTube video showing him the riff he was messing up. He still maintained that I was wrong and didn't seem to get that I was in the band and had written the track. He answered with, "Sure thing buddy!" The responses from other users were hilarious. Some even provided photographic evidence. He still wouldn't take it and told me I should improve my ear training.

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#37 Blinded Me With Science

I had my chiropractor try to convince me that the microwaves from WiFi, cell phones, and computers can affect brain function just by touching them. He went on and on about that, then looked at me and said, "Well, I don't know how much science background you have so I won't go into all of it." I have my BSc and I'm currently working on my masters in Neuroscience. He shut up after I told him that.

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#38 Off To The Races

I was casually sitting in the stands at a local sprint car race one night a few years ago. I had a couple of guys who were a few beers in try to explain to me how the sprint cars worked. At one point, they got all excited when they saw that the next car that rolled on the track was a fast one. I politely leaned forward and said thanks for the support, because it was my racecar.

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#39 Turn Me Loose

I work in marketing for a casino. At a video poker tournament, a lady came up to me and said, "Listen, I am a marketing genius, you should hear my idea. Make these machines as loose as possible, so we can all win a little more." I replied, "Oh weird me too! Also its video poker. There are only 52 cards in the deck. There is no such thing as loosening a video poker machine."

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#40 Being A Good Sport

I'm a martial artist but I don't look like one at all. One day, I was training at the club and a guy came up to me. He had his group of friends behind him, encouraging him. With this cocky attitude, he started giving me all of these tips and instructions on how to win a fight. From the looks of him, I immediately knew that he was not a seasoned fighter and even less an expert.

He offered me to spar with me for a bit. That's when I decided to unleash my full fury on him. Within the first few minutes, he realized how stupid he was for trying to teach me how to fight. But there were no hard feelings; we even went out for drinks after. At the bar, his coach went up to him and said, "Man, she is a cage fighter. How could you even think you could go head to head with her?" He never returned to the club.

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#41 Rules Are Rules, Pal

I was coaching a girl's basketball team in an entirely unimportant high-school tournament that solely existed for the kids to have fun. Before the game, the ref made a huge fuss about what kind of hair ties and scrunchies the girls could and couldn't wear. He asked several of my players to remove their hair ties.

He was riding on the fact that the official rules didn't allow "that kind of material." Two of my players were close to tears. I told the ref to please change his socks. He looked at me all dumbfounded and said, "What?!" I said, "You're wearing white socks. The official rules require the ref to wear black socks."

He didn't believe me, so I whipped out the rule book and pointed him to the relevant rule. He turned bright red and we started the game with everybody wearing their original hair ties and socks. Sometimes, being too much of a stickler for the rules isn't necessarily a good thing. Always make sure you really know your stuff before making calls that could make you look stupid.

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#42 Awkward Moment At The Dinner Table

I used to manage a Starbucks. My wife’s cousin's new boyfriend came to a family dinner and I asked him what he did for a living.

Him: “I work in finance."

Me: “Oh cool, what kind of stuff do you do?”

Him: “Honestly, I don’t know how to explain it to you in “Starbucks” terms” (with this condescending smug smile).

Me: "Well, I actually just completed my Master's degree in Finance so you know, I’m sure I could understand.

He just upped and left.

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#43 The Weather Outside Is Frightful

I'm an airline pilot based in New York City. It's got some of the most congested airspaces in the world. Often we are delayed, not because of weather in New York but further outside New York. For instance, a well-placed thunderstorm will force everyone else to deviate around it. This can then force other traffic to be vectored out of the way.

It's a huge butterfly effect that forces ATC to start limiting the flow rate of traffic flying into a specific area, like New York City (This is part of the reason why EWR, LGA, and JFK have some of the worst on-time performances in the country).  Unfortunately, most passengers don't understand this and it's frustrating.

They feel the need to inform us that we shouldn't be delayed for the weather because their relatives said the weather is fine at the destination. Gee, thanks Karen in seat 15C. I'll tell ATC they don't know what the heck they're doing because your husband said the weather looks good at home. That'll definitely get us on our way!

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#44 On An Annoying Loop

About a month ago, a new guy joined the team. I've worked here for about three years, despite the fact that I'm still pretty young. Anyway, he recently started explaining how a certain process works to me and I sat at my desk staring at him until he stopped. I said, "Yeah I know, I wrote the protocol. Do you have a question?"

When he didn't, I put in my headphones and turned away from him. He still annoys the heck out me. He'll repeat things back to me that I had explained to him just the day prior. I thought he just rubbed me the wrong way, but some new people started on the team and you can clearly see that he's even more condescending to them.

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#45 That's What I Call Home

My father-in-law told me that I was framing a house wrong. His son was helping with the job and I guess they talked about it. Based on that, he determined I was doing something wrong. We argued about it a lot—I told him I was taught by my dad who has built hundreds of homes. My father-in-law has never built a home in his life and I’m not even sure he has ever even been on a construction site.

He pulled out a book about construction from the '70s and showed me what I was doing wrong. At this point, I was sick of it and went to my car, grabbed the house plans, and showed him an exact detail that showed what I was saying was correct. He stared at it for a long time and had nothing to say. He mumbled on later about how his outdated book was right. He was such a know-it-all. Good riddance.

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