I know, what the HELL is it about computer illiterate people wanting to touch the monitor? It’s like they have this irresistable urge, and no matter how many times you tell them, next time they will do it again. 
Worst Comments 2
DaJuice
#381
colintheys
#382
Even worse than monitors is camera lenses. I was setting up a camera on a tripod to film an event in the dark last year and it wasn’t working (bad extention cord.) So the guy, htinking he’s hot sh*t, whips out his little LED flashlight, aims it in the lens and looks in, blowing out like 15 pixels. (I don’t know WHAT he expected to see anyway.) And before I could do anything, he wiped the lens off with his palm, smearing and scratching the lens. Fortunately, it was an ancient camera, but he managed to ruin the night’s footage. :banghead: I need an electric fence for my stuff… to keep out all the ‘non-technical’ people.
gmask
#383
Originally posted by DaJuice
I know, what the HELL is it about computer illiterate people wanting to touch the monitor? It’s like they have this irresistable urge, and no matter how many times you tell them, next time they will do it again.
Reminds me of moths attracted to flames… that’s a pun! 
moovieboy
#384
Occassionally, I get clients who even hold a pen dangerously close to the screen… which really freaks me when it’s my laptop’s LCD!
What is it with folks and computer screens? They would never dream of touching their TVs in that manner… Maybe we should have a sign above the monitors saying “$20 fee for each time the screen is touched.”
That would stop producers faster than a barrier, I think 
-Tom
gmask
#385
Originally posted by moovieboy
$20 fee for each time the screen is touched."
How about 20,000 volts if you touch this monitor! 
taoizm
#386
Originally posted by moovieboy
Occassionally, I get clients who even hold a pen dangerously close to the screen…
-Tom
LOL I’ve had to clean ballpoint ink off my screens more than once.
I used to have a project manager that would jab my monitor so hard it would knock stuff off the top. Talk about rock’n the boat.
Dejavont
#387
On the theme of IT ignoramus
The advisory firm I worked for used MS Outlook Public Folders to host non-business emails that everyone could read youve left your lights on, I have a fridge to sell, messages from the social club etc. There was one for each state office, and one for each country.
One colleague of mine, who I had to teach (with difficulty) about right-mouse-click, would receive (male) hardcore pornography from a friend of his on a semi-regular basis. While he could protest that it wasnt him, that he wasnt sending any, he was told by our Senior Partner tell the guy to stop sending in porn. Not that it happened.
So on this particular day, instead of dragging the hardcore porn to the Deleted Items folder, he accidentally dragged it to our Country Public Folder in Outlook. Not concerned, he dragged it into the correct folder. But, it re-appeared in the Country folder
He deleted it, but it re-appeared
Again, he deleted it, again, it was back
Panic sets in. Then, his phone started to ring; it was a very upset Senior Partner in another office asking why he was posting porn on the network
Then our Senior Partner started getting calls
You see, to save on bandwidth the MS Exchange Servers would periodically replicate all the Public Folders so users would only have to browse their local network, instead of across the Wide Area Network
Each item was set to expire and delete itself after a two week period.
So, the hardcore porn had replicated to our Adelaide site from Melbourne. When he deleted it, it replicated back in from Adelaide. It also went to Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney
Each time it was deleted from one server it re-appeared, replicating back and forth.
We had a window of opportunity to delete it before the folder replicated to our Global Knowledge Exchange in Boston at 6pm local time, after which point it would replicate to each and every server in each and every office in our global office. A coordinated response was required from our Exchange administrators in every national office to deal with the problem, at great cost. Our business unit had to issue an apology
Everyone was greatly embarrassed. I couldnt stop laughing, cause it wasnt happening to me. It couldnt happen to a nicer person.
And yet, he kept his job. :banghead:
Batmanuel
#388
Ha Ha Ha…these are great. Here’s a fun one I had to deal with. I work with Dr.'s quite a bit being a medical animator, and one in particular drove me crazy. It was my first animation as an intern many moons ago. I meet with the Dr. and he says:
“These spores originate in water particles in dense jungles and get inhaled by humans.”
I go through the work of modeling a jungle scene, lighting, texturing, particle FX…and then render it (all done in Infini-D 4.0, didn’t have Maya then).
I finally and proudly show it to him.
Dr: “What the hell is this?”
Me: “It’s your jungle spores animation”
Dr: “This spore doesn’t occur in the jungle, they occur in DUST PARTICLES IN THE DESERT”
Me: (Completely blank stare for minutes).
Dr: “I would have never told you to make this a jungle scene”
At that point I got up and left so I wouldn’t end up in jail.
boomji
#389
Originally posted by DaJuice
I know, what the HELL is it about computer illiterate people wanting to touch the monitor? It’s like they have this irresistable urge, and no matter how many times you tell them, next time they will do it again.
i bet they dont do it to their own frikkin sets.
I’ve entertained the idea of putting a sign on top of the screen…or better still turnable flaps…“do not disturb” flap
“no touchy touchy” flap “that’ll cost ya” flap
“take the back seat…stay there”… :rolleyes:
ah well 
b
ryusen
#390
I was looking for a wacom tablet so I went into this store. This guy was eager to greet me and so asked, “Can I help you mister?”
“Yes, I’m looking for a wacom tablet. Do you have any?”
“Yes, please follow me.”
And he showed me something, but it was not a wacom tablet, it was a tablet PC. So I said,
“This is a tablet pc, not a wacom tablet.”
“Uhhmmm… What’s a wacom tablet?”
D’oh!! :banghead:
Garma
#391
yea, I’ve been there too… learn this: always write a specification report and let him sign it. It saved me an enormous bunch of work
Jhavna
#392
One of the project managers here had this great idea…
She said instead of leaving greasy finger prints on my screen, she’d point with the ballpoint pen instead.
That would have been great if she’d used the end where ink DOESN’T come out!
I ended up with ink on my screen… which IMO isn’t better than greasy finger prints…
Bless her for trying though
Matty2Phatty
#393
You know, my story is probably off topic by now, but i only just stumbled apon this thread.
A little while back i was at a concert, and there were a few girls who were standing next to me, and one decided to start making small talk with me. She said she was a hairdresser and asked what it was that i did… i realised then that this conversation was in trouble.
I said i was a 3d animator, and she said “ohhh… like gumby?”
I realised i would have to get a bit simpler, so i said, “noo, not really like gumby… you know
finding nemo?”, “yeah, i LOVE that movie!”
Realising i might be getting somewhere i said “yeah, me too… well, what i do is just like that.”
“oooh… so it’s like gumby then!?”
“yes… it’s just like gumby…” :rolleyes:
Hettinger
#394
Recently a web design of mine took far longer than expected due to the fact that the client went in one night and decided to make a bunch of changes using Microsoft Front Page.
Another client recently threatened a lawsuit against me because after completing his project (which also took much longer than expected) I refused to work with him on further projects.
One thing I’ve learned about freelancing is that it’s OK to turn down work. No amount of money is worth the emotional stress some clients can inflict.
Hettinger
#395
Oh and one at work just recently - I was super busy tagging show promos, and a sales girl busts into the edit room with a stack of Betacam SP tapes…
Her: Can you dub these to VHS?
Me: How long is it?
Her: 3 Hours
Me: That’s going to tie up my edit station for a long time and I’m really busy - is it a priority?
Her: Yes - my boyfriend really wants a copy of the CMA awards! I’ve seen you dub stuff before, it doesn’t take that long.
I then tried to explain that 3 hours of video takes 3 hours to dub… but I’m sure she just thought I was blowing her off…
twilight
#396
One thing I’ve learned about freelancing is that it’s OK to turn down work. No amount of money is worth the emotional stress some clients can inflict.
That is soooooooo true…
There’s a theory why people in high places are so incompetent, mainly in big companies.
Here’s the deal: You start from the bottom and you’re good at what you do. You get promoted. You’re still good at it. You get promoted again. This goes on and on for years. Then it happens, you are promoted but you’re not good at it! You fail to do your job. You won’t get promoted anymore, but you won’t go back to your old position or get fired (too much time in the company by now). So, big companies usually have an incompetent guy at every top position.
overcontrast
#398
there was this local contest where u sumbit ur CG poster and if u win u get a trophy, so i registered for it… there i talkd to this guy who was a friend of my friend… he wanted to see my works so i took the printed posters out and showd it to him… he stares at the poster for a few seconds and say…“hey i can do this too, but the problem is i cant erace the artist’s name and put mine… but u did a great job” i just dropped my jaw for a while… i spent the whole 2 weaks modleing, textureing and rendering that thing and this guy says i downloaded it from the net…that was freaky
Backenbotten
#399
Some years ago, I was doing a project for an educational institution, involving modelling, animation and interactive publication. After some month, we had a meeting with a high boss who was involved in several “e-learning” and simulation-projects. He said that he had been working with 3D for 10 years, and wondered what software we used.
-“3DSMax for the most part”, I replied.
-“Never heard of it” he goes, without a blink, still displaying a very “superior” attitude.
I was polite, and said that it was great that we had such an experienced expert on site, and that we hoped to be able to learn from him.
When I took a peek on his projects, it was apparent that ALL the 3d-stuff (which mostly was horrible btw) was produced at other places. They had no in-house competence at all. It became more and more apparent that this guy was only interested in what he regarded as “cool technology”, and then of course 3D was his wet dream. We came in and stepped on his feet, just by doing our job…
firestar3d
#400
Another “Worst Comment” story that I’ve had some personal experience with (Warning: This is pretty lengthy on its own), as well as a few ideas on how to handle potential employers/clients in the industry (I’ve broken this down into 2 posts because of the length - my personal experiences first)…
It’s not exactly 3D related (and I hated the job anyway but it passed the time until I could start my degree) but I’ve discovered that management positions are pretty much filled with exactly the same people (with some exceptions, including a few nice folks at my old place).
My immediate manager was a woman who had probably gotten her job due to nepotism (she was a friend of the “Service Delivery Manager” and neither of them had any people or communication skills to speak of). The company was an outsourced call handling centre (read: sweatshop) that, in my case, dealt with technical support calls for customers of an ISP. Being the type of person that demanded respect just because of a title, my immediate manager and I were at odds, just because my entire life has this integral philosophy… respect has to be earned.
Often there would be conversations similar to this one:
Manager: “You need to keep your call length down to four minutes.”
Me: “I’m not sure if you realise this, but there are often instances where that isn’t possible for various reasons, but-”
Manager: “I don’t care, you need to keep every call below four minutes.”
Me: (pause for a considerable length of time while I think of a dignified response) “Four minutes is considered to be an average and I-”
Manager: “No, you have to keep them all under four minutes. I’ve got targets to meet.”
Me: (Getting frustrated and barely containing it) “Sometimes talking someone through a problem or technical difficulty can take much longer than this.”
Manager: “I don’t care. You’ve got to keep-”
Me: “My call length under four minutes despite the fact that by doing so I would have to cut the customer off half-way through explaining a situation-”
Manager: “You never cut customer’s off.”
Now of course this went on for several minutes, during which time I would explain why it was impossible to keep to that restriction for each and every single call we take. This of course was “unacceptable”. At some point I tried to explain things in technical terms. I decided it would be an idea to explain by example.
Manager: “What are you trying to do?”
Me: “Humour me for a sec, would you? Assume you’re having a problem with your PC.”
Manager: (Huffs and puffs) “Alright, I can’t connect to the internet.”
Me: “Fair enough, can you explain what it is you’re trying to do?”
Manager: “I’m trying to look at my mail.”
Me: “What is it you’re trying to look at your mail with?”
Manager: “My computer.”
Me: “No, I mean what software? Are you using Outlook, Internet-”
Manager: “I’m not here to know about computers. That’s your job. I’m your manager, and I don’t need to know anything technical.”
Me: “Well as someone who does need to know the technicalities of using computers in order to do my job, I think it’s frustrating for someone to be telling me that I should meet an impossible demand.”
Manager: “Well, that’s just the way it is.”
Me: “And yet just now, it took me nearly a minute to ask you what software you were-”
Manager: “I told you, I don’t want to know.”
Me: “Well, with all due courtesy, I think you should appreciate that these things take time to explain to people who are computer illiterate, and that often it’s impossible to explain and ensure understanding of a solution to a technical problem in under four minutes with a call close script that takes at least a quarter of that time.”
Manager: (Pauses for a minute) “I don’t like your attitude.”
Needless to say, I couldn’t win. I was even called into the manager’s office to explain everything again. He at least let me back into the office to do my job once he had given me a ticking off. If my manager had her way I would have been asked to leave. I didn’t change my stance however (respect has to be earned, and this one too: If you’re going to do a job, do a good one)
Continued…