Evidently, common sense is not so common. It’s amazing how much basic knowledge is lacking in grown adults. These stories from Reddit will make you shake your head in disappointment, or gasp in utter disbelief. What would you do if someone asked you these stupid questions?
1. Time Trial
I had to explain that miles per hour, literally means...miles per hour. We had to make a site visit, and saw a sign that said 65 miles to the site. I said something like, “Cool, one hour left”. My co-worker asked how I knew that.
I said “Well, seeing as we're traveling at 65 miles per hour, with 65 miles left in our trip, that's about an hour give or take”. Her reply blew my mind. She said that's not how that works, and that how fast you're going doesn't have anything to do with the time it takes to get there.
2. Paid By The Hour
I once had a girl in her early twenties ask me to reduce her schedule by one day, down from five to four. No problem, we can accommodate that. About a month later, she complained to me that her last few checks had been about 20% smaller. I had to explain to her that working fewer hours meant getting paid for fewer hours.
3. Telephone Troubles
I worked at a hospital, and they hired a relative of a higher-up to answer the phone and act as unit secretary. It was the worst mistake ever. The guy was very likeable, but super spacey. We had to practice with him answering the phone and saying "Stress Care Unit, [blank] speaking".
We'd go over it and call in on another line. Every time he'd pick it up and say "Hello"? It was hilarious and unbelievable.
4. Pop A Pill
I worked in a ten-bed psychiatric facility, mainly for people with schizophrenia. I had to explain to a co-worker multiple times that she couldn't just give one of our patients sleeping pills in the middle of the day. But the reason why she was asking was horrific. It was because the patient was anxious and kept coming to her for reassurance, and he was annoying her.
I mean, that’s part of her job…She also didn't know the difference between the anti-anxiety medications and the sleeping pills, and didn't see why it was problematic to be sedating a man for sleep in the middle of the day anyway.
I explained to her that what she really needed to do was make him a cup of tea and sit down and talk to him about what was going on with him, keep him company, and do her basic job. Working in mental health care can be terrifying, and not because of the patients.
5. Global Crisis
I had to take an earth science class in college to fulfill a credit requirement. One class, we literally had a globe and we were supposed to partner up with the person next to us and find the longitude and latitude of various cities, one of which was Cape Town, South Africa.
My partner, completely serious, looked at me and said, "Ugh, I can never remember which one Africa is". Not South Africa. Just Africa, the continent. Like, there's only seven of these things, you should be able to figure this out.
6. Sky Search
It was late afternoon in summer 1988, and I was just standing in the car park by our building, looking up at the sky. My colleague walks past and asks, "What are you doing”? "I'm looking at the rising moon", I answer. I still laugh when I think of his reply.
"Don't try to trick me, you can't see the moon and sun in the sky at the same time". I try to explain. They even know I'm an amateur astronomer, but they won't listen and won't even look where I'm pointing.
7. When Art Imitates Life
I had to explain that the movie Titanic wasn't the actual event itself but just a dramatic retelling of a real event. I was in my junior year when the 3-D version came out, and our teacher asked if anyone had gone to see it (I had).
My classmate, Brandi, very seriously asked, "How did the cameraman and the sound guy survive the sinking and the footage wasn't damaged? And how is it of such good quality"?
So the teacher says, "It's a movie, Brandi". Brandi says, "I get that, it's like a documentary, right? Like, they were there and they filmed all the stuff that was happening? But how did they get access to certain things and how did it all survive until today"?
Our teacher just couldn't, and sat down very defeated. Brandi sat nearest to me so she looked at me so confused, so I said, "Brandi, the movie was made in 1997. The Titanic event really happened in 1912. Jack and Rose were played by actors. All the characters are played by actors. The people who made the movie built a smaller version of the ship as a movie set and used a really big swimming pool for the ocean".
She seemed to understand after that. Two years prior in biology we watched a documentary on Typhoid Mary that had actors dressing and speaking as if they were from that time period and with period-specific sets. Brandi asked if the actors were the real people. Somehow it was also me that had to explain to her that it was just a movie.
8. Stalled By Instalments
I had to explain how we had to break up payments for a large installment to our accounting department. It gets worse than that. They called a meeting and I had to stand in front of the entire department and explain.
You pay 1/3 upfront for parts. Halfway through, you pay 1/3 for parts to finish the job. You pay the last 1/3 after the job passes inspection. It was a four-hour meeting with me repeating this over and over and over.
All of them kept asking the same questions. Why is it broken up into 1/3 payments? How do we know how much to pay? This is ACCOUNTING. The company wonders why they can’t make profits. No one can handle money or contracts.
9. Interview Questions
I was training a young reporter and discussing possible interview subjects. I raised the idea of interviewing a defense force medical officer. She looked me straight in the eye and asked what a defense force was.
I then spent the next few minutes explaining the army, navy, and air force...then I kid you not, the concept of war and why these forces were needed. To reiterate, this was a recently graduated journalist/news reporter. I had to fire her not long afterwards for her lack of knowledge and productivity.
10. A Bit Spacey
I once had to explain to a co-worker, who was an engineer, how a lunar eclipse worked. It went WAY deeper than that. He appeared to not know that the moon revolves around the Earth, so he couldn't comprehend how the Earth could get between the sun and the moon.
And he wasn't a flat-earther or some other weird conspiracy theorist. He had just never thought about it before.
11. He Deserves A Medal
We were in a meeting and somehow started joking about how we need Mithril (you know, the fantasy metal from Lord of the Rings) for something to be strong and light enough.
At that point, it came out that one of the managers didn’t know Mithril was a fictional metal and so we all teased him about it. But that's not the best part. It was especially funny because that manager had a degree in metallurgy.
12. What Time Is It
I repeatedly had to explain 24-hour time to adults because that’s how the time clock worked. The result was a blank stare. Also, a high school graduate kept asking me what time it was. I replied, “There are clocks on every wall”. She explained that she only knows digital time and doesn’t know time with hands. How does this happen?
13. Color Theory
One day in fourth grade, I had an argument with nearly half my class about mixing primary colors. We all agreed that yellow and blue make green. But then it got bizarre. They believed that if you add more blue to green it goes back to yellow.
I have a vivid memory of yelling back and forth, arguing that you can’t go back to yellow by adding more blue. The teacher was sadly away getting supplies or at the front office or something, so I had no backup.
As I’m in my 30s thinking back on it, I realize it’s possible they were pranking me. This possibility is too painful to consider so I choose to live in a world where that handful of kids were mistaken and not malicious.
14. Call The Health Department
My co-worker at Subway was counting the chips on a rack, throwing them on the floor one by one. After explaining to her that it was a health hazard, she stopped throwing the chip bags on the floor and counted them one at a time for several more minutes.
She came to me and said there were 700 of them. I told there was no way that there were that many chips. I went to the rack and counted how deep each row of chips was, how many chips were on each row, and multiplied it by how many rows there were.
She couldn't accept that her count was off by hundreds and kept telling me that it was impossible to estimate the number that way. I don’t know which part was dumber, throwing food on the floor to count it or not understanding multiplication.
15. Seasonal Shifts
I had to explain to a 50-ish year old co-worker that summer and winter don't happen because we're closer or farther from the sun. He didn't understand axial tilt or elliptical orbits. He was very suspicious when I told him that summer in Canada meant winter in Australia. And there's a kicker. Corporate eventually offered him an international sales position...in Australia.
16. Doing Things The Hard Way
I had to show a guy that he could move a cart of things he was working on putting on the shelves closer to where it needed to go rather than walking back and forth between the same two places about 30 feet apart. Also, it's not like he had the cart in the middle of the aisle and was putting stuff in different places throughout the aisle.
No. Everything on the cart went to the exact same set of shelves.
17. Sky Smarts
I was working the midnight shift at an auto parts factory in the early 80s. I was having a smoke in the parking lot at about 5:30 am. Venus was blazing away in the predawn sky. I remarked how it was easy to spot due to its location and proximity to the rising sun. I learned something terrifying that day.
My buddy chimed in that it was impossible because the sun rotated around the Earth...not the other way around. I didn't even try to argue it with him.
18. Flight Attendant Fail
I was helping a friend who was about 30 study for her flight attendant training. We had empty maps of the US and we were writing in the names of each state. After she did as many as she could (and it wasn't many!) I was looking at her map.
In one of the northwestern states she had written "Seattle". I said, "Ummmm, Seattle is a city, not a state". She did not believe me until I showed her on a finished map.
19. Which Switch
One time, I was explaining to a co-worker how to turn on their computer. They had been staring at the off button for a good five minutes and seemed to be at a loss. I walked over and patiently explained that in order to turn on the computer, they needed to press the button labeled "on".
They looked at me with a confused expression and asked, "But how do I know it's the on button”? I had to resist the urge to facepalm, and instead I said, "It's the big button with the word 'on' written next to it".
It was a silly moment but it made me realize that sometimes the most obvious solution is the one that's overlooked.
20. Floored
I had to tell a guy how to pick up a piece of plastic off the floor. We were told to get everything off the floor at the end of the day to accommodate the carpet cleaners coming in that night. The guy I was working with had begun organizing his desk then turned to me and asked, "I think that is everything right"?
But all of our office chairs had those large square clear plastic carpet protectors, and his was still on the floor. Me: "You need to pick up your carpet protector". Him: looking blank... "No, I think that is everything”.
I roll my chair to the edge and lift the corner of mine. "This...what your chair rolls on". What happened next still haunts me. He gets on the floor and starts pawing at the pattern in the carpet itself. I turn away and pretend this is a glitch in the matrix.
21. Heart Help
I had to explain to my teachers what bpm on my blood pressure wrist device stands for. It’s beats per minute for my heart. I was a nervous wreck hoping I didn’t have a medical emergency. Later on, I had to explain what sodium was, because one of my them didn’t understand that sodium is salt.
My blood pressure rapidly drops at random times and I need sodium to bring it back up. The lower the bp is, the more sodium and water I need. If my bp gets too low, I will start to pass out and I have to have a small amount of sodium in between the times I’m conscious.
22. Spanish Surprise
I'm a Spanish teacher in a rural area with a rapidly growing Spanish-speaking population. I have been asked numerous times to explain the difference between Mexico and literally any other Spanish-speaking country.
I didn't realize that you could get an entire college education and not realize that Nicaragua is not the same thing as Mexico. It's really disheartening. I need a new job.
23. Stupid Spelunker
I was a tour guide in a cave during summers home from college. I had a person ask how long it took us to "make" that cave. Seriously. Still, this one sticks with me. The best question I ever got was when we were several hundred feet into the cave and someone asked me, "Are we underground yet"?
I mean, do you see the sun anywhere around here? I don’t understand some people.
24. Time Travel
Back when I was in high school, maybe junior year, I was taking a creative writing class. We were going to read a story written in 1962. As part of the discussion, the teacher asks, "What's happening in 1962 in America"?
One guy properly answers, "The American/Soviet conflict". Immediately, another girl chimes in with, "Wait, what time did Columbus come then"? I was absolutely floored.
25. Popular Mechanics
I work in a bike shop and have been absolutely mind blown by the things I've had to explain to people. Now, I totally get it when people don't understand something conceptually. Maybe they just never learned? That's fine.
But sometimes it seems like people are literally seeing a different reality than mine. I've had customers ask, “How could that chain possibly turn my wheel”? I politely show them that when you pedal, the chain pulls on the gear on the wheel, causing it to rotate.
“I don't understand”! How could a person possibly not understand a very basic action and reaction like this? I've had people ask how brakes work. I try to politely explain and demonstrate that the caliper clamps down two soft rubber shoes on the sides of the rim, causing it to slow and then stop.
“I don't understand”. It's truly terrifying to behold.
26. Money Matters
I work in finance and was having lunch with a co-worker. He asked me if I set aside money from my paycheck and used the company 401k match. I did, and mentioned I did at least the amount the company matches because it’s “free money” that I wouldn’t otherwise have.
He pretty much went on a rant about how it’s fake and he didn’t believe it. I was dumbfounded that he’s working with other people's finances.
27. Cliff Hanger
I had to explain driving up a long mountain grade. A co-worker asked why the trucks were going so slow. I replied, “Probably because we are going up Afton mountain”. His answer was the dumbest I've ever heard. “No we’re not. We are going down”.
We went back and forth for a minute before I asked him to look out the back window. A quiet “oh” and the conversation was over.
28. Put Some Lotion On It
When I was in JobCorps, I had this friend. I remember telling him that I liked white chocolate and he said that they put "lotion" in it. That was the actual word that he used. It was something that came up at least a few times when we were both there.
One day I had a white chocolate bar, and the topic of "lotion" being in it came up again. To settle this once and for all, I read out the ingredient list. Cocoa butter. He was talking about cocoa butter, which is a common ingredient in lotion, but it's not "lotion", and cocoa butter is edible.
I had to explain to him that some things can be used for different things. Cocoa butter can be used in lotion and as an ingredient in food.
29. The Chicken And The Egg
I had to explain to two female friends simultaneously (we were all in our late 20s) that the chicken eggs we buy at grocery stores aren’t fertilized and that fertilization isn’t what causes a chicken to produce eggs. I gave an analogy to human ovulation.
They genuinely thought that if they let the eggs sit too long before using them that they’d...hatch.
30. Fashion Faux Pas
I had to explain to this guy that adjusting their underwear needed to be done in the bathroom and not next to the food line, and that they needed to wash their hands afterwards.
The guy literally unbuttoned his pants, pulled up his shirt and adjusted his underwear, then tucked his shirt back and re-buttoned his pants and belt. Then he tried to work as normal.
31. Air Head
A kid I was stationed with in Alaska was sent out on a new-guy prank. She was told to go to the motor pool and put winter air in the tires of our shop van. The motor pool guys played along and told her to come back next week because they just ran out (it was October).
So, the next week she comes to me and says she's taking the van to get the air changed in the tires. I told her that it was a new troop prank and there's no such thing as "winter air". I figured she would laugh it off. Nope.
She argued with me for the rest of the day that "winter air" is what allows the tires to grip the snow. Like a dog with a bone. It was 25 years ago and I'm pretty sure she still believes in winter air, wherever she is.
32. Like A Mouse On A Wheel
I work in IT. One day we got a call that the scroll bar didn't show up on a specific application. I couldn't make it show up and there was no setting for it, so I scrolled using the mouse wheel and said, "Well this way works, you can do this instead".
The user continued to make me aware, over a series of interesting comments, that they didn't know how the mouse wheel worked. They could only scroll using the scroll bar on the side. If it didn't show up, he didn't think he could scroll.
When he FINALLY gave up and learned how to scroll with the mouse wheel he goes, "Man! This is nifty"! Like, yup. I know. We all knew.
33. Pitch Perfect
A guy didn't know the difference between low- and high-pitched sounds. It's even stupider than it sounds. This was when I was a research assistant running experiments in a psychology lab. The participant, who was a university student, did not know this difference and I had to explain it to him by giving him examples with my voice.
My mind was blown that someone could go 20 years without ever hearing about this.
34. Delayed Gratification
I worked in HR a long time ago and there was a new hire once who started on a Wednesday, and could not understand why she didn't get a paycheck that same Friday. I tried every way I could think of to explain to her that NO ONE in the store got paid for that Wednesday that day, not even me, not the manager, no one, because payroll takes a week to process.
I busted out a calendar, made visual aids, everything I could think of to try to get her to understand that everyone's pay was delayed by a week, not just hers because “I had a personal vendetta against her”, as she ultimately claimed, even though this was our first time ever meeting.
She got fired a few weeks later for theft. Mmkay bye.
35. Blood Battle
My mother once said years ago that, "Cats are cold-blooded because they like to lay in the sun". We immediately said “...What? No, did you go to school”? But it was far from over. Four or five months ago, she doubled down on this, stating the exact same thing for the exact same reason.
I asked her, "Are you cold-blooded because you like to sunbathe"? She still thinks cats are cold-blooded.
36. Uninsured
A girl I used to date was convinced that used cars came with insurance. We went out to look at cars for her one weekend and on the way to the first lot, it came up in conversation. She absolutely did not believe me, to the point that it was almost an argument.
The salesman told her the same thing, so she demanded we go to another dealership. We visited four dealerships that day and all of them told her the same thing. The relationship didn't last much longer, but earlier this year she was pulled over and charged for a litany of offenses, but surprise! She had no auto insurance.
37. America First
I remember sitting in a world civ class in high school. There was a jaw-dropping interaction. A girl in my class asked how people outside of the US lived, since they were in a desert.
The teacher tried to have her clarify which desert(s), to which the girl responded, “the one outside the US”. She was convinced that every single nation outside of the US was comprised solely of deserts and that any major cities she had heard of (London, Paris, etc.) were actually US cities…
38. Senior Discount
When I worked in fast food, I had a couple who wanted me to apply two senior citizen discounts to their meals because there were two of them. I could not get them to understand that the discount applies itself to the total order. Like, I can't add ANOTHER discount after the first.
So they very cleverly decided every time they came in they would order and pay separately. They shall have their two discounts and no one could stop them! They didn't stop to think that it was the exact same total as ordering together.
39. Cash Transfer
I work at a movie theater. Phone Customer: “Can I pay with cash over the phone”? Me: “..." I asked this customer if I heard them correctly and she said that yes, she would like to pay with cash over the phone.
There was nothing but seriousness in her tone. I informed her she could pay with cash at the box office, however, over the phone I could only accept a credit card. I did not laugh at her or make her feel stupid, but inside I was crying.
40. That Word Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
I had a class in college focused on corporate social responsibility where we regularly discussed whether different companies met the appropriate standards. A girl proudly announced that she loved Pepsi and that they could do "genocide" and she would still love them.
We awkwardly moved past her statement, but the next class she came in and profusely apologized to everybody because she didn't know what that word meant when she said that.
41. It’s Just Business
When I was a senior in college, I had to explain to a friend who was majoring in international business what a tariff was. He was also a senior, but thankfully went to a different school than mine.
Within six months of my explanation, he graduated. To this day, I can't fathom how he managed to pass like 80% of the curriculum without learning such a basic concept that should have kept popping up class after class.
I wasn't even majoring in international business myself and I knew what a freaking tariff was from the few basic economics courses my own degree included.
42. Take The Next Brexit
When Brexit was going on, I had to explain to someone, who was British, that the EU wasn't voting on whether we could stay in it or not…we were. It didn't come close to ending there. After understanding, she then retorted that she was going to vote “leave” so "We wouldn't have to watch the Euro Cup on TV anymore".
That day, it really brought home to me that the public shouldn't have been allowed to vote on the matter as a lot of people are quite frankly too stupid.
43. Cable Conundrum
I work in IT. I had a co-worker who had been in the industry at least two years longer than I have. I am a port security tech, meaning I basically just reset network ports for other techs replacing computers.
I had reset a port for a tech, and a few minutes after finishing he called back. "Hey, it’s still not working". I checked the connection port side and saw that it was disconnected.
I let him know there was some kind of physical disconnection. There was a long pause and he finally said, "Oh should I reconnect the ethernet cable now"? I asked him what he meant and he said, "I tried to log in but it said it wasn't connected to the internet".
I said with the flattest affect possible, "Yes. You need to plug in the ethernet cord for the internet to work". You might think he was joking around, but he was incomprehensibly stupid. He was eventually fired because he was simply unable to complete trouble tickets on his own.
44. Space Race
I'm a teacher who has taught everything from middle school up through college, and it would absolutely shock you how many people do not know even simple things. I've had multiple students who have sworn up and down that chicken is a vegetable, or that Canada is a state. I've had college kids who marvel at the idea of scarcity.
They just think products are made at the stores they are sold at...But by far the dumbest was a high school girl who wrote a report on the Space Race and actually thought it was an actual race, as in, the US and the Soviet Union just built rockets and they raced to the moon to see who had the fastest rocket.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
45. More Pasta, More Problems
I'm a chef, and another "chef" that I was working under many years ago decided he wanted to run a special on carbonara. I was stoked because carbonara is dope. He demoed it for the kitchen to show us the pickup.
His version of "carbonara'' was fettuccini noodles with marinara and a little giardiniera on top. I tried so hard to explain to him, and every single other staff member that this was NOT even close to what carbonara is. Honestly, selling it as "carbonara" was literally false advertising and made us all look stupid. Nobody cared.
46. More Or Less
I had a co-worker who worked in payroll with me. Payroll people generally understand how payroll deductions work. He thought investing in a 401k was the worst thing ever and got super mad that the company was investing like two percent of his check.
With the company match, he basically gained money despite the deduction, but somehow thought he was being robbed. I really tried to explain how a 401k works to him, and I even showed him some math on how the deduction worked and how little his check actually changed, not even including the free company match. He just got angrier.
47. Biology Lesson
I had to explain to my friend (who at the time was 17) that no, different species cannot breed. We were talking about dogs and then he asked what breed my dog was, and I said it was a Great Dane. He thought it was a mix of cow and some other breed because it had black and white fur and spots similar to a cow.
I honestly don't even understand how he thought that. Both of his parents were very good with biology stuff.
48. Lady Problems
In college, I had to explain to a male friend and classmate that women can't just "hold" their menstrual cycle, like they can pee. There's no "just hold it until you have time to run to the bathroom".
He was 20-21 and had a mother and two sisters in his house, and had made it that long without realizing that A) while most women have semi-regular cycles, they have no control over when those cycles happen.
And B) when it starts, menstrual products have to be replaced as needed, which isn't always at the most convenient point in your day. I also had to use a kitchen sponge and a cup of water to show him why you couldn't just leave in a tampon "to plug it up until you get to the bathroom".
Sigh. His mother did him (and future women in his life) a disservice by not even teaching him the basics.
49. Which Way Is Up
I was a trainer for a taxi call center once. One of the recruits didn't understand where North, East, West and South were. Not even kidding. She was almost 30 and already had some trouble using a PC.
But after asking for the direction of traffic on a single road for the third time, I just had to ask if she knew where the North Pole would be on a mercator projection map. Up or down?
She answered "down". I told her immediately that we have to let her go.
50. Spelling Test
There was a girl in my class once…Oh, Kourtney. We were assigned to proofread each other's college essays for our English class. Basically, we had to write an application essay as part of the class. When I read her words, I nearly burst out laughing. Hers opened simply, and I quote, “I’m applying for collage”.
For her turn on mine, she then proceeded to mark every time I correctly wrote the words "college", "affect", and "chose", and corrected them with the wrong thing. She also crossed off the “ly” on the end of my adverbs.
But the truly stupidest thing happened in the same class when she asked me how to spell "orange". So I told her. She then says “No, I mean the color, not the fruit”.
Sources: Reddit
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