Lucky People Admit The Dumbest Things They Did That Actually Solved A Problem
One of the most stressful, yet helpful, things in life is a shot in the dark.
[rebelmouse-image 18352289 is_animated_gif=Everyone loves a Hail Mary success story. The idea of that total blind shot "I can't believe that actually worked" moment is the stuff of legend. Sometimes, it's the stuff of real life, too.
Reddit user Sh0tgunLlama asked:
What is the dumbest solution to a problem that actually worked?
1. The Doctor's Office Scheduling Dance
[rebelmouse-image 18352291 is_animated_gif=I went to cancel a doctor's appointment and they said it was a $200 charge without a week's notice. I asked how much it was to reschedule, they said it was free.
"Okay, so I need to reschedule for two weeks out."
"Is three weeks okay?"
"Yep."
"Alright, you're all set for three weeks from now. Anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes, I need to cancel my appointment."
"We need a week's notice."
"My appointment is three weeks away."
"Oh. Okay. Sure."
"Thank you."
Couldn't believe it worked.
2. That'll Do.
[rebelmouse-image 18352292 is_animated_gif=My stepdad was taking a sat nav back to the shop as it was acting strange but the bloke serving him refused to take it as the warranty only covers physical damage (not accidental damage) So he just drop kicked it lightly and the bloke just casually said "that'll do sir" and went out back to get a replacement. Wasn't to sure what to think about that
3. There's An App For That
[rebelmouse-image 18352293 is_animated_gif=My folks were in town, and my wife and I wanted to take them to dinner.
We head to a nearby mediocre steakhouse at the request of my parents, and it's around 6:00pm.
The hostesses tell us there's a minimum 45 minute wait. I get suspicious, as their parking lot had barely any cars, so I peek around into their dining area. There are several open tables that would fit a party of 4. Mildly annoyed, I ask the hostesses why we can't be seated at any of these tables. They reply that they're being held for future reservations.
I get on my smartphone, open the OpenTable app, make a reservation for 6:15pm for a party of 4, and we're seated immediately
4. Long Distance Server Service
[rebelmouse-image 18352294 is_animated_gif=This was before high speed internet. We had to transfer a database between two cities 500Km appart and we had only one night to do it. People started searching how to compress the files and rent several expensive digital lines (I think ISDN) to spread the copy.
Then someone said "why don't we remove the hard drive out of the server and move it there by car?" So I drove 500Km during the night to deliver the disk and mount the new database.
5. Like A Moth To A Flame... Or A Cat To A Laser Pointer
[rebelmouse-image 18352295 is_animated_gif=I was working as a paramedic at a music festival when we got called to a kid tripping? on acid. The guy had climbed to the top of a portable generator stadium light. So he's 20 feet in the air, on a light pole staring into this blazing midnight sun screaming ,"I'm a moth go into the flame". We had several cops, firefighters and myself standing at the base for 30 minutes discussing how to get him down without killing him or us. The entire time a crowd of people on drugs is surrounding us to see how it all plays out. Do we get a ladder truck and try to coax him down? What if he won't go. Do we spay mace up there? What if he falls? All of a sudden this greasy looking janitor walks up, turns off power to the generator, turns on his flashlight? and aims it at the mothman. Dude looks at the flashlight on the ground, scambles down and follows it to the medical rent like a puppy about to get a snack. I'm embarrassed embarrassed that none of us thought about that.
6. Concerned Citizens Have The Power
[rebelmouse-image 18352298 is_animated_gif=I called about a pothole at the entrance of my store. They said since it was in my entrance, I'd have to pay for it.
I called back as a "concerned citizen" and it'll be fixed in 72 hrs.
7. The Bus Is Always Late For Some Reason
[rebelmouse-image 18352299 is_animated_gif=There was a nursing home in Germany and the patients with dementia kept wandering off.
They installed a fake bus stop in front of the nursing home so when dementaion patients got out of the building, they would go sit at the fake bus stop and wait for the (non-existent) bus. The bus stop was clearly visible from the main offices, so whenever staff saw someone out there, they would just go and retrieve them.
Solved the problem completely.
8. Here, Kitty Kitty
[rebelmouse-image 18352300 is_animated_gif=Our family cat hated our family dog. Rubbed the dog all over with fresh catnip. New best friends.
9. No Legs? No Problem.
[rebelmouse-image 18352301 is_animated_gif=Back when I was in 6th form at school, we had new sofas in the common room (a room where our year could hang out and relax/work/listen to music on our time off). They had been there only a couple of days before one of the legs snapped off one of the sofas.
Now we could have attempted to fix it, or just left it missing a leg but there were often checks and cleaners moving furniture would have noticed it was broken and we would have got in trouble for "not respecting school property".
So we did the only sensible thing, which was break all the legs off the sofa, and then all the sofas in the room so they were all at the same height. We stashed the legs in the ceiling, and nobody knew a thing.
10. Put A Cork...Um... Over It?
[rebelmouse-image 18352302 is_animated_gif=A few years ago I worked at a US Airways contract where a lot of the baggage handlers were guys fresh out of high school. Picture in your mind the assortment of rapscallions and buffoons you hung out with at that age. Now put that rambunctious crew in charge of a bunch of airplanes. Those are the characters in this story.
One day two of them were playfully wrestling each other in the break room. It quickly came to an end when one guy got slammed into the wall and left a huge, human sized dent in the drywall.
It was a weekend, so management wasn't around. Which meant they had to hide the damage in order to escape punishment.
The wall they dented had a rather large, old cork board on it. This cork board was probably five feet tall and eight feet long, and had clearly been affixed to the wall for years. They decided to move the cork board to cover the hole.
Now, if you saw the set up of the room, you'd know this was the dumbest solution you could dream up. The cork board was centered on the wall, with a few feet of blank wall space on both the left and right sides. But the dent was all the way to the right of the wall, in the empty wall space between the cork board and the main entrance. To move the cork board to cover the hole, they had to shift it down and to the right a few feet. Not inches; feet. The repositioned cork board almost covered the light switch, and exposed a giant, white imprint of where the cork board used to be. If Stevie Wonder walked into that room he'd say, "Someone has clearly moved that cork board."
Monday comes and goes, and no one in charge notices that the cork board had been moved. We were second shift, so we assumed when we showed up there would be lots of questions. But there were none. It was business as usual.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that management noticed, but at that point they had no way of telling when it happened. They couldn't tell if first shift did it, or second. If it had happened on a Sunday or a Wednesday, in May or June. They asked around a lot and I think they even had a general idea of who was probably involved. We all really hated the manager, so it was pretty satisfying to see him come up with nothing when his boss told him to solve the Mystery of the Human Sized Hole.
11. The Grandma Whisperer
[rebelmouse-image 18352303 is_animated_gif=Nurses here will recognize this one. Once I was dealing with an extremely agitated and fearful Alzheimer's patient who had been "sundowning" since 3pm (sundowning is an occurrence in some Alzheimer's patients where their mental function gets worse and worse as the day goes on/once it starts to get dark). Anywho, this sweet old lady was having an absolute fit. All through my shift (night shift yay) I was running in and out of her room. The bed alarm kept going off, she was so confused, afraid... I desperately wanted her to go to sleep. Mind you I had 7 other patients! I finally walk her out to the nurses station and plop her down in a seat next to me while I do my charting. She is yelling at me and throwing things. I've had it at this point and I'm running out of ideas. I finally look at her and say, "how will I ever finish with the wash? My husband will be so mad when he gets home! Would you help me finish??"... she looks me right in the eye, clear as day, and says "dammit sister don't you ever learn? Give me that laundry!"... haha so I grab a stack of folded towels and mess them up real quick and plop them in front of her. She folded all of them. I would say oh look at that! She turned around and I would mess the towels up again. This went on a few times until this sweet lady just passed out, exhausted from being so worked up earlier (and maybe from all the towel folding). I slowly push her in the desk chair down the hall and gently get her back into bed. She started to wake up and I leaned down and whispered, "all the wash is done. You have nothing else to worry about!" She slept throughout the night. We were both happy. I am the grandma whisperer.
12. Is That What Kickstarting Really Means?
[rebelmouse-image 18352304 is_animated_gif=So this isn't quite my story but a friends instead. My buddy was is in the Air Force and was in Fuels at a Joint Base. He happened to be working with a group of marines trying to refuel/working on an aircraft when the something on the plane just stopped working. He goes to call over for someone when 3 marines just start kicking it starting slowly and then more and more as if it owed these marines money. After a few minutes of these kicking a multi-million dollar aircraft, one of the marines calls up to his superior and relays that the plane's not working. The first thing the supervisor says "did you try kicking it?" After confirming that these Jarheads did kick the multimillion dollar aircraft, the super visor was not pleased and came down to take look himself. The supervisor takes one look and just starts kicking the shit out of the plane as if it didn't pay the first 3 marines enough money. The other marines then start kicking it with the supervisor. Just when my buddy thought maybe I should call my supervisor, all 4 marines simultaneously land a kick at the same time and the plane roars back to life. The supervisor then gives a lesson in kicking and returns to his office.
13. Right On Target
[rebelmouse-image 18352305 is_animated_gif=Dudes pissing absolutely everywhere in the bathroom where I once worked. So the janitor put a little red sticker in each toilet and suddenly the problem stopped. Apparently men will aim at a target 100% of the time, if a target is presented.
14. Baggage
[rebelmouse-image 18352306 is_animated_gif=I read this somewhere so I'm not sure if it's true but:
An airport was having complaints that luggage was taking too long to get to baggage claim. The airports solution was to move baggage claim even farther away from the gates. The complaints stopped because a lot of the time spent waiting was now spent just walking there. The actual time it took to get your luggage wasn't any faster
15. MacGyver Would Approve
[rebelmouse-image 18352307 is_animated_gif=My first vehicle was a 1985 dodge ram that had around 300k miles on it. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly reliable.
Anyway, my friend and I had tickets to go see a concert in a city that was about 3 hours away. We made it there just fine and had a blast at the concert. We couldn't afford to stay overnight so we started on the long journey home. If all went well, we would get home around 3AM.
There was one stretch of highway where there was 60 ish miles between towns. It's pretty much the worst place to break down on that journey. There were big signs warning travelers to fill up with gas before leaving town, but I had half a tank. My truck sputtered out and died almost halfway between the two towns. It sure sounded like I ran out of gas but the gauge still showed half a tank. All had not gone well.
So there we were - 1:45 AM, stuck on the side of the highway in Texas, 30 miles from the nearest towns, no moonlight, and this was before teenagers had cell phones. We were screwed. After a bit of poking around with a flashlight, we discovered that we did have fuel but the fuel pump had died. We decided to sleep in the truck and mess with it in the morning.
On those old dodge trucks, the fuel pump was inside the engine instead of in the fuel tank like a modern vehicle. It was powered by the engine instead of an electric motor. Essentially, the fuel pump would constantly pump gasoline when the engine was running and gas would always be available for the carburetor float valve. The extra pumped gas would just go back into the gas tank.
I was just drifting off to sleep when I got an idea. I worked for almost an hour in the pitch dark. I used some extra hose from an agricultural fertilizer, a drink straw, screw clamps, and duck tape to rig the windshield fluid pump to pump fuel from the fuel line into the carburetor float line.
I got in my truck, hit the windshield fluid lever, and the truck started right up. It took a bit of trial and error but I was able to get the timing down where I knew how often to hit the lever to keep the truck running.
We made it back home just after 4:30AM. My dad wasn't immediately amused with my handy work, but he told all of his friends how clever his son was so I guess it passed the dad test.
16. Mice On Parachutes
[rebelmouse-image 18352308 is_animated_gif=I'm really late to this, but, in my ecology class we learned about how there's a snake problem in Guam. Particularly, brown tree snakes.
The solution? Dropping dead mice laced with Tylenol attached to tiny streamer cardboard parachutes. Tylenol is poisonous to the snakes and the streamers attract their attention.
It worked. The snakes ate the mice and it mitigated the snake problem that was affecting the native bird species.
I was tested on this in my final exam.
17. Toothpicks Fix Everything
[rebelmouse-image 18352309 is_animated_gif=Bought a "not chargeable" iPhone 5s from a second hand store for bargain. Used a toothpick to clean the contact. Phone is chargeable now and works perfectly.
18. Snacks To The Rescue
[rebelmouse-image 18352310 is_animated_gif=Used the wax from a Babybel cheese round to secure the license plate tucked in the back window. It was a rental and we didn't want to scratch anything up by putting the plate on, but the racket was driving me crazy. Two chunks of wax on the corners and I could sleep on the road trip.
I also used it on my screen door in the same way because the weather stripping was worn out and my landlord was a cheap ass. Stopped the rattling.
19. Stupid Dress Code Rules Require Stupid Fixes
[rebelmouse-image 18352312 is_animated_gif=Swedish male train workers wore skirts to beat the heat because the company's dress code prohibited shorts. This made it into the news and the company changed its dress code to allow shorts.
20. This Once In A Lifetime Miracle
[rebelmouse-image 18352313 is_animated_gif=I couldn't connect to the Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi adapter wasn't working right and wouldn't connect to anything. So I right clicked on the adapter in the control panel, clicked diagnose and Windows fixed it automatically. Only time I have seen it work.
H/T: Reddit
Important Lessons People Have Learned The Hard Way
Reddit user IndianaC0NES asked: 'What’s an important lesson you learned the hard way?'
We've all had to learn something the hard way or at a super inconvenient time.
But because we're always learning new things, of course there will have to be some things that we learn later, rather than sooner, no matter the consequences of learning it too late.
Redditor IndianaC0NES asked:
"What's an important lesson you learned the hard way?"
Money Management
"Do not spend like there’s no tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and it won’t be pretty."
- cpu5555
Permanent Partner
"Never have kids with someone you don’t want in your life forever."
- pntszrn74
Make It Official First
"Money doesn’t exist until the deposit hits your bank account, and business promises mean nothing until legal documents are signed."
- FriscoFrank98
Know Your Limits
"Learn when to stop drinking and call it a night."
- Gadrilor
Trust Your Gut
"If something feels wrong, it likely is."
- drzed47
"This is closely related to, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'"
- remag_nation
The Importance of Dental Health
"Dental care is expensive!! Never be lazy with oral hygiene."
- the_rice_life
"And dental problems are EXTREMELY PAINFUL."
- Next-Confection3261
Be Careful Who You Share It With
"Not everyone has the same heart as you do."
- Accomplished_Hat2770
Be Wary of Bullies
"Not everyone is a good person. Some people actually want to see you fail. Stop oversharing. These nasty people will use it against you."
- Ko_ogs72
"My brain still can't comprehend someone being a d**k for no reason."
- Arny520
Recognize the Red Flags
"Don't let love blind your eyes, red flags are real."
- Fxk07
"And: No one is worth sacrificing your self-respect for."
- Waltzing_Methusalah
"It sucks when you’re halfway to learning this lesson before you even realize it. It’s so important to know your boundaries and respect yourself with the diligence required to walk away from people creating toxic patterns in your life, even or ESPECIALLY before you have the full picture to work with."
"We all know it’s heading south long before these things have terrible consequences on oneself/life. At a certain point, it’s too late to escape unscathed. Self-respect and what amounts to the ‘sunken-cost dilemma’ NEVER go together in relationships."
- brashbabu
The Likelihood of Success
"It's possible to make no wrong moves and still lose."
- Tropicsenshi
Family Ties
"Your family doesn't always have your best interest at heart."
- OhMyGodBearIsDriving
"Sometimes, family are just a bunch of bad people who are biologically related to you."
- noorofmyeye24
Wear the Helmet
"WEAR A HELMET."
"It's an easy safety precaution you can take when rollerblading, biking, skateboarding, scootering, etc. And it can literally save your life."
"I went all through the 90s thinking helmets were lame... I Fell while rollerblading in my 30s and got a subdural hematoma. I wasn't going fast but the momentum from how I fell just slammed my head into the concrete."
"HELMETS SAVE LIVES."
- Shortiie5115
Proper Eye and Ear Care
"Here is my PSA about eye protection. You only have two eyes and many injuries are not repairable. I have a completely s**t vision in one eye because of an injury and I'm constantly paranoid about something happening to the good eye. Wear safety glasses folk, it's important."
- ipsok
"And ear protection. You do not want Tinnitus."
- farmerofstrawberries
Love Your Loved Ones
"Always take a chance to tell someone you love them. To give them a hug."
"Never end a conversation with a harsh word."
"Both for the same reason. You never know if you will get to see that person alive again."
"I learned both those lessons from each of my parents."
- Edgezg
Self Advocate
"Stand up for yourself. If you get in the habit of letting people walk all over you, it'll be extremely difficult to reverse. Even if you're not confident, just fake it till you make it!"
- MISTERDIEABETIC
As humans, we will never stop learning and taking in new information, but there are, of course, some things that we wish we could have learned sooner or through an easier path.
But at least now that we've learned these lessons, we can share them with others, so they might not have to take the same path we did.
From a young age, we've all had it drilled into us the importance of finding a good job that we can work at for the rest of our lives.
But sometimes those jobs don't work out for one reason or another, and sometimes all of the fault gets pinned on the employee.
Redditor DankGamer135 asked:
"What one mistake ended your career?"
A Scam Order
"While working at a builders’ merchant's, a customer called to place an order over the phone (not unusual) and wanted to give me the card details, there and then (red flag)."
"I initially refused, but another member of staff vouched for them as they were regulars. I put the order through, knowing that whoever came to collect would need to come into the office for their paperwork before loading, so we would have them on CCTV if it did turn out to be suspect…"
"Except the yard crew didn’t follow the process. When a van turned up for the goods, they loaded it all up and sent them away without asking for any kind of ID or manifest."
"The payment card was later reported as stolen, and the staff member who vouched for the customer denied even being in that day, which was a f**king lie as she never took time off. I got fired and everyone else got to keep their jobs."
- Shas_Erra
"That sounds like a setup. They should’ve been easily able to verify whether the person that vouched for them was working that day (check her clock in/out times, CCTV, etc)."
"At the very least, someone on the yard crew should’ve gotten fired too because they didn’t follow procedure either (and it’s even worse because if they had, it could’ve been stopped dead in the tracks)."
"I’m sorry, man."
- princessleyley
Lifting Wrong
"I lifted wrong. 14 years of arboriculture coming to an end now, and I'm not sure of the next job."
- Spaghettitrees
"14 years might be enough to move into a supervisory/managerial role if one exists in the field. It would allow you to still utilize your experience to some degree."
- srentiln
A Screaming Match
"I worked retail pharmacy for 10(ish) years. One day in the drive-thru, we had a belligerent patient. The guy's doctor sent his script to our other chain about 1.5 miles down the road. We were on the same street, and addresses get mixed up all the time. No biggie, give me 10 minutes and I'll have it ready..."
"But the dude just starts laying into me for no reason. Calls me an id**t. Calls me incompetent. Says he knows where his doctor sent it and I'm a lazy, lying piece of s**t. Etc, etc."
"After a few MINUTES going back and forth, with this guy yelling loud enough in my drive-thru that other staff inside the store can hear him, I tell him he needs to leave and find a new pharmacy."
"The guy lays into me again. Refuses to leave. I tell him, 'F**k off or I'm calling the police.'"
"Apparently, that was over the line for my company. No interview with HR. No discipline. No suspension. They just straight up fired my a** about three weeks later after an 'internal investigation.'"
- frithjofr
Physical Space
"One of the Directors wasn't happy with some work I'd done and started poking me hard with his finger to punctuate his comments."
"I punctuated back considerably more forcefully."
- jonnymars
The Angel of Death
"I called the HR lady the 'Angel of Death' to a coworker on chat. (HR was in a different state, so any time they came to town we all knew it was most likely to lay off people.)"
"The Angel of death came to get me shortly after, lol (laughing out loud)."
- michaudra2
"I once worked in a company as the help desk tech that would come collect tech while people were in with HR getting fired. I got the nickname Grim Reaper, because if I showed up with my cart and nobody in that department called, then one of their colleagues wouldn't be coming back from their meeting with HR."
- Houseplantkiller123
Home Sweet Home
"I built a castle out of Christmas chocolate biscuit boxes in the warehouse of a major retailer on a night shift and proceeded to fall asleep in it for a few hours."
- masontraining
The Wrong Recipient
"I sent a scathing email about my boss directly to my boss. It wasn't meant for him."
"To this day, I still have no idea what possessed me to put his name in the address bar. I noticed his name the exact moment I hit send."
"You have never felt that much panic."
- Happy1327
A Brand New Car
"I was a part-time intern making $9 an hour (USD) and my boss asked if I had any plans for the weekend."
"I had said I was going to buy a new car (very much old and used as that's what I could afford) and he asked if I was buying a brand new car. My response was that my budget isn't big enough for a new car."
"A couple of weeks later during my one-year review, my manager said they didn't have the work for me and that I was disrespectful for telling the boss I didn't make enough money."
"At the time I was living comfortably as a college student who just needed different transportation. I tried not to be disrespectful but apparently I was."
- Kulee43
Fired in Retaliation
"I got security responsibilities added to my duties as a sysadmin at a small university. I was asked by my boss' boss, the IT director, to do a security audit. He asked me to report on the audit at a department meeting."
"I asked if I could present my results to him privately instead and have him present at the meeting, but he insisted I could take care of it."
"My report showed major security holes, demonstrations of tests of said holes, and recommendations for patching said holes. Many of the patches were at the level of 'change the administrator password from 'password' to something less obvious.'"
"As my political acumen was near zero at the time, I didn't realize how the report on major security problems made the IT Director look completely incompetent in front of the entire department. He had built and configured the campus computer system pretty much on his own, at least in his mind, and was quite proud of his accomplishment."
"He suspended me on the spot, demoted me, and tried to convince the university to fire me and try to bring me up on criminal charges for hacking into the university's computer systems."
- firelock_ny
A Terrible Accident
"I had a workplace accident, a fall from an extreme height. I didn't get fired but broke enough bones that I'll never work in that industry again."
- Malromen
Out of Context
"I was opening my packages in the mailroom, using a pocket knife to slice open the packing tape. The secretary came in and chatted. We’re both Italian so we gesture a lot while talking."
"Sometime after the conversation, the Ops manager came down from his office and escorted me out of the building. I had forgotten the knife was in my hand while talking with the secretary, and she made an accusation that I had threatened her with it during our conversation."
"I was fired three days later."
"I had worked with this woman for almost a decade. I helped her children with their homework, etc."
"Years later, I learned corporate wanted to take down my boss and started the process by going after his biggest supporters. I was the third domino to fall. After I was railroaded, almost 40% of the branch’s staff left the company. I guess the secretary was in on it and leaped at any excuse to take me out."
"Shame. Really loved that job. And got fired when my first child was due in only four weeks. It was very demoralizing for quite a while."
- Bokuden101
Stolen Cigarettes
"This isn't about me, but a guy I worked with was caught stealing two cigarettes from a colleague's bag. He was on a six-figure salary. Not anymore!"
- Rude-Scholar-469
"How can anybody be so dumb? Especially as a smoker, he should be aware how other smokers are very likely to share their cigarettes with you if you just ask them."
- SherifGames
The Stolen Lunch
"This didn't happen to me, but I remember a coworker of mine getting fired because he put laxatives in his own lunch bag. Some d*ckhead kept stealing parts of our lunches. Turned out, it was our supervisor."
"I'm not too keen on the specifics since that coworker and I weren't exactly friends or anything. I just kind of had simple conversations during lunch and whatnot."
"Apparently, it is illegal to poison food with malicious intent. And some of my friends who worked there said he got into some legal trouble because of it. Nothing came of it from what I heard. But that's about all I know."
- DeicideandDivide
A Slanderous Date
"I went on a first date with a girl who turned out to be a horrible person 20 minutes in."
"I did what I could to get out of it because she was telling stories about crazy things she’d done and was proud of. I didn’t pull anything to get out of it, just dodged land mines and asked a ton of questions about her so I could get out of it sooner."
"Then I said I wasn’t feeling the connection and I wanted to be honest so we didn’t waste each other's time."
"I found out a week later that she contacted my previous employers, because she found my LinkedIn, told them all stories about how I talked a ton of s**t about them all. And now I can’t get a reference from my previous three jobs… and people I was on good terms with."
"All because I went on a date with a psychopath."
- FirstFlight
Taking Sides
"I sided with the peeps under me as their manager."
- ThunderClap449
"It's more important to have the back of the people you represent. In my experience, you get better production out of people who know you go to bat for them. Then your numbers and team performance look good and they figure, well, he must be doing something right."
- A_Vile_Person
While it is always terrible to lose a job, these stories make it clear that sometimes we lose jobs for reasons that really should be no fault of our own. From fraud to accidents to false charges, people have been fired for things they certainly shouldn't have been.
And for those who were fired for reasons that wholly were their fault, well, at least that was a learning experience.
Emotions are high at weddings, with the bride and groom going through various stages of anxiety and excitement.
During those stages, seeing how well a newly wedding couple interacts with each other as well as with other family members and friends under pressure can indicate how well they work together as a team.
If professional wedding photographers had years of experience capturing one of the most monumental milestones for couples, they would be able to identify if a couple can make it for the long haul.
Curious to hear from them, Redditor Arknight40 asked:
"Wedding photographers of Reddit, what was your 'they're not gonna last long' moment?"
Some marriages had problems before saying "I do".
The Last Session
"Bride looked visibly miserable the entire ceremony. While photographing the men’s 'getting ready' portion, the groom repeatedly kept joking about killing himself."
"During the toast, the bride ran off to the bathroom for about 30 minutes and came back wiping her tears with her eyes red and puffy. Neither of them had any chemistry at all, it made no sense why they were together to me. That was the last wedding I shot."
– Majestic_Storage_563
Groom's Wandering Eye
"I'm a videographer and the groom called me a couple days after the wedding. He wanted me to make sure I didn't include any footage of him checking out the women at the wedding."
– Tim0281
Party Bride
"One of those hotel venues that can run two weddings at the same time. Bride from our wedding is found in a hotel room with the groomsmen from the other wedding doing drugs before the first dance. End result was we got paid and were told no need to edit or deliver pics. Safe to say It didn't last the night."
– mysticsika
Red Flags Galore
"The engagement session."
"The couple was in from out of town because she had just taken the bar exam to become a lawyer. At the end of the session, I gave them a prompt to share with each other what they were proud of each other for. He couldn't think of a single thing."
"Somehow they still got married, complete with: the groom drinking 11 IPAs + several shots before the ceremony, mother of the bride so drunk for family photos she pretended to strip, and the groom and all the groomsmen wearing camo hats with neon orange letters that said 't*tties and beer.' For the entire wedding day. Including sunset couples photos where he refused to do anything I suggested, nearly spat chew right on my feet, kept farting on purpose, and loudly complained about how all he wanted was to go have sex."
– V-Savage
Demanding clients indicated how difficult they might be as a spouse.
Once More From The Top
"Wedding was on a golf course. Bride had a vision she wanted of her husband driving up on a golf cart to see her for a first look."
"He got one look at her from the top of the hill and vaulted the cart, ran down the hill, picked her up and twirled her around to tell her how gorgeous she was. We caught it all. It was the best first look ever."
"Once he set her down she straightened herself and looked back to us. 'Okay, I don’t want that. Let’s do the golf cart now.' And she sent him back up."
– Pancakes_Whisperer
More Photoshop Please
"I did a wedding for an acquaintance and her husband. Day goes great, I’m really happy with almost everything I took, everyone was feeling it and having fun. But, (and this is one of the reasons I quit photography) the bride sees some of the photos I had sent her, and immediately is calling me. 'I need you to do the editing magic and make me look skinny, John was saying I was going to look too fat in my dress and wanted me to lose weight but I knew you could just edit it, so haha I didn’t'. So I have to explain (this is like 2010) I can only photoshop so much, I.e. I can make you look a tad slimmer in certain photos without making it noticeable. But I can’t do it to all of them, and if I was to, the editing would be noticeable, and I will have to charge you a lot of money to edit you in all the photos. She tried to convince me to edit hundreds of photos for a couple hundred bux, and I have other jobs going and had given them a great deal already so explained I couldn’t. So she insist I do at least some of her main pics, I tell her when people see the rest of the pics they will see the difference, she didn’t care and insisted more. So I do, and a couple weeks later when I thought it was all done and history calls me and leaves me a voicemail of how I ruined her wedding, her new husband is upset at how she looks in the pics and keeps making remarks about her weight. So didn’t seem like they were in a great place from the get go."
– Jadedsatire
A Secret Arrangement
"While shooting video, I attached a microphone to the groom for audio and proceeded to prepare for the ceremony. Just as I was about to adjust my audio settings, the groom stepped into another room with a friend. As I put on my headphones, I overheard the groom confiding in his friend, describing the wedding as a 'wedding of convenience' and reassuring them not to be concerned about what would happen in their relationship."
– NoodleMaps
The best man shouldn't have too much to drink. They might overshare.
Cold, Hard Truth
"Went to a wedding during college to my friends that got married who graduated 2 years prior to me. They had a beautiful wedding on a boat off the Keys and as the best man gave his speech, he was really drunk by this point, just shouted out, 'You don't deserve her, you literally got a bj from a stripper no make that two strippers at your bachelor party. Peace out.' He dropped the mic and tried to do a dramatic exit but by this point we were all stuck on this boat in the middle of the ocean. It took an hour to get back to port, and it was the most awful and awkward hour of our lives for everyone on that boat."
– breakitupkid
A Harsh Roast
"in another life, i worked catering shifts. loads of saturday weddings. i'll never forget the best-man's toast of the groom. it was a shameless roast. he spoke openly about the groom's willingness to shag anything when he's drunk. he then went on and on about the groom's deadly gambling habit and his short fuse when he doesn't win. he asked the stone-faced groom 'how many thousands of dollars in golf clubs have you destroyed or lost in countless ponds?' nobody was laughing. the bride had tears in her eyes and the groom's parents sat in stunned silence."
– dys_p0tch
Some people aren't marriage material.
Disasterous
"This was 15 years ago or so, I left wedding photography a few months later."
"The reception was at their home, they didn't want photos at the ceremony, and didn't want wedding party/family photos between the ceremony and reception triggering the first raise of the eyebrow on my end. At the reception the groom didn't want his brother, the best man, in the photos. Other eyebrow goes up. The mothers of both the bride and groom both scolded me to let them be and told me to eat instead of take photos. The groom and the best man got unholy drunk and had a weird by play of brother making way too many toasts and the groom making grossly inappropriate speeches of what he's going to do to the bride on the honeymoon."
"As the newlyweds were making their grand departure the bride tosses the bouquet, everyone cheers. The groom shouts 'I knocked the b*tch up so hard she's got two babies in her c**chie"' Guest react in various ways of shock and happiness about the pregnancy test but the best man lunges at the groom shouting and swearing. Family holds the best man back as the couple runs out to a car. The groom flipped off the spectators, and pulled out of the driveway. Two houses down the car stops, the groom gets out and pukes on a neighbor's lawn, the bride gets in the driver's seat and takes off, leaving her husband yurking into a flower bed, and the best man ran down the street trying to flag down the car."
"Divorced four months later."
– OmicronPerseiNate
These are but a mere sampling of weddings gone wrong or couples that should never have gotten together in the first place.
Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
We've all found ourselves in a position where we simply couldn't contain ourselves and found ourselves putting someone in their place owing to something they said which was either wrong or just plain stupid.
When it comes to the latter category, though, it's often worth taking a minute to wonder if fighting that particular battle is even worth it.
As many people who are about to shoot down their current conversation partner might take a minute and really examine the person they're talking with before remembering the old saying: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
Sadly, some people remember this conversation too late, and find themselves falling down a conversational rabbit hole from which they may never escape.
“'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.” What's your best real life example of this?"
They Literally Won't be "Shut Down"
"When I tell people to just reboot your computer and it will fix all their problems and yet they won't because they said if you wait long enough it will shut down, when in reality it only goes to sleep."
"Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did."
"I tell them it seems like it but it only went to sleep."
"They argue back."- niallaa
Some People Just Don't Get It...
"I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids."
"She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point and she would say 'I never said that' or 'that’s not what I said'."
"Absolutely impossible to argue with someone who will just deny having said things that could hurt their argument."
"Also, trying to change the course of an argument if they feel like they are 'losing'."
"A coworker once called me an idiot for doing something 'incorrectly' when I was actually doing it the right way."
"When I politely explained to them that the way they suggested doing the task didn’t actually work, they started asking 'why are you getting so angry?? I was just trying to help' etc."
"So now we’re arguing about whether I’m angry or not instead of the right way to complete the task."- themightypianocat
Facts Are Facts...
"Arguing is pointless if you do not agree on a set of facts."- niallaa
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphyYou Can't Have It Both Ways...
"For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc)."
"There was a staff only sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level."
"Usually if someone from the customer side comes in, they said, 'Coming in' before opening the door, so they didn't hit anyone, but of course customers didn't know that."
"So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him."
"He said, ;You should really put a sign up'."
"We showed him all the signs, and he goes, 'That seems a bit excessive'."- GreyFoxHound1
So Wrong.
"Had an employee sign an NDA about an upcoming art installation that had investors."
"He told everyone."
"He argued with me the NDA only meant he couldn’t disclose anything with the people in the company."- BosskHogg
He Knew What He Was Talking About
This was best said:
“'Never wrestle with pigs'."
"'You both get dirty and the pig likes it'.― George Bernard Shaw"- Zerowantuthri·
pigs GIFGiphySome Outdated Inventions Are Definitely Not Missed...
"I’m showing my age here but I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments."
"Our primary method of communication was fax."
"One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper."
"No problem, I said, one of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour, I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you."
"We then had an almost 20 minute long argument when they kept insisting 'NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER, IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE'.”
"It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree."
"Difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing."- BettieKat
Very Few Hills Are Worth Dying On...
"I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater."
"Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd."
"When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her."
"Met every point with a solid 'I don't think that's true'." or 'That doesn't make sense'."
"Eventually she gave up and never tried it with me again."
"It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument."
"But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith."- kitskill
IS The Customer Always Right?...
"Working retail."
"Especially when I worked in the tech shop or a computer store."
" Trying to convince someone their $500 laptop is never going to be a gaming system no matter how many of the very few replaceable parts we throw at it can be exhausting."- MOS95B
happy episode 7 GIFGiphyEducation Only Matters If You Learned Something....
"Was arguing with this dude about something math-related."
"He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. claimed he was in multiple AP math classes."
"Tried saying that I 'probably don’t even know basic integration'."
"Gave me a common integration problem."
"He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable."
"I pointed it out and he edited the comment to make it correct."
"Told him that some people can see when you edit comments."
"He claimed that he just capitalized a letter. on and on and on."- SaturdayNightCity
Good Legal Counsel Might Be Worth The Splurge...
"I asked a representative from the Friend of the Court to explain something she said and she told me that I understood what she was saying."
"I replied that I wouldn't have asked her to explain if I had understood."
"She said if I was going to be difficult, she would hold me in contempt."
"My X chimed in that she didn't quite understand what she had said and was greeted with a smile and an explanation."
"From that point on I always disagreed with the Friend of the Court on EVERYTHING, so that I could be seen by the 'Actual Court' and a Judge."- PURPLEPEE
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySore Winners Are No More Attractive Than Sore Losers...
"Once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking fights."
"He'd start an argument over the smallest thing."
"If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something."
"The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition."
"One day he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app."
"He got all offended, because his weather app said it was a couple degrees warmer."
"So he decides we're going to have a weather app competition."
"He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner."
"And the loser would have to start using the winner's app."
"To which I said, "What is your f*cking problem?'"
"So, yeah."
"For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off."
"This started on a Monday."
"He gave up after Wednesday."
"Either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not give a f*ck about weather apps."
"Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment."- originalchaosinabox
Im Always Right GIF by ZionGiphyIt should perhaps be said calling someone an idiot, or even thinking it, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
Even so, if you're tempted to do so when you're in the presence of a particular individual, probably best not to provoke them.
After all, if you're so determined to "win," does it really make you any better than them?