In Germany we ask apprentices to fetch a spare bubble for the spirit level.
I just shake it as hard as I can. There ya go lotsa bubbles.
That actually seems like it could be a legit thing, like a replacement tube.
My friend’s dad thought he could send me to ask my dad for a square drill bit when I was like 10 but my dad had me helping him build an airplane in the garage as young as possible. So I told him
My senior manager at work once tried to start a vacuum cleaner, apparently he had never used one before. Anyway the cleaners told him the power cable was in fact a rip cord like on a generator.
Shopkeeper should glue a fake label to a can and actually sell it to the kid. Get both the kid and the dad lol
On a drive when I was ten, I asked my dad why the tall, skeletal towers had blinking lights. He said so planes wouldn’t crash into them. So I asked what the towers were for, and he said to hold up the lights.
That fucked with me for like ten more years.
My favorite is sending an apprentice to the tool crib for a long weight.
Tool crib guy will say “Yeah it’s out back, I’ll go grab it”, and then go for a smoke
When I was a starting line cook, they told me to recirculate the air in the freezer. I said “what?” They said “recirculate the air in the freezer.” while handing me one of those giant black trash bags. I opened the door to the freezer, opened up the bag fully, and then went “wait a minute…” they had a laugh, and I started eyeing all of their requests through the lens of “is this bullshit?”
Later on, at more professional jobs, they have the same sort of requests. Not ones that are hazing jokes, but just actual bullshit assignments that mean very little, are looked at by nobody, and that accomplishes nothing. Except now those assignments are like 90% of the job. Hooray office work among middle management!
Kitchens will also yell at new cooks to “GO GET THE LEFT HANDED FRYING PANS!!!”
God I’ve been seeing way too much Gen Z slang that I almost forgot “sussed out” is a real phrase that means actual things.
I’m familiar with the usage here but what does it mean to Gen Z?
“sus” short for “suspicious,” often linked to the video game Among Us which became very popular during the pandemic. I’m not sure if that was the origin; the Zoomers seem to like their abbreviations (“rizz” being short for “charisma” is another example) but Among Us definitely popularized it.
Idk about everywhere else, but “sus” or “suss”has been common slang for “suspicious/suspect” in Australia, the UK and New Zealand for at least several decades.
Embarrassing someone for not knowing something is stupid.
It’s a very good motivator for critical thinking though.
It really isn’t. Think about a kid embarrassing their parent over some tech thing they don’t know.
*Taking from my other reply:
To understand something (think critically) you need to know the information. So it boils down to embarrassing someone for not knowing things. There is too much in life to know absolutely everything, thus my example on tech.
The parent is supposed to teach the child that information. Not mock and embarrass them for not already knowing it.
That’s an old dog though.
