Question: What is the most PROMINENT sign you have seen an SC ignore?

[draggar]

We have signs outside our home that are ignored by neighborhood children and utility workers.

BEWARE OF THE DOGS

Hint: DOGS not DOG. Also, Malinois do not announce their presence with a barage of barks, growls, and whatever. They stalk and pounce. They are the guerillas of protection dogs.

The signs are NOT a joke, which is why we have several on our back privacy fence and one next to our front door. We've already checked with the police, our asses are covered incase you decide to tresspass and you end up getting bit. Oh, and my wife traines a lot of the local K9 units, so don't look for sympathy from the police in any of the 3 close counties.

The most honest sign we have is my bumper sticker:
"My Belgian Malinois is smarter than your honor student".

The most ignored sign in the store, other than the CLOSED sign is "No pets allowed". Interesting how they kicked out a service dog in training who was behaving but allowed someone's Fifi who was unleashed and ripped up the carpets.

[megami]

we have a sign that says
"due to heath code regulations, please to not put your child on the counter. thank you."
i have seen so many people put their kids on the sign.
i've even seen the kids say "mommy what's this say?" and have the parents read it and still leave the kid there.
i've seen people read the sign first, then put their kid down on it.
i had one woman ask "so what am i supposed to do with him?"
me: well, he looks old enough to me to be able to stand...
woman: *gasp* put him down? what do i look like, an inattentive parent? besides, he would get his new shoes dirty
the kid was probably 4...and his shoes looked like they cost more than i make in two weeks.

[Andara Bledin]

Ah, I just remembered that I have one of these.

I attend a gaming convention three times per year, and I work in the computer gaming room.

We used to have these 8.5 x 11 inch signs in color and laminated with a pebble finish that we would stick on the outside of the door when we were closed. The only door was a single, regular-sized door, so unless you were blind (naturally or selectively) you couldn't miss it.

We'd get a handful of people every single night open the door to ask if we were open.

^-.-^

[tintaglia]

can't believe I forgot this one

'The Fish Are not For Sale'

we had 6 tanks each with their very own A4 sign AND one sign in the middle to explain the 'Fish are off sale due to new stock being introduced.'

soo many people were pointing out the fish they wanted (which, Darn it all, swam behind that pesky sheet of paper taped to the tank. (which would STILL be ignored.)

or the people who pointed to at least 5 different fish asking 'is that one for sale then?' GAAAA!!

at one time we had signs reading 'ALL the fish in ALL 6 tanks are OFF SALE'


so people asked what off sale meant
(guess what I had a lot of today?)

[Jack7957]

I remembered one from just a few months ago. Cow-orker is on a ladder on one side of a set of double doors. He placed a sign on the other side, about 24"x18" on a stand so it is sitting about eye level saying that the entrance was closed, do not enter. Three people moved that sign and tried to open the doors, hitting his ladder with him on it.

[Jack T. Chance]

So many great stories!

I'd say it's a toss-up between

CLOSED

and

EMPLOYEES ONLY

'Nuff said.

Same here, but more on that later.

In about 1983 a high school sophomore aged 16 on a dare climbed over a fence topped with barbed wire, climbed a high-tension power line tower, fell off, broke his back and became paraplegic. (He was not zapped by electricity, he just fell a long way).

On each side of the fence around the tower was a huge sign with a skull and crossbones, lightning bolts, and "DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE" in huge letters.

His family sued the power company because it was dusk and "he couldn't see the sign".

That frakkin' idiot DESERVED to die, as we could then give them a posthumous Darwin Award! What a shame the fool DIDN'T manage to get himself perished!

Settled out of court, with the settlement sealed (secret).

Proof that the people that ran that site were pussies!

I saw a woman at work today who read the sign on our exit door (says 'Please Use Other Door') and then proceeds to try and open our exit door (which does not open from the outside)

Rather than doing what the sign said she threw her hands up in disgust and stalked off.
I was happy to see her go.

I would've been too! If she's that stupid, I don't want her in my store, just in case her stupidity is catching! ;-)

That is hilarious!

At the gas station, wind would pick up really bad at times, causing one of the doors to slam really hard and nearly come off it's hinges. We'd lock it and put up a sign "PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR!", but nevertheless, every few minutes, you'd hear a tug tug tug tug!

Some people figured that since one door was locked, the other one was as well. So they'd huff and puff and tear out of the parking lot. Oh well, we didn't need your $3 in nickels and dimes for your cigarettes anyways!

When it would storm and the lotto machine would go out, we'd make a sign for the lotto machine and the self scan ones (to see if your tickets were winners) "OUT OF ORDER!"

Customers become illiterate the second they enter parking lots, I swear.

I agree with you on that last bit. I agree 110%! As for the other part, about the ones that just ASSUMED both doors were locked, good riddance! If they're too stupid to understand "PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR", they're too stupid to shop there!

Not a sign, but same level of having the blinkers on for this... At my first job - a convenience store - on one wall we had the fridges, and there was a wall of milk in there about 2metres tall and a metre wide. On another wall we had the bread stand, about 1.8metres tall and 2-2.5metres wide.

90% of the "where's X?" questions I got asked were "Where's the milk?" or "Where's the bread?"

At the movie store, across the glass door (the only entrance/exit), in biiiig letters and yellow type we have in stickied-on letters:
[Store]
IS OPEN
9am - 9pm
7 DAYS

.... "Are you open tomorrow?" "When do you close?" "What time can I bring these back in the morning?" And of course the people trying to shove open the door at 9:15pm

People like that get ignored by me. It's happened many times that I've been in the store after closing, doing paperwork or whatever, when some moron would walk up, pull on both doors, and upon finding them both locked, they'd proceed to look at the 8½" x 11" NEON ORANGE CLOSED SIGN at about eye level for people of average height (5'6" or so), then look at the STORE HOURS sign right next to it (which, of course, indicated that we closed at 8, and of course, the time they were there would be 8:15 or sometimes even later), then look into the store, WHERE ALL THE LIGHTS WERE OFF (well, all the ones that could be turned off), and upon noticing me, they'd start waving, jumping up & down, pounding on the doors, trying to rip them off their hinges, shouting at me, etc, all in an effort to get me to come up and hear their demand that I open back up just for them! And on those occasions, I've been known to just disappear into the back room and sit on the toilet doing "# 2" for 10 mins or so, usually long enough for them to finally get the hint and bugger off!

Of course, had they refused to take the hint, my next step would've been to call mall security and report suspicious individuals loitering in front of my door as I was trying to leave to go home!

And see, my brother and I stay through all the end credits, just to make fun of people's names, MST3K style. The best one recently? Anita Poon, and her sister(?) Sandy Poon, in the credits of TMNT.

/End Off Topic

That is HILARIOUS!!!

Bright red letters, white background, backlit at night.

!!! DO NOT BACK UP !!!

SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE WILL RESULT

But it was instant gratification on my part when they refused to see this one.

That's frakkin' awesome! I wish I knew where that was, I'd set up a surveillance camera and have it record 24/7 just to see how many morons were that stupid!

Each photocopier has this sign displayed on the top, on the side, on the wall above it, and on the cash box:

This photocopier does not give change.

SC: "I've put in all my money and it won't give me change! Waaaaaah!"

At which point, I'd pull out 2 bits, hand it to them, and say "Here's a quarter, call someone who cares!" :-D

Of course, SC's being so bloody stupid, they'd probably cry about that, too! "But pay phones cost 50 cents!" My response? "That would fall under the part about 'call someone who cares'!!"

From the other side, my favorite dollar store has signs at the entrance, in every aisle, on every cash register "CASH ONLY, No debit, cheque, or credit card". As if that's not bad enough, the answer to the clerks statement of "CASH ONLY" is always "okay, I'll use my debit then".

If I were the owner/manager of that dollar store, I'd IMMEDIATELY get an ATM put in near the registers, with the transaction fee set as high as the law would allow! If I could charge $5 or $10 per withdrawal, I would! Every customer like that would be instructed to use the ATM! The store would make a KILLING from all the extra profit every time one of those morons used the ATM! Those transaction fees would really add up! And the best part is, we'd be able to consider it a "stupid customer tax"!

At the pet shop, there was this African Grey parrot next to the till. With my own fair hands, I placed a sign that was written with black magic marker on bright neon yellow card stating the legend, "DON'T TOUCH THE PARROT." If I'd been paid a tenner every time someone ignored the sign and put their hands in the cage and got attacked by said parrot, I would have been able to retire at the age of 24. :-D

Dude, I want one of those for my store! LOL!

The resort I worked had this remarkable little building that was rented out as a premium room. Here's a pic

Obviously people were curious about the building and would often walk on the patio and cup their hands and stare in the window. This caused problems with the quests currently renting the room and having to deal with people staring in at them.

So the resort had this big hand painted wooden sign that informed people that this was a guest room and to please not trespass. It also read that if they had any questions or wanted to arrange a tour to please contact front desk. People would actually read the sign and promptly go to the windows and peek in.

Note to self: When staying at that resort, in that playhouse/room, remember to bring an airsoft shotgun that looks just like the real thing, to scare off the idiot peeping Toms with!

'keep fingers out of cages' (ignored, blood everywhere!)

A common zoo occurance. Mostly birds. A macaw or a cockatoo can take a finger off. They can crack walnuts. Hell, it was not all that rare to come in to find dead squirrells with their skulls crushed hanging half in and half out of the enclosure. We'd tell people this. The minute our backs were turned, the fingers went back into the enclosure.

In one case, there was a famously bad tempered Leadbeater's Cockatoo that had a habit of acting all sweet and coy, and when a person approached him, he'd attack. He was really something. And he could talk, which made it even worse.

We warned this one guy to quit with the fingers. Yes, we know the bird looks cute and sweet. He's not, okay? Trust us, that bird is a scammer. He waited till we were walking away, then tried it again.

The screams were quite possibly the most satisfying sounds I have ever heard in my entire life.

I would be laughing maniacally if I were there when that happened! If possible, I'd have my camera at the ready to snap the idiot getting bit, as it happened! The look on the fool's face would be priceless!

My most prominent version of this ever was when our shop closed.

I got a bedsheet. I did my best to find shoe polish and had to settle for a marker pen. I wrote "I assure you, we are closed" on it. The Boss was indignant that I had wasted a bedsheet for no good reason, but I hung it outside the shop anyway whilst we worked on taking the fixtures and fittings out.

Damn, but that attracted the loonies.

One of these days, I'm going to try and find the disposable camera I used to take photos of that. I need to see if the thing's developable after all this time (thirty months or so).

Rapscallion

Someone's watched Clerks a few times too many!

...not that there's anything wrong with that!

Don't stop me if you've heard this, cause I'm dying to hear it again.. .

The pizza joint I managed was being remodeled. A major operation, walls, counters and carpets replaced, booths reupholstered. We were closed for a week.

Construction vehicles parked in the lot. Our ovens, salad bar, buffet line, and our tables were stacked in the parking lot.

Both of our doors were covered from top to bottom and from side to side with signs announcing that we were temporarily closed, why we were temporarily closed, apologizing for the inconvenience, and when we expected to re-open.

People would park in the lot of the store next door (because our lot was filled with construction trucks, and our ovens, salad bar etc. etc.), walk to the fire exit doors, read the fire exit signs (FIRE EXIT ONLY--very confusing), be stymied by the absence of any means to open said fire exit from outside, walk to the entrance, study the sign, then come in, walk across bare concrete, past the guy working the thousand-decibel tile saw, walk up to the front counter (which wasn't there anymore) and ask what the special was.

After a couple days of this Unkle Tony was feeling ... fragile.

On Day 3, Yuppie Dimwit walked in, while the counters were being installed. He asked about the day's specials.

I asked him if he had read the sign outside.

He told me, "Yes, I read your little sign. What do you mean when you say you're closed?"

I blinked. Hard, and said "Excuse me?" (Or "Come again?" The years have not been kind.)

"Yes, just what is it you mean by 'closed?'" Clearly, he was genuinely confused by this.

I blinked again. Hard. And then I ROARED, "OUT! YOU DUMB MOTHER<bad word>. Get OUT!! WHAT ARE YOU <bad word>ING STUPID!!!!" And I chased him out of the store, roaring the same thing again and again.

He just made it to his car before I could grab him.

I walked back in and went back to what I was doing.

My DISTRICT MANAGER, a man known far and wide for bending over backwards to appease the most asinine of SCs, looked me in the eye and said, "So THAT's what you look like when you're mad," and went back to what he was doing.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

That's one of the best stories ever! I LOVE working for bosses like that!

so i work at mrs. fields in the boise, idaho mall. it's just like any fast food place with the counter right up there where any customer can come up. it's cool, whatever. we also have a neon green sign, size 60something font that says:
"PLEASE HANG UP YOUR CELLPHONE BEFORE STEPPING UP TO THE COUNTER OR YOU WILL NOT BE HELPED. THANK YOU."
that sign gets ignored so many times. once, a woman walked up to the counter while i was baking, talking on her cellphone. she looked at the sign and said into the phone "heh. get this. they want us to get off our phones before we order." she stood there for few minutes talking and then looked at me and said, "HEY! you gonna help me or just stand there being lazy?" (still baking, mind you)
i just stood there, looked at her, looked at the sign, and went back to what i was doing. she called me a b***h and stormed off.

I would've just smiled, waved, and said "have a nice day, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!" or something like that!

[hotelnpa]

When guests check in, we are required to tell them the hours of our complimentary breakfast, which is from 6-10 AM. There's even a sign indicating this at the front desk and one in the breakfast bar area. Without fail, someone will come down between 4:00 and 5:30 AM looking for the breakfast. At my hotel, if you work audit, you set up the breakfast. At 6:00, the breakfast attendant comes in. Then they ask if I can set it out early for them. Never mind that I am preparing the audit balance sheet, or getting the express check outs ready. I kindly remind that breakfast starts at 6:00. Also the big sign behind me states that as well. I usually start setting things out around around 5:20 and some people will actually watch me and start grabbing the food as I am placing it out.

[ahanix1989]

Oooh, ooh! Praise camera phones. This sign, normally hung outdoors.





That's right, 576-point text, explaining the hours we're open, doesn't stop people come coming up to the counter as I'm mopping the floor, with the display case off.

[mischugenah]

What traffic cones?

I used to volunteer for the police department in my college town. It was a lot of fun but holy COW you meet some stupid people!
My favorite was always the ones who thought orange cones didn't apply to them. The most common accident is where an oncoming car crashes with one turning left. To keep traffic moving, we try to block off as little of the intersection as possible, but there's no way to safely make a left turn. So I'd take a bunch of bright orange traffic cones and block off the left turn lane. People pull the DUMBEST stunts to get around them! CLUE, PEOPLE! Just because I left enough space between two of the cones for you to get your car through, DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE ALLOWED TO DO IT!! Or if I left too little space, they'd go AROUND THEM. ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. And then they'd sit in the left turn lane, patiently waiting for the light so they could go. I'd go up to them and tell them they can't turn left, and they'd give me this look like "I can't? Why not?" *Deep breath* "Didn't you see the orange cones?" "Well, I just need to make a real quick left turn..." "You can't." "Well what am I supposed to do now?" (Because getting into a left turn lane is irreversable, you know.) "Wait until the cars in the other lane have gone and then go straight." *Dirty look*
You're risking a $130 ticket, with at lest 5 cops within 100 feet of your car, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT STREET TO TURN???

[Lyger]

Recently:

YOUR BUILDING HAS LOST ITS RECYCLING PRIVILIGES (sp). PLEASE BRING YOUR RECYCLING DOWN TO THE LOBBY.

With piles of garbage everywhere.

[draftermatt]

I thought of a great one. Not an SC ignoring, but better.

On every door into our plant it says.

"Head and eye covering required"

Meaning hard hats and safety glasses. It says this in English and Spanish. Every time a "Safety Inspector" comes, be it from the insurance company, fire marshall, whomever. They never wear a hard hat or safety glasses.

Wouldn't you think that someone who will raise our rates because we aren't wearing them would make sure to have his on?

[draggar]

Meaning hard hats and safety glasses. It says this in English and Spanish. Every time a "Safety Inspector" comes, be it from the insurance company, fire marshall, whomever. They never wear a hard hat or safety glasses.

Wouldn't you think that someone who will raise our rates because we aren't wearing them would make sure to have his on?

When I ran a seafood department, whenever we had someone from OSHA or the health department come in I would get into huge arguments with them because they never wanted to wear a hair net. I wouldn't let them enter my department without one. Hey, if THEY say I need to wear one, then THEY need to wear one.

They'd always comment (afterwards) that I was one of the only places (including other departments in my store) that made them wear the hairnets (they were impressed by my determination). I never got a low score, too.

Another sign:
The automatic payment machine does not make change

Read it and believe it. If your bill is $90 and you throw a Franklin in there, you WILL NOT get your change. The extra will be applied to your account as a credit.

It is not "robbery" (mainly because the machine is not using violence or the threat of violence to get your money), it is not illegal, it is not, in any way, wrong to do this.

Don't complain to us because you now don't have money for a cab ride home, you should have hit the bank (which is 3 doors down) before you came in.

Oh, and don't come in at opening expecting us to give you change for your $100 bill.

Oh, and the most ignored sign outside:

[RichS]

Oh, and the most ignored sign outside:

That's the most ignored sign around the small town I live in.

I don't mean they slow down at the sign and continue on - they flat-out ignore the sign and blast through!

Just one of the things I had to get used to watching out for since moving out here.

[protege]

I've seen people hit the wall on Second Avenue in Hazelwood (not far from downtown Pittsburgh) more times than I can count. At the *very* end of that section of town, the road comes to a T. Turn left, and you stay on Second, go past the county jail, and eventually end up downtown. Turn right, and you go up the hill towards Squirrel Hill (large Jewish neighborhood) and the parkway. At the T, there's a traffic light, and signs pointing right and left. Nevertheless, every now and then you get some idiot who simply *can't* make up their mind....who *will* go straight And no, the rest of us trying to get to work are *not* amused!

Signs do get their revenge though. Some years ago, we were taking my cousin to the airport...and got to see a sign fight back. My brother wasn't paying attention, and walked into one near the USAir counters. He just turned, and "Crunch!"

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Here's one from last weekend. I took my daughter to the zoo. We were in the aquarium and on the front of the octopus enclosure, in big letters, is "No Flash Photography."

Of course, this stupid heifer is standing there flashing away.

I said, "I think you need to turn off your flash."
She said "Uh, I don't know how to do that. Why?"
I pointed to each word. No. Flash. Photography.
"Oh."
She slunk off.

Dumbass.