I'm not a tourist information center

[aqutalion]

During a trip to England a couple of years ago, I was wandering around taking in the local color, and three(!!) people pull over and try to ask directions that day. Of course, they thought better of it once I started talking.

[Jester]

Finally, my all time favorite was a woman who came in one day when I worked in town and asked, "where do the locals eat?" I was feeling a bit plucky and said, "In their houses."

Okay, THAT is hilarious, and I am going to use that, because I also live in a tourist town and people ask me where the locals eat/hang out all the time!

Now, I actually don't mind giving dining recommendations, etc., and generally for directions my coworkers send ME to their tables/customers, as I am, quite honestly, amazingly good at those sorts of things. Of course, when I was on vacation last week, and people were asking me for directions in OHIO, I would tell them I had no clue, but if they ever needed directions in the Florida Keys or Phoenix, Arizona, I would be more than happy to help them.

[trunks2k]

During a trip to England a couple of years ago, I was wandering around taking in the local color, and three(!!) people pull over and try to ask directions that day. Of course, they thought better of it once I started talking.

It's even better when you are in a country that speaks a different language. About a month ago I went to Berlin for a couple days. I had just gotten off the plane and was trying to figure out how to get a ticket for the train (I don't speak a lick of german outside of "thank you" and "I don't speak German") and some guy came up with a map and pointed at it and asked me something in German. I assume he was asking me directions. Poor guy looked very disappointed when I started talking.

(off topic)
About a week later, I was in Spain. I can speak a little bit of Spanish, in the same way a Japanese highschooler can speak a little bit of English. Enough to get a basic grasp of a conversation and communicate my intentions. I was with a group of other english speakers and out of all of them, I spoke the best Spanish. We were trying to order lunch and as they were trying to order, I was helping them translate some. The girl at the counter assumed that I spoke Spanish rather well. So she starts speaking at me in Spanish. I could feel the expression on my face change, and managed to get ou, in Spanish, "I didn't understand a word of what you just said, I speak only a little spanish, and very badly. So please speak very slowly and maybe I'll understand you" She looked really confused because it was a pretty complex sentence for someone who barely speaks the language to say. I tried to explain to her that I had been practicing that line for a few weeks.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

Chi-Chi's closed several stores around 2004, after a hepititus outbreak killed 3 people and made 600 others sick, in one of its Pennsylvania locations. I believe a few are still around, but the outbreak caused it to declare bankruptcy.

All because some idiot worker didn't wash their hands...

[Customer Beating Robot]

Hands Down

I think I have everyone beat. My boss lives three hours away from us in another state. I have never been to that state, nor anywhere close to it.

So my boss is traveling home from the office one Friday afternoon and calls me up because he is lost. No biggie, he probably just wants some general tips right? So I open google maps and find where he is. Then he starts hitting me with "There is a turn to the left up here, should I take it?" I repeatedly explain that I have never been to that area and I don't know. Of course he is getting agitated that I can't tell him directly where to go. He keeps calling things out like "I am coming up on a town, what it is?"

In between this, I am searching for his destination. I am literally telling him that he should take this street, go over the railroad tracks and then take a left. Now, if you have ever used any type of map, it just draws the roads. I can't see what the sign he just saw said. (Forget the satellite imagery for Google Maps. That is pretty much useless because it is out of date.) He keeps expecting me to give him landmarks.

Google maps being king of slow, I am having trouble flipping quickly back from where he is to where he wants to go. As soon as I think I have found his destination, he demands that I tell him what that building he just passed was. By the time I find where he was, he now wants me to find where he is going. I spend most of the time playing catch up.

Finally, he gets his head out of his ass and stops to ask for directions. That was just re-freaking-diculous.

[CrazedClerk]

Wow I am very thankful I don't live in a tourist down. I get asked for directions too on occasion as my store is directly off a major intersection. Usually I can get them where the going, but even though I live in this town, I haven't visited every single freaking street so if they are looking for some small crescent somewhere they are probably out of luck.

I hate it when I am trying to give what to me seem like very simple directions but the person asking for them just doesn't understand where I am telling them to go.

Also employees that live away from the store area are common. where I work both the manager and assistant manager live one town over.

[repsac]

I have to pass this. Y'all just reminded me of this little incident from last summer.

One of my hobbies is UA. Urban Archaeology. Meaning I love old buidlings and such. Now, I can also give great directions, since I use landmarks that everyone can understand. But, I'm also southern. I have an accent.


DA: Direction Asker. (yankee).

DA: Walks up while I'm working on changing film in my camera. In a very patronizing tone asks. "Where is the First Black Epispocal Cathedral." (the first of its kind anywhere IIRC. First in the country that is.)

Me: Thinking a moment. "Well. You go down that street yonder, bout four city blocks. Turn to ya right, then go another three, turn right again, and it'll be on yer left." (the squares in savannah make directions irritating and the long way, is often the easiest way.)

DA: Listens a moment and says (again patronizing) "YONDER? Why can't you speak real english? You stupid bumpkins down here. You don't even speak real words. Yonder my ass."

Me: Trying to mimic her patronizing tone. "Uh, Ma'am? Yonder is a word."

DA: Oh yeah? PROVE IT!

Me: Well, let's see here. Yonder, it's an old english word first found around the fourteen to fifteen hundreds. Examples of it can be found even in popular literature from the time. For example, in Shakespere's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo says, and I quote "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, tis the east and Juliet is the sun." Now if you seek a definition, websters defines it vaguely as being a non cardinal direction. However, a more accurate definition would be "A direction in which the user does not know the exact cardinal direction. Or, if the direction is known, one in which the user wishes not to use it for fear of confusion. In all cases, it is a distance that while less than one mile, is not visible to the user."

DA: Stares through this, and then says meekly. "Four city blocks, turn right, another three blocks, turn right again, and it'll be on the left?"

Me: Yep. Y'all have a nice day.

[RailroadMonster]

Mmm...

When people ask me where so-and-so street is I point them in any random direction and tell them "about two miles down that road, and take a right at whatever landmark." I used to actually care, say, if I had been walking down the street and someone in his car asked me which way to someplace, I woukd do my best to give directions. Now, these people sometimes would say the name of a place that either didn't exist or sounded very similar to another place. I would think of the closest match to what they were talking about and give the appropriate directions, only to have some of these people come back and scream at me about what an idiot I was. So basically I started making things up.

[Jester]

(the squares in savannah make directions irritating and the long way, is often the easiest way.)

Savannah is one of the few places I have not been to in this country that I want to go, and didn't get to during my year and a half trek around this country in '98-'99. So of course it is one of my priorities on my bizarre cross-country trek trip I am taking when I move back to Arizona from Florida next summer. I may have to look you up...if for nothing else, directions to that there yonder.

Me: Well, let's see here. Yonder, it's an old english word first found around the fourteen to fifteen hundreds. Examples of it can be found even in popular literature from the time. For example, in Shakespere's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo says, and I quote "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, tis the east and Juliet is the sun." Now if you seek a definition, websters defines it vaguely as being a non cardinal direction. However, a more accurate definition would be "A direction in which the user does not know the exact cardinal direction. Or, if the direction is known, one in which the user wishes not to use it for fear of confusion. In all cases, it is a distance that while less than one mile, is not visible to the user."

I am not a Southerner, nor a Yankee (though most of my family IS Yankee). I am a Westerner. I don't care about the whole North-South conflict....us Westerners just want to know who is buying the next round. That being said, you freakin' rock with that one! From memory too, it seems. Awesome!

[repsac]

When I said it, I was making it up on the fly. It wasn't until later that I checked and realised I was right. My english teacher would have been proud

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Savannah is georgeous. I go there often. But yeah, the way the blocks downtown are laid out, and the fact that the way around them is one way, makes for an interesting and challenging drive.

If you just pretend each of the parks located every other block is a traffic circle, and get used to the rhythm of having to circle every other block, it's less confusing.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

On second thought, ditch the car and walk. Go to Wet Willie's down at the riverfront. Drink lots of frozen girl-drinks.

[Cia]

How about this - I'm sitting at a red light, the people in the truck next to me notice the "Bear Country" sticker on my windshield, the light turns green and they start asking how to get there. I get as far as "You gotta turn around and go down to Mt. Rushmore Road." before I had to start driving. I could see their faces as I drove off and they were steaming mad. Yeah right, I'm going to sit there blocking traffic giving you detailed directions. Uhm, no.