Did you want help, or did you want to be a $#*t?

[Cia]

I'm dyslexic when it comes to right and left so I don't like giving directions. The dyslexia is also a reason I don't like being told the directions, I find it easier to read them and I screw up left and right less if I can see the way to go on a map.

[Pixilated]

*snip*
You know, I can understand being frustrated at being lost. But here's the deal. If you are going somewhere for business, and don't have the sense to get good directions before you leave. Or, as in his case can't FOLLOW those directions (because if he was on YYY he drove past a VERY well marked connection with XX... well marked enough that he must have been struck with temporary blindness (or permanent stupidity) to miss it.) then it KINDA falls on him, the traveler to avail himself of one of the multitudes of ways that one might be able to navigate their way from point A to point B somewhere else in the country.

*snip*

*snip*

Listen, this is the 21st century, GOOGLE MAP IT, ok?

OR BUY A GPS, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! If he's a businessman who travels a lot I am amazed that he doesn't have one! It's likely I will be heading west in two years and I will definitely buy a GPS before I set off ... otherwise I can see myself sitting in my car yelling, "Why am I looking at a sign that says 'Welcome to New Brunswick'???"

*snip*

* We won't discuss the time when I told someone to turn right when there was no right to turn and it should have been a left. It never happened. Never! >_>

^-.-^

I actually told someone once that I was "just a visitor" when they asked for directions in My Hometown ... I am so lousy with directions that I just bail, literally or figuratively, when somebody asks me for directions. My biggest flaw is that, rather than knowing street names, I tend to navigate by landmarks -- "Turn right at the little convenience store with the green door" "Turn left at the used car lot" etc. Which of course is a serious problem when suddenly that landmark isn't there anymore ...

[figgyx]

my story about the lost doofus

I too worked audit at this one hotel. This woman called in one night looking for directions. I asked her where she was and she told us she had just left the airport. I told her how to get to our hotel from the airport and she kept calling back saying she could not find the interstate she needed to turn onto. It took me several tries at asking her where she was before I was able to figure out she had left a smaller airport several miles down the road from the main Detroit airport. So, of course my directions were leading her further west than she needed to go. Most people would assume that a person stating they had left the airport would have figured on it being the area's main larger airport. Why could this woman have not told me she was at the Willow Run Airport in the first place?

[Merriweather]

I too worked audit at this one hotel. This woman called in one night looking for directions. I asked her where she was and she told us she had just left the airport. I told her how to get to our hotel from the airport and she kept calling back saying she could not find the interstate she needed to turn onto. It took me several tries at asking her where she was before I was able to figure out she had left a smaller airport several miles down the road from the main Detroit airport. So, of course my directions were leading her further west than she needed to go. Most people would assume that a person stating they had left the airport would have figured on it being the area's main larger airport. Why could this woman have not told me she was at the Willow Run Airport in the first place?

I've been told I give very good directions (I think it's because I usually will give a landmark, not just a street name, to turn on - works better than a GPS when you can see in advance where to turn). And I have a good sense of direction.

That said, if I'm not familiar with where you are, or if you can't manage to tell me where you are, then how in the blazes do you expect me to tell you how to get here? If you want directions from point A (you) to point B (me), then no matter how familiar I am with point B, if I have no idea where point A is, then I'm not going to be able to do that.

OT, I loved directions in the UK. We always would ask about getting to a B&B when we booked, or would ask people in a town how to get to a particular spot, etc. And I swear, I don't think I ever had anyone tell me how to get from one place to another without use of a pub. It was always "turn left at the White Horse, go a few blocks then make a right at the Red Lion, then another right at the Pig & Whistle...... Ever so much more interesting directions than over here

[XCashier]

I'm pretty good at giving directions. I use North, South, East and West instead of left, right, forwards and backwards, because the latter group will change with which way you're facing, whereas the former are constant.

[dalesys]

... I use North, South, East and West...

These people have a very weak grasp on the concepts of Up and Down... If some miscreant reclines their drivers seat, they'll be completely disoriented.

[HotelMinion]

Oh I hate giving directions. Get a GPS! Once I had a lady say she was next to a tree, and a bush. Oh there were some rocks nearby. Very annoyed because her cell was dying. Like it was my fault she didn't charge her phone. Man, she really laid into me when she finally got there somehow. I think I wrote about it here not sure :P

[bhskittykatt]

I can do one better. I got this call from a guest.

SC: "Yeah, where are you?"
Me: "We are right off exit blah-de-blah, behind the Taco Time."
SC: "Yeah, I'm at the Taco Time, but you aren't here!"
Me: "Um, we're right at the dead end, behind Taco Time and [other restaurant]."
SC: "I see the dead end, and the restaurants, but I don't see you!"
Me: "I don't know what to tell you. That's where we are."
SC: "YOU AREN'T HERE!"

After five minutes, I finally got him to drive an extra 10 feet to see around the buildings to spot us.


Myself, I've gotten horribly lost before. On our honeymoon, we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up on a highway we didn't want, and an attempt to turn back ended us on another highway we didn't want!. But the sign said we were going south, and our destination was to the south, and despite Hubby's protest I was going to be damned if I was going to get stuck on yet another highway, so we stayed on that road, followed signs to [big city I could navigate from], and voila! We found our way back to the interstate we wanted!

Hubs: "I think we should go back..."
Me: "The sign says we're going south! Oregon is south of us! WE'RE GOING SOUTH, DAMMIT!"

Of course, if the signs had failed us, we could have asked for and listened to directions! That second part the OP's SC apparently didn't understand.

[wolfie]

One of the biggest problems with people who are PITAs when they ask for directions is it won't do any good to tell them "Get lost!" - after all, they're already lost. Maybe a more appropriate term would be "Stay lost!".

But seriously, when I'm going someplace, I print out directions from Google maps or Mapquest.

I'd hesitate to use Mapquest. A couple weeks ago, I was making a delivery at a jobsite in Montreal. Just before I left the yard, another driver stopped me and asked for help - he had used Mapquest, and recognized the neighbourhood as not being the one (named on the paperwork) where the jobsite was (multiple trucks going to that site). The only explanation I could think of was that the jobsite was on "Rue de la this", and Mapquest showed how to get to "Rue de la that". Of course, "this" and "that" were the important part, with "Rue de la" merely meaning "street", and getting put in front of the street name instead of after it like in English, but Mapquest must have seen "Rue de la" and ignored as unimportant everything after it.

I did have to wonder a little at the guy who claimed to be driving a truck with a load of Sunday inserts, who said he didn't know how to get here.

I suspect it was either a brokered load - carrier that normally delivers the inserts sub-contracted the load to another carrier, or either a new driver or a temp hired from a driver service. In any of these situations, the driver wouldn't have been familiar with the destination, and would need to know how to get there (at least from the nearest major highway - from the city name, he should know how to get to the city).

It's likely I will be heading west in two years and I will definitely buy a GPS before I set off ... otherwise I can see myself sitting in my car yelling, "Why am I looking at a sign that says 'Welcome to New Brunswick'???"

And probably also asking yourself "And why does that other sign tell me how to get to the New Jersey Turnpike?". Yep, there's a town in New Jersey called "New Brunswick" (near New York City - go due east from it and you'll pass by the southern tip of Staten Island).

[Merriweather]

These people have a very weak grasp on the concepts of Up and Down... If some miscreant reclines their drivers seat, they'll be completely disoriented.

My ex used to drive me bonkers. I always referred to going "down" to visit my parents, because they lived several hundred miles south of us. He insisted that we went "up" to them because they happened to live at a higher elevation.

Now, I can see, if we lived at the foot of a mountain & they lived on top of it, that you might use that terminology as it was literally true and obvious. But we're talking several hundred miles, and that region was just a bit more mountainous than ours in general, not a matter of driving up a mountain to see them.

[Andara Bledin]

Funny thing about directions.

I have family that talks about taking trips "down east."

It was "down east" because in order to go east, you had to go a ways south, first.

^-.-^

[hjaye]

Sir I know exactly where I am. What I don't know is where you are, if you can't tell me, then it's going to be difficult for me to help you.

[Cia]

Last time we were up in Vancouver, BC we were trying to get back to Maple Leaf 1 to get, eventually, back to our hotel in Ft. Langley. As we were picking our way through the streets, my hubby had me navigating <le sigh> and at one point I said we're supposed to be up there as we passed under a bridge. I'd tell him to turn left he'd turn right - we both got frustrated - turned out I was right gotta turn left here, right there then left again and there was the bridge. Maple Leaf 1 here we come.

[tropicsgoddess]

Nowhere in my job description does it say, "Translate Idiotese." Nor does it say "Be a Human Atlas with on phone index capabilities."

That. I don't speak Idiot and I'm not a map. I hate getting calls where SC's expect me to give them detailed directions. I'm a reservations agent not a damn GPS! Call the hotel, invest in a GPS or get a damn map, dumbass!

[Sableonblonde]

I would never call a hotel, store, etc and expect an employee to give me directions on how to get there. That is for me to figure out.