“Don’t you all have phones!?”
I was an interpreter for this event, and I was the one covering this part of the panel. As an ex-Blizz fan, this moment is seared in my memory for many reasons. The shame of having to interpret this not the least.
Yup, I was there as well. The bride moment of dead silence followed by booing after they announced it will forever be etched into my brain. To be fair though, poor Wyatt was set up and was never going to land that pitch in that setting.
?
Fair question. It was a dick move from Blizzard when they were called out for not releasing their next Diablo game in anything but mobile. When the crowd booed, the game dev was all, “Do you guys not have phones?”
Oh, wow.
Nobody should be downvoting you. Not everyone pays attention to, iunno, that crapfest that is/was E3 or the like
Thing is, the guy wasn’t wrong. Everyone in that room most certainly had a phone capable of playing the game.
But Blizzard was teasing Diablo 4 all but without actually saying it. I feel that a simple black screen, a voice over, and a flaming “IV” would have been all that was needed since they obviously was balls deep in development of it at the time.
And Blizzcon is a PC gaming centric event and we all know how PC gamers feel about mobile games. He didn’t just read the room wrong, he was in the wrong room entirely. The mobile game should have been announced as a Twitter post
In comparison Bethesda was smart about announcing Fallout Shelter by talking about Fallout 4 first, then going “oh btw some of us been doing this phone game on the side…”
Plus it was developed by a shitty mobile game apps company that was known for ripping off assets from other games. Sure, Blizzard licensed the assets to them, but the problem wasn’t really the stealing of the assets itself, it was that only shitty fly by the night companies are ripping off assets to put into a game that hopes to trick people into spending money on microtransactions before they realize how bad the game was.
I was going to mention this one.
My first job out of university.
Company is going through financial hardship. Boss cancels our collective insurance without telling us. Then the president of the company does a meeting in a shady motel reception room to announce to everyone the company isn’t going well and we all need to take a 10% pay cut. Ends the PowerPoint presentation with a photo from our major client’s ads with a lady on a beach with a laptop. President says “oh that’s going to be me in a few weeks. I’ll be going to Greece!”
The whole room just say there silent.
Fuck the rich.
Former CEO gathers 20-30 of us in the board room, talks about the difficult economy, proceeds to fire everyone.
The silence was deafening.
The meeting ends, he stands at the door expecting us to shake his hand as we leave.
Not a single person shook his hand.
At least he didn’t publicly share what his bonus was going to be for improving the bottom line.
Never forget that the year Lehman Brothers “collapsed” it paid the CEO 700 million dollars for one years worth of work.
Back in the day I worked in a restaurant that closed down, and the owner tried to steal all of our last two weeks’ pay.
It had been announced ahead of time that the place was going to close at the end of the month, and we were actually a very popular place, so the last two weeks were completely sold out, crazy busy, and there should have been lots of tips. After we closed, they kept dragging out the date we could get out last paychecks, then finally just tried saying, “there won’t be any last paychecks.”
All of us employees got together with a lawyer and they sent a letter saying that they needed to give us our last paychecks or we would file a class action lawsuit for all the tips they’d been stealing out of the tip pool. He then relented and agreed to pay us our last checks, but refused to mail them. When I went to pick up the check, dude really had the balls to try to shake my hand and say, “Hey Turtle Joe, how’s the summer going? Take any vacations or anything?”
I left him hanging and said, “No I’ve been out of work for months now. I’m not here to talk to you, I just need my check.”
P.S. we sued him for wage theft anyway and ended up taking him for almost $200k.
Former, you say?
Yeah, a real incompetent sociopath.
I thought I made people mad by ordering a curry chicken sandwich in a student-ran shop in college, but I hadn’t paid attention to an announcement that was made at the end of the class and I accidentally interrupted the minute of silence for a terrorist attack that had happened a few days before
Honestly fuck those intercom announcements. If you want to have a minute of silence, say “we will now have a minute of silence” instead of “mrrrr mrr mrrr mr drrrrr mrrrrr mrrrrr-mrrrrrrrr” fucking shit quality can’t understand a word they say
It was an announcement in class by the teachers
Ah well then you’re just a dummy.
Good lord 😂
I got called “chicken curry” for years
Similar situation, I was at an antiques shop with my parents, on November 11th, which here in the UK is a day of remembrance for people who died during WW1 and WW2. We’re observing the moment of silence, when an American guy walks in, notices the silence and loudly exclaims “Wow, who died? It’s like a mausoleum in here!” Someone, thankfully, took him to the side and quietly explained what was happening. He did apologise afterwards. I found the whole situation very funny.
At least there’s a concrete answer to his question!
Ooooof. This sounds like something I would do. Ugh. I want to hide right now just thinking about it. Glad you made it through to the other side. :)
I remember a pause for a minute’s silence announced in the upper concourse of a train station (UK) last year. It was disconcertingly comedic as the people walking in either on the phone or with a friend were very confused at why everyone inside was standing motionless and glaring at them.
I think I was working in that station on that day, because I have a very similar anecdote. Actually someone came to buy a ticket, and was annoyed because they thought they might miss their train having to wait for the minute’s silence to end. Not even the most callous passenger I’ve come across either.
Where did you see that? I’m in the UK, can’t remember exactly which station but pretty sure it was a London station with underground
New hire, brought on board comes to a Monday meeting.
The company Quality of Worklife Balance survey has been returned, and it’s awful. It’s just after the 2008 crash, and we’re barely treading water, but the company held on. The CIO brought everyone into the largest conference room, meant for hundreds (there’s a couple dozen of us standing around, the chairs weren’t setup) and we stand around her as she procedes to tell us “Why is your QWL so low, you should be talking to your managers about this! I don’t wanna see another QWL survey this bad ever!” In a very yelly tone.
One of the managers raised their hand, and asked, “Folks feel like they’re not being listened to and that they’re not getting enough leeway to make decisions.”
CIO: “Well they need to get over that.”
And that was the first meeting a bunch of developers and IT folks got to see at that company.
Many other shenanigans occurred there, but my personal favorite was the quarter million dollar genset system all setup and tested multiple times – fueled and ready to go, failed in a major power outage because someone left the key in the “test” position on the generator.
– That CIO thought they led people, they did nothing of the sort.
The first all hands meeting (within three days of being hired) I had at my new job was the CEO talking about legal allegations and indicating he’s going to be much less involved in the day-to-day. Apparently he was pretty well known for being a massive dick and berating employees.
On the bright side, I’ve not had to deal with him once! In the last year-plus I’ve seen him comment on two tickets regarding bugs, but that’s about it. We’ve not had a single all-hands since then. I just started at an unlucky time, haha
Celebrities singing Imagine
I completely forgot this happened. 😂 Wow, that was wild.
A bunch of insulated aristocrats starved for attention while the rest of us were getting sick, disabled, and dying.
Our brains suppress extreme cringe memories.
Plant manager sending out a site wide email saying that we’re doing awesome, and we’re desperately hiring so refer all your friends. One month after layoffs were announced, and those to be layed off still had a month to go.
I don’t know where you’re from, but some countries/areas have laws against fire and rehire, it’s a disgusting practice.
Give you one guess… you won’t need it.
Something something “at will employement”? Gotta love most US states…
seen it happen before but what they do is ‘abolish’ the role, and introduce a new role with a new name, oddly similar job description (they change it enough to count as a new role) and rehire people on contract where the previous roles were permanent
We had a big mandatory meeting where an executive came in to tell us all to be happy we weren’t getting our bonuses or pay raises, and used a weird analogy about poor people being perfectly happy, because they have realistic expectations and that’s all you need to be happy.
He then had to leave early, as he quipped he was sharing a ride with a fellow executive on the private jet, and if he didn’t leave right then, he’d have to suffer flying commercial.
If you’re still there, organise your workplace. Unionise. Join the IWW - they can help you to accomplish this.
This was like a decade ago, I’m elsewhere now. Still not union, but I personally have no room to complain (reasonable hours and conditions and quite well paid).
Please tell me someone recorded this utter waste of oxygen doing the equivalent of stepping on garden tools in a Looney Tunes short. That’s so monstrously fucking stupid it could be funny (if the old adage of tragedy + time = comedy holds true, anyways).
It’s funny when summarized, but sitting there for over an hour to set up the punchline drained all enjoyment from life.
If someone bothered to record it, I’ve no idea. Nowadays (different company) all such meetings are recorded and made available, but haven’t seen an executive say something quite so boneheaded in general.
“Don’t you guys have phones?”
Biggest physical room I’ve witnessed a misread happen in
“Is this some out of season April fools joke?”
And yet after everything that happened with Diablo Immortal, Diablo 4 was apparently Blizzard’s best selling game ever.
If the customers don’t care why should the company?
I think Blizzard not taking any real damage from their anti-consumer BS is why I don’t respect people who identify as Gamers™. I still play games, mainly from indie devs, but identifying as a gamer just means you’re a mark for scummy companies.
That’s a weird blanket to throw. I can think of a few people I know including myself who don’t fit that description but still would consider ourselves as gamers if someone asked.
I’ve been to enough LAN parties and various conventions. The most obnoxious gamers have always been the ones that make it part of their identity, which in the year 2023, is mainstream and just another form of consumerism. There’s a difference between “I play video games after work” and being a Gamer™.
Some of us have completely dumped ActiBliz permanently. The existence of Overwatch 2 was my final straw as it turned out Bungie was the bad guy behind the Activision mask all along with Destiny 2’s bullshit. Never even looked at Diablo Immortal or 4, and never will. Blizzard joined the shambling horde of zombie companies that effectively died years ago. Damned AAA necromancers just out to pump and dump any remaining customers.
God, I was right to stay clear away from Destiny. When that was announced, I couldn’t even tell what the genre was even suppose to be. It sounded more like they were selling me a life style then a game.
It’s so bizarre. I play a lot of indie fps games from small team or solo devs and they don’t have the fraction of the bugs that AAA studios do. Goes to show the difference between passionless corporations and individuals with a single game design vision can be.
Thousands of people from all over the world. Primarily PC gamers. Paying thousands in flights and accommodation. All to see a predatory phone game get revealed.
Should have saved that shit for the quarterly shareholder report.
There it is.
I came to this thread to say this one too.
Had a teacher tell some students that it’s rude to speak a foreign language in school (an international school)
I had to be this teacher to a bunch of 8 year old Chinese girls who only spoke Mandarin purposefully to ostracize Brazilian girl, the only non Chinese girl in the room.
It was an English speaking international school in mainland China that incouraged speaking primarily in English.
I worked a night shift at a lobby of some residential building, with another guy patrolling the building.
Some mentally unstable person wound up sitting at the lobby while the guy was on patrol (long story), so I sent him a message explaining the situation as I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the person.
The patrol guy comes back, looks at the person, looks at me and says “so, who’s the psycho?”
Good lord, what an inconsiderate asshole
An American comedian, following a long set here in Australia, told the audience to stand up and stretch. He then tried to direct us to “bend over and pat your neighbour on the fanny”. Stone cold silence did not indicate to him his mistake, and he tried several times before eventually realising he had lost his audience goodwill entirely with this starting skit.
Turned out later that he had no clue what “fanny” means here, and had to have it explained to him.
Still a weird thing to say.
Not as weird or rude as telling them to pat their neighbour on the vulva.
I think “grope your neighbor” just falls under unacceptable dumbassery from a stand-up regardless.
Like, if the bit is making people refuse to do it, why keep trying when no one laughs?
Genuinely curious what does fanny mean in Australia
It’s slang for ‘pussy’. It’s the same in the UK.
So question for any language experts: why is it different?
I’m not an expert, but “cunt” is related to similar Germanic words meaning “arse”. Etymonline just says the American “fanny” came from the British: https://www.etymonline.com/word/fanny#etymonline_v_1119
Because Australia is upside down.
And England, where we got it from?
Who knows why those limey bastards do anything.
Americans are obsessed with being different from England. See: Football / Soccer
There’s a Christmas song that became a classic in the US largely because it was hated in England.
The English were the ones that created the term soccer. It grew in popularity in America as soccer, then eventually fell out of popularity in Britain. In fact, a lot of the differences between words in the US and Britain are that Brits started using a different version of the word and Americans kept using the old one. Not all, but a lot.
Source: https://time.com/5335799/soccer-word-origin-england/
So one American circa 1776 decided “know what, mate? I think ‘fanny’ should refer to ass, not pussy”
Why?
“Coz fuck da bri’ish!!”
🍻 🍻 👏🥂
Sounds like the most American thing I’ve ever heard.
Same guy also had a hatred for useless letter "u"s.
…which one?
Well at least saying shove it up your fanny is indicating a similar location in both amarica and Australia
Wait, what does fanny mean in America?
It’s a word for butt. It sort of has a childish connotation, like a pre-school teacher might direct their class to “keep your fannys on the ground.”
Only in the US. In Commonwealth countries it’s a slang for vulva
Fanny was a nickname for Frances or Francesca.
Both the “buttocks” and “vulva” meanings may have originated from the scandalous 1748 novel Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Why did you get downvoted?
Yanks get tetchy.
Not just the US. Canada too.
I worked for a UK based fashion retail business and they always found it blushingly charming when I referred to what they called a 'bum bag ’ a ‘Fanny pack’.
Also, ‘Pardon me!’ Doesn’t mean excuse me in UK English. It’s more an excuse for if you do something disgusting that you are ashamed of, like if you fart or burp.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was my take away the couple years I worked with British people.
Vulva
Okay wait, even if he meant “butt”, I feel like no one is going to follow a random comedian’s request to grope your neighbor on the butt…
No, not grope, as I said, pat.
He felt we had all been sitting down for too long, and should gently pat the stranger on the butt, presumably to help them with the pins and needles. It was weird, but we thought it was weirder still! I believe people did indeed ask a lot of questions of him, but at the time it was a massive moment of lost in translation and divided by a common language, etc.
Not a specifically bad instance, but everywhere I’ve worked has always had that guy who has a hundred irrelevant questions at the end of a meeting, holding up 10 or so people from actually getting on with work.
I sit in business requirements meetings for enhancements to some software we use at work, and there’s a guy who feels the need to repeat everything everyone says in his own words (at least twice as many). The meetings used to be 30 mins but they had to extend them to an hour. And we have 2 a week.
Thanks to WFH it means I have 2 hours a week of guaranteed PlayStation time though, so I shouldn’t complain.
I’m the guy that needs to understand shit to move forward, so it’s like 25% dumb questions, 25% insightful questions, 25% pretentious sounding questions and 25% jokes that give white collar people heart attacks.
Don’t you think most people need to understand shit to move on? If you just ask urgent questions, then take time to digest the meeting and ask those insightful followups in a team chat, it filters out the 75% of the crap you were going to say.
Having a reputation as the guy who prolongs meetings with 25% dumb questions and 25% jokes is not a good thing.
I mean a lot of people in meetings have a good idea of what they want the scope of their involvement to be. My curiosity swamps any semblance of scope I might have. I’ve never actually gotten a reply in team chat. I don’t think most people even know it exists. I did get used to sorting out who I needed to be talking to and just hit them up after the meeting, though.
The only time I prolong shit is when I really, really disagree with something. Typically that’s an ethics issue.
Fair enough, I’ve been in those situations, that can be tough
Great question Robert. Let’s go ahead and parking lot that for the right time. Make sure you send that to us in your reply to the meeting notes. I don’t want to lose track of it.
We’ll circle back to that.
After a couple of bad questions, I’ll either excuse myself, suggest we carry on separately, or (ideally) ask to be sent a list, for me to ignore at my leisure.
Sorry Greg, we’re not here to answer your dumbass questions, or indulge your hypothetical edge cases.
It’s always hypothetical rabbit holes 🙄
They think they’re like Doctor Strange trying to map out every conceivable future
If 1 person has a question, then chances are good most people have that same question but are too afraid to ask it in front of everyone.
Some people have questions because they just don’t listen when information is given, or have no ability to think for themselves.
went to an international boarding school that had a very diverse spectrum of political beliefs
I was in the school’s pride club, and my senior year this very charismatic kid, Ken, joined. Ken was an international student
we start our first meeting, and Ken is a vibrant member of the group. but he’s saying some very… odd things. he’s talking about how gay people are mentally ill and need to be helped, lotsa fun stuff
the club leader very patiently pushes back on him on this, and eventually asks “well it’s not like any gay people are here now, right?”
… he didn’t come back after that meeting
He must have thought it was a nationalist pride group.
One time the company big boss did a speech telling us how we could all learn a thing or two from his protégé, and clapped him on the shoulder.
If big boss had spent more time in the office, he’d have known that Mr Protégé spent most of his working hours playing ping-pong with Big Boss’s trophy-wife.
So ping-pong is an euphemism for sex? Or was he literally playing ping-pong?
I just remembered the pattycake scene in Roger Rabbit.
Yeah, but with his balls
Oooh the agony
Oh the shame
To make his privates public for a game
You could argue that he wasn’t wrong.
