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The most stupid advice ever...

Goodness Gracious Meme

02:18 / 16.11.03

Prompted by a conversation with a friend about school/bullying, my nomination:

"Ignore the bullies; they'll get bored and leave you alone"

er, no.

hanabius yamamura

07:27 / 16.11.03

... 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger' ...

... how? through the build-up of scar-tissue?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:43 / 16.11.03

I had a wonderful careers teacher at school who, when I was a kid and trying to teach myself Z80 machine code for the Spectrum (which was, if you recall, the height of technology) told me there was no future in learning about computers because they were just a passing phase. Foolishly, I believed him, and am now practically unemployable!

08:37 / 16.11.03

"Ignore the bullies; they'll get bored and leave you alone"

er, no.

And along similar lines;

"Just hit them back, they'll never bother you again."

yeah, right.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:16 / 16.11.03

I agree on the bullying suggestions and had a load of 'just think happy thoughts' type suggestions when I was depressed...

09:24 / 16.11.03

I once paid almost £50 to get a friend a doctor in Jordan. After dealing with her problem, he said, "now, you will be careful to avoid road accidents, won't you?"

I am extremely grateful to him for giving me this advice, because I had always gone out of my way to be involved in them until he told me that.

Fifty. Fucking. Quid. For lousy oral rehyrdation stuff we could have made ourslves and being told to avoid road accidents.

Jesus.

10:05 / 16.11.03

"Why don't you just get and grip and pull yourself together"

Oh RIGHT I hadn't thought of that, it's obvious thinking about it isn't it. *sigh*

10:30 / 16.11.03

Fifty. Fucking. Quid. For lousy oral rehyrdation Isn't this technically known as water?

10:36 / 16.11.03

Well, it's a mixture of water, sugar and salt!!

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

11:05 / 16.11.03

On the 'hitting bullies back' tip, I must admit it worked for me. I was a bully magnet for a few years at school (fattish, freckly, not very sporty) and was harassed by two 'hard men' to the point where my every moment at school was occupied worrying about whether or not those idiots were lurking around the next corner, fists clenched, mouths all full of viscous globs of saliva.

Then, one day, something just snapped inside me and I laid into them with a fusillade of punches to the face, leaving them both shocked, silent and sporting a brace of black eyes apiece. They never once bothered me again, and neither did anybody else. I quite surprised myself, as I'd never punched anyone in my life before. Or since.

And I'll tell you something else.

It. Felt. Fucking. Great.

11:46 / 16.11.03

"No, you don't need to look it up on the map, it's easy to find, I'll give you directions ..."

12:27 / 16.11.03

Advice proffered to me by a previous boss, on how to go about asking questions of a speaker at an industry dinner, in terms of making a good impression on behalf of the magazine we worked for:
“If you ask a good question then that’s good… If you ask a bad question then that’s bad… If you ask a great question then that’s very good”
thanks for that!

13:28 / 16.11.03

"Just be yourself."

Or, as highlighted by Eddie Izzard, fatherly advice on wasps:

"They're more afraid of you than you are of them. Stay still and they won't sting you."

14:28 / 16.11.03

Right now, the worst advice I can remember actually acting on is, "Go and see South West Nine, it's a really good film". But then, the "slap them and they'll run" thing worked for me at school as well.

The worst advice I ever gave -which I only half believed myself -was basically treading the fine line between 'advising' and 'placating'. I think the wording was something like, "If you act as though nothing's happened, people will think they imagined it". This proved to be very, very, incorrect, and I was later berated for suggesting that it could ever have worked...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:11 / 16.11.03

This proved to be very, very, incorrect, and I was later berated for suggesting that it could ever have worked...

Yeah, but you just HAVE to try it, don't you? If it HAD worked... whoah, you'd have been the coolest motherfucker, the Advice King/Queen/Doge/whatever...

16:03 / 16.11.03

Ye olde "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps". Er, well, my boots don't have straps, for starters...

That's about the tip of the iceberg insofar as my family's response to really bad, probably clinical depression on my part during late teens/early 20's college dorm era of my life. My dad has an unbelievably old-fashioned approach to such things, like going to see a therapist is a sign of "weakness" or "lack of character". Feh.

16:13 / 16.11.03

But then, the "slap them and they'll run" thing worked for me at school as well.

Reminds me of a funny story. When I was being bullied at school I remember taking a degree of artistic licence with the 'stand up to the bullies' advice I was given. It worked quite well, as once word gets round that you have no qualms about happily trying to poison somebody, bullying types think twice before bothering you - and certainly don't want to steal anything from your packed lunch ever again...

16:38 / 16.11.03

After dealing with her problem, he said, "now, you will be careful to avoid road accidents, won't you?"

Reminds me of every time I used to get on my Dad's boat, he'd say "Now make sure you don't fall off!", as if it was some kind of serious piece of insider boating advice.

16:46 / 16.11.03

"You just need to find yourself a girlfriend, son" (God bless you, Ma, you tried hard)

"You need to take up Squash" (GP's solution to anxiety, depression, and exam time at University)

"You need to imagine there's a square painted on the floor and just step from corner to corner" (Dad teaching teenage son some disco-Dad-dancing techniques, babemagnet and worldwide authority on everythang that he is)

"Just stop putting them in your mouth" (Papa Xoc again, on how to stop smoking, although he may have had a point. If I'd been sticking them up my arse instead all these years, my lungs would be in far better shape.)

17:14 / 16.11.03

I was told, mere months before marriage "Have lots of sex now, 'cause once you're married, it'll stop." I was told the same thing just before having a child. It's nonsense. Complete and utter.

Zoom.

18:04 / 16.11.03

Me: "It hurts when I do this..."
Doctor: "Well, don't do that."

Was he just trying to be funny? I guess that is what second opinions are for. The second he said that, my opinion of him plummetted. Grand advice for a dancer, because we don't need to use our heels...not with doctors like that!

Peer-to-Peer counselling advice, overheard outside Starbuck's in Toronto: "Why don't you just get a whole shitload of rock and smoke it all fuckin' weekend till you can't smoke anymore, then you'll just get sick of it and not do it anymore..."

...or dead. I just can't state how many things are wrong with that advice. Wishful thinking though, I bet.

20:24 / 16.11.03

Yes, your doctor was trying to be funny. The old 'it hurts when I do this' joke is so hackneyed in medical circles that he probably found himself reflexively repeating the punchline before he could stop himself. I have the same problem on those rare occasions when someone tells me their girlfriend's in a coma.

22:07 / 16.11.03

Well, you know, it's serious.

I had a while where I was posting about being miserable on my blog, and someone repeatedly suggested cocaine and vodka. I wasn't entirely convinced. But it was nice that someone was concerned.

00:58 / 17.11.03

"smoke it all fuckin' weekend till you can't smoke anymore" - you mean like when you, say, die? I guess it's good advice after all.

Bad advice I've (inadvertently) given: Taking a bend on the highway way too fast, I attempted to reassure my passenger by telling them "You've got nothing to worry about! See the yellow sign that says "30kph"? The reason it's yellow is because thats the Recommended Speed, and not legally binding. In fact, you can go round quite safely at THREE TIMES that speed. Hmm, I guess I am going a little fast, then."
Found out 8 years later that she took it as road-gospel. while she'd never had the guts/lack of self-preservation instinct to try it herself, she made a point of telling EVERYONE she got in a car with. No doubt Karma will ensure I die behind the wheel, while driving responsibly.

The Apple-Picker

02:35 / 17.11.03

That "smack 'em" advice really can work for bullies sometimes, though.

The worst girl bully I had--who still didn't compare with the boys, but who was very mean anyway--I lashed out at her once. She found the note I had written to my crush. Before lunch, I had tucked it into his social studies book. It was on a white paper with little lavendar butterflies all over it, and I had tied it up in a white ribbon. When I came back from lunch, T and her henchwoman B were reading it. Reading it and laughing at me.

I thought at the time that it just must have fallen out of my crush's book and that one of them picked it up. I feel pretty sure now that he gave it to them. Anyway, I don't remember ever feeling my rage before then. I fantasized about killing one of the boys who teased me, but I didn't ever *feel* the rage before.

But when she was holding my love note, laughing at me--I just stopped thinking. I moved from one side of the room to the other in a flash. I didn't even know what I was doing but I had her mouth open and I was shoving that fucking note into her throat, the ribbon dangling from her lips, and I was shouting, "If you like it so much, you can eat it!"

That was in the 7th grade.

I still remember with a bit of glee how shocked she was. How she sort of laughed and coughed at the same time, not knowing what to do and a little embarrassed as she walked over to the trashcan to let the spitty paper fall out of her mouth.

She didn't tease me quite as much after that.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:18 / 17.11.03

yeah, I'd say the 'smack 'em once, very hard' advice isn't that wide of the mark. worked for me, and I do feel a little bad about it. but then again, i don't.

09:27 / 17.11.03

I think it's the flipping out rather than just the hitting.

If you try to give them a pre-planned bop on the nose, you'll probably look silly, they'll just get mad and they'll keep bugging you. Turn momentarily into the hulk - and it's only happened once, when someone hit my sister - and people think 'Whoa.... Back away from this one, she's nuts' and tend to leave you alone after that.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:30 / 17.11.03

yeah, there's also the element of humiliation, that if yr the school wimp, that's bad, but being beaten up/felled by the school wimp is beyond saving.