Eileen B.
IT Professional, Information Security Quality Assurance Operations & Administration
Best Question: What was it?
What was the best question you were ever asked? The one that left you awestruck, speechless or laughing? How did you respond?
For me, was dinner out with my large, extended family, at a seafood restaurant with my son who was 10 years old. He was looking over the menu studiously and when asked what he wanted to have, he said "The fried shrimp" but that one thing concerned him - "Is the shrimp fried on the inside?" We were all taken stunned and had no response other than to pass the buck to the waitress as tears of laughter rolled down our cheeks.
Eileen
Good Answers (22)
Donald J. B.
Global HR Communications Leader at The Dow Chemical Company
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My 7-year-old son asks me -- "What video games did you play in the olden days?"
My response (after a laugh) -- "there weren't any video games in the 1800s."
My son's response -- "OK, what about music videos?"
Saul C.
Head of Magic at FreshBooks
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My three year old asked me the other day "How do me eyes grow". I realize this isn't as good as a beautiful member of the opposite sex asking you if you are busy later but I thought it was pretty clever!
Saul Colt
Director of Fun
THE TOY AGENCY at Happy Worker
Clarification added September 19, 2007:
It should read "How do my eyes grow"
Darn typo :)
Tom F.
Editorial Director at Information Security Media Group
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When my daughter was 7, she announced that she'd learned all about where babies come from. I pressed her for details, and she said some older girl on the bus had told her that to make a baby, a man had to go inside a woman's (she whispers) "private area."
I told her yes, that sounded about right.
She said "What do you have to do -- shrink down?"
She was envisioning Fantastic Voyage!
I didn't dare respond that, no, technically one *grew*. I just laughed as she concluded "That's so disgusting!"
best,
Tom
John W.
Converged Communications Support Engineer at Vox Network Solutions
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It's a technical story. I work in the customer premise equipment telecom industry. The cards that are installed in the phone system have lights on them to indicate an error condition. When the lights are off, everything is fine, when the lights are on, there is a problem.
I went out to a customer site that had experienced a power outage, but after the power outage, they complained that the phone system was broken. I asked them how they knew it was broken. They explained to me in all seriousness that they had tried pulling and reseating the cards in the phone system but couldn't get the lights to stay on, and this is how they knew it was broken. They asked how to keep the lights on.
I was stunned for a second and then, after having determined that no one on site or on contract had any knowledge about the phone system, responded:
If your phone system looks like a christmas tree, then that means something is wrong. The red light on the cards is like a stop light: Stop. Don't do anything. Call for support.
I also pulled the IT guy aside and asked him if he would pull cards out of a computer while it was powered up. He responded no. I said "don't do it to a phone system either."
Somone in my office yesterday had asked us "Where is the pleasure button".
Pleasure refers to how someone uses their car. But the way it was said just made the entire office burst with laughter.
I was invited by a Fortune 100 company to come in and see if I could improve their processes several years ago. While interviewing several of their employees to define the current process, one young fellow stopped me cold when he asked; "Why isn't my boss asking me these questions?"
That turned out to lead me to the major theme of my report.
It always amazed me what kind of knowledge was already in the client company. Almost all the time the answer is right there and current management can't see the forest for the trees. It seems to take an outsider with a good sense for critical information to find it.
Was it Michelangelo that said sculpture was chipping away the stone to reveal the image in the stone that I see. Of course I never saw the answer before I started chipping away at the knowledge base. I just knew there was an answer somewhere and it was always a surprise when I found it. In this case the question I got back from the employee above was really a surprise. I never forgot that one.
Wei L.
Life-long learner; Global Citizen; Volunteer;
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Hi Eileen,
One of my kids asked me one question I still don't have a good answer...
How can I hold my fart in front of class when I have no control of ?
One time his classmate did it in the class and everyone laughed at that 5th grader years ago, who responded "I can't hold it, can you guys ?"
Cheers,
Wei
Kim B.
Executive Producer- creative illusions Video Productions Atlanta, RDU and Washington DC twitter.com/ciproductions
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My little sister asked me "what is it that the birds do with the bees"?
I am 12 years older than her...she was 8..I said something along the lines of work together to make a special honey...I told her the truth a few years later.
Kim
David C.
C# / ASP.Net Web Developer
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To be or not to be? That is the question - Hamlet
When I first learned this question it was just a clever serious of words to me. It didn't really have any content.
Several years later it hit me:
Hamlet is asking himself is life actually worth living? I have the power to end my life now through suicide, but is it better to be alive or dead?
This is still the profoundest question there is for me. Is living worth it?
Thinking about the question makes me feel as I do when I find myself transfixed in something like a star flecked sky or insightful artwork. Small and yet part of something huge.
When I was in second grade, my great grandmother was explaning to us that she was in a motorbike accident when she young.
My little brother stopped eating dinner, stood up and walked over to where she was sitting and asked her : "did you die?"
We still don't let him live that down.
Well one of the funniest that automatically came in to my head;
My fiance is learning English, slowly I might add!! And a friend of mine curses a lot and uses the f word in almost every sentence. Well his listening skills are definitely improving as he picked up on this and turned around and asked her "Do you like f*&king?". Of course we all burst out laughing and the poor lamb didn't know what was going on, when we explained he was mortified - of course what he intended to ask was did she like the f word and he had no idea of the alternative meaning!! :)
Rick F.
Supply Chain Management & Manufacturing
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...The one that left you awestruck, speechless or laughing?... It has got to be some of the questions right here at LinkedIn Answers.
Like when people post a question in "Information Systems" looking for "information" on trucks or cars; or asking what gifts men like posted in Inventory Management. Sometimes ya gotta wonder!
David L.
Caddy Master at TheDigitalGolfer.com
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Last Christmas my (then 5 year old) daughter was involved in the school nativity play. She was the third lamb from the right.
She really loves the nativity story and ended up reading it to her every night before bed. Well, one day she turned round and asked this one:
"If baby Jesus is the son of god, what was Mary doing with Joseph?"
Greg H.
Affiliate Marketing Manager at GoDaddy.com
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At my last job there was an IT guy who was continually providing quotes and questions that were fodder for everyone, at one point there was a fairly long list that contained his quotes of the day put together by the development staff.
This is my personal favorite:
Hey, if you're going to Canada, could you bring me back a toilet?
Nobody really knew how to respond to his request for a black market toilet.
Stephen W.
Director, Marketing and Communications at Managed Health Services
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We were going on a trip to California. My two daughters had never been out of our home state before. When we got off the plans, my oldest, wanting to prove her seniority over the youngest asked "Where do we exchange our money to California money?"
Lourdes F.
Spa Manager and Consultant at Chase Evans Salon & Spa
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Hi Eileen,
This was not a question asked, but even now we still laugh about it.
1- My daughter Bianca was 3 years old, she had just finished seeing the dentist. She was walking around admiring all the fish tanks and critters the office was decorated with. All of a sudden she yells:
"Look Momma! A Dinosaur! "
It was the pet Iguana... the entire office burst out laughing.
2- Christina was 2 years old, one day she comes to me and asks me if I could draw a picture for her. I stopped what I was doing and sat down with her. When I asked her what would you like me to draw? She answered:
An Octopus.
Best, Lourdes
Phyllis P.
Chief Technology Lead
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I was working in the operating systems technical area of my company and one day a systems analyst came over to ask one of our techy gods about some work she wanted done. She asked him, "How hard is that to do?" And he responded, well, how hard do you want me to make it.
It just went to show that we have a lot of control on the solutions we have for many of our situations....and if we want to make it impossible, we can. And if we want to do the work and make it easier, we can do that also.
Sanjay N.
CIO at Technology for Business Solutions
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When my son turned 4 years old, I sat him down to teach him chess. He learnt the names of the pieces and the different moves they were allowed to make. When I was confident that he understood all the rules, we proceeded to play the first game of his life.
One by one I started capturing his pieces. Suddenly the board was flung on my face and the cardboard chess board ripped into several parts...a seething young 4 year old with clenched fists was hissing "so you were teaching me to defeat me?"
sanjay9negi@hotmail.com
When my boss asks , You know what I mean ?
Harshwardhan G.
Engineering Designer, Innovator, Machine-Builder, Writer, Mentor, Skeptic!
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Hi Eileen,
I'll give you two for the price of one :-)
When my daughter was two, she once decided she wanted to ride a bicycle. I explained to her she could do that when she grew up (the Hindi phrase literally means 'become big'). She asked me if all kids grew up ('all small people became big'). When I replied in the affirmative, she promptly asked me if all 'big people became small'! :-)
Another time, me and my brother-in-law, a railway enthusiast, wanted to ride a locomotive. When we requested the driver (in Marathi, the local language) if we could come in and ride with him, he replied rather suspiciously in English, "Who you?" then thought for a moment and corrected himself, "I mean, You who?"
If he had replied in Marathi (Tumhi kon?) his phrasing would have been perfectly correct grammatically, but he couldn't resist the temptation to show off his very limited knowledge of English :-)
Harshwardhan
Cosimo C.
Cofounder and Sales Director at ExMachina Technology Consultants LLC
Best Answers in: Education and Schools (1)
Hello,
every time they ask me "What would you do at my place ?"
Last time it was the VP of my previous company and I could not dare telling him to resign :-)
Regards,
Cosimo
More Answers (7)
Mitch K.
Author, Top-rated Speaker, Leadership Coach and World Traveler
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"What matters?" When you think about it that is a damn good question.
José Carlos F.
Looking for TALENTED COMPANIES, be part of our international group, info@companyofcompanies.com
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Dear Eileen,
My son is know 11 months and almost daily he says pa, pa, pa.
About a week ago I said to him say papi. And he did. I was so astonished that he said papi because I was not expecting it. It took me by surprise.
The one that leaves you awestruck, speechless or laughing?
Is the one that takes you by surprise.
Eric (Rick) T.
Editor of The Register Citizen, Torrington CT
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I don't know if it's the 'best' question...but the one I always like to hear from my associates begins with, "What if...?"
It tells me they're thinking beyond what is status quo.
Raghav Raman P.
Assessments | Psychomteric testing | Surveys
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Hello Eileen
My cousin about 7-8 years old asked me the spelling of ‘Banana’.
I replied aren’t you aware?
My cousin replied, I am aware however not sure how many times na – na appears.
My childhood friend asked me before we met last in the hospital…
Raghav, will you be there in heaven as you are with me now?
Kanchana W.
Director/Founder at SENATH Ltd
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We are moving, so I needed to find a school for our son (6 years). The other day I got an email from the school saying that 'We have a vacancy for your son for the term 4". I showed him the email and I asked him to read it, thinking that he will be very happy with it. After reading the email, he asked me "why are they doing that to me?" what can I say :-)
Janet B.
Enterprise Information Architect & Corporate Therapist
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The ones that have left me awestruck are probably not PG13 however this morning I was asked for Nemo Juice from my 2 year old and being a visual person that cracked me up.
Clarification added September 20, 2007:
My husband was asked (right in front of me) how much to buy me off him by one of the Indian programmers once. Worse still he started negotiating!!
