I should be SO Smurfing fired.

[bob the goat]

I work for a high end wood office furniture manufacturer. I help customers design custom things, but occasionally have to deal with questions that are just strange.

We have a bunch of different wood types we can use, and also many stain colors that we can apply to them. It is common for someone to order pieces of furniture from more than one manufacturer and put them in the same space. When that happens, they give us a sample of the wood that they chose from the other company and we match it. We sometimes get requests for wood that is un-stained, to which we apply a protective clear coat. Once in a great while we get a request for “Unfinished” wood that they plan to stain and finish at the job site. We will not do that. This customer was just confused as to what they want:

Customer: can you do custom stain colors on wood?

Me: Yes, we have a very good color lab, Stain To Match is a 10% additional charge to everything.

Customer: What about blue?

Me: blue?

Customer: Yes, blue, but they said that they don’t want any stain on the wood. They just want unfinished wood.

Me: That is blue?

Customer: yes.

Me: Unfortunately, our wood supplier can not get smurfwood, so you are out of luck on the naturally blue wood. I can see if we can stain something blue for you.

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

I've seen lumber that was brown, tan, yellow, red, & even purple. I've never seen blue wood. Maybe a guy who was really, really cold?

[Happy Otter Lover]

I heard that pine trees that have been killed by the pine beetle produce blue wood. Some people were marketing it as 'denim pine'. The damage done by the beetle doesn't weaken the wood in anyway, it just kills the tree, so the lumber can still be used in construction.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

I've seen lumber that was brown, tan, yellow, red, & even purple. I've never seen blue wood. Maybe a guy who was really, really cold?

Or been holding back for awhile.
Oh wait, my bad, that's blue balls.

[Sheldonrs]

Blue wood; no.
BLOWN "wood"; yes.

[Sliceanddice]

ive heard of blue wood before but i always figured it was so pricey no one would bother usingit unless it was for something really expensive... if you said the thing about smurf wood out loud you pretty rude

[WanderingSaint]

I have never heard or seem of blue wood other then the 'denim wood' that has already been mentioned. I know you can get 'blue' wood fro construction that is actually treated wood that has a chemicle type added to it that prevents the future growth of molds.

Expensive, and not something you want to use to make furniture out of.

I don't think it was rude, I think it was a humerous turn on things. I'm quite sure if I wasthe one having hte brainfart on the order, I'd laugh at it. Then again I'm known for actaully having some humour....

[Broomjockey]

Re: thread title. I agree.

From the sound of it, the customer was ordering for someone else. Which means the poor soul was likely stuck having to ask for it, despite looking like a twit for doing so. Which means Bob went off on the wrong person. I feel sorry for them.

[RetailWorkhorse]

I'm going to go to the lumber store and see if they have blue wood.

I will take a photo.

And I will dub it Smurfwood.

Because that is funny as hell.

Did the guy laugh as well?

[KnitShoni]

Actually, treated wood is more green than blue.

[powerboy]

Actually, treated wood is more green than blue.

It is, until time takes it course

[gunsage]

Well, yeah, you probably would get fired for modifying a TCP/IP packet in that manner.

[bob the goat]

Re: thread title. I agree.

From the sound of it, the customer was ordering for someone else. Which means the poor soul was likely stuck having to ask for it, despite looking like a twit for doing so. Which means Bob went off on the wrong person. I feel sorry for them.

I was dealing with an interior designer. The designer is my customer. They are paid by their customer to create a room, but the designer is the one responsible for selecting finishes for the customer to approve.

In this case, the designer had a local wood worker that was building the door frames, doors, and window frames. The wood worker was going to use a blue stain on the wood then clear coat it. He told the designer that he would finish our wood so that it all matched. He had no idea what he was asking for, and the designer is supposed to be the reality filter, because she has the big picture in view.

The twit was the designer that is supposed to know better. They are not new to the industry, and she had just finished throwing around her weight as to how important she was and how long she had been in the industry.

Do not feel sorry for them, they are a person with enough experience to know that what they are asking for is ridiculous.

[PepperElf]

Me: Unfortunately, our wood supplier can not get smurfwood, so you are out of luck on the naturally blue wood. I can see if we can stain something blue for you.

O/T but you should have been with my last AD&D group. My bored wild mage cast a spell of "I want a blue spruce" and the DM rolled "Divinity", meaning the mage's God (the god of fire) granted the wish. ...only he wasn't a totally bright god. Instead of a single blue spruce... we got about 200+ spruce trees.... as bright blue as Pepsi cans.

unfortunately they also had the nature of fire with wood at over 100 degrees F. ... so i doubt it'd have worked for a smurfwood substitute. (yeah make me a dresser out of that naturally HOT wood will ya?)

Said mage died when she got silly and turned clouds into clowns and about 1000 clowns fell on the party.


so... did they still want blue unfinished wood? or perhaps blue wood matte instead?