I work on the receiving team of an electronics retailer. We are also who people see to collect larger items, mainly televisions. It’s not uncommon for people to underestimate how much space their TV needs and try to collect it in a vehicle much too small. It’s recommended to transport them upright to prevent potential damage to the screen in transit; some people choose to ignore this, and others choose to come back with an appropriate vehicle another time or arrange delivery.

At the end of the day, it’s their choice; they’ve paid for the item so they can do what they want with it. I’ve seen people do plenty of stupid things to avoid having to come back or pay a delivery fee, but one guy takes the cake.

As soon as my colleague and I see his vehicle, it’s doubtful the TV will fit.

Us: “Sir, shall we do some measurements of the box to check if it will fit in your car?”

Customer: “No need. It’ll definitely fit.”

His first plan is to set the television on the floor in the rear, just behind the driver and passenger seats. We get the TV to his car and then see that he has his two toddler children in their car seats in the back seat, which is not a good start as I assume there would be some safety issue at play. However, we’re fairly confident the TV won’t fit there anyway, so we decide to humour him and prove it to hopefully end the silliness.

He has to move the driver and passenger seats a long way forward to even get the TV in place and then, sure enough, it’s too long and the back doors won’t close.

Sadly, it doesn’t end there.

Customer: “I’ll just have to lay it down to get it in.”

My customer service facade drops a little as I can’t comprehend where he thinks it will go. It might get in if he didn’t have the kids in the back seat and could fold the seat down and lay it through the boot into the back seat, but that’s not an option, and it’s not his plan.

His idea is so ridiculous that it didn’t even occur to me as a possibility: he’s going to lay the TV down across the back seat, on top of the kids in their car seats!

After a moment of shock, we regain our composure and point out to him:

Us: “Sir, if it doesn’t fit lengthways across the floor, it’s still not going to fit lengthways across.”

With a more reasonable person I might have tried the tactic of how much danger he was putting his kids in, but a more reasonable person wouldn’t have had this idea in the first place.

It takes some convincing, but we’re eventually able to get him to realise that it will not fit. He briefly contemplates the idea of laying it down inside the car the other way, with one end on top of the kids in the backseat and the other end resting in the front seat headrests, but he rules this idea out as it would be hitting him in the head.

I think it’s finally over, but not quite.

He decides now that things might be easier if the kids weren’t in the car and he could fold the back seat down. But instead of deciding to take them home and come back with an empty vehicle, he comments:

Customer: “If only my wife had come with me, I could leave the kids with her, take the TV home, and come back for them.”

After this comment, he looks hopefully at us, as though he’s expecting us to offer to watch his kids for him. We do not offer, of course, and remain silent, although I really want to point out that it wouldn’t make a difference to him if he took the kids home first and came back for the TV or took the TV home first and came back for the kids; it’s the same number of trips.

After we fail to offer to babysit, he sadly has one more brilliant idea.

Customer: “I’ll take the car seats out, fold the backseat down to fit the TV in, and then drive home with the kids in their car seats, which will be sitting on the passenger side in the front.”

Us: “That will be very unsafe for the kids and, honestly, is a terrible idea.”

He’s unsure and seems to want to try it, but after we continue to tell him not to, he finally has one genuinely good idea:

Customer: “I’ll call my wife to see what she thinks.”

Fortunately, she very quickly shut down his terrible idea before he even finished telling it to her and told him to bring the kids home and go back for the TV later. I was very happy when he decided to take her advice and left with his kids safely secured in their seats. If people had to pass a test before being allowed to become parents, he would have had no chance.

I am the dumb customer in this one, but not until my second visit to the electronics store.

On my first visit, I was looking for a laser printer. The only model that was less than $700 was from [Brand #1], a brand that is disliked by everyone in my family and most of my friends. But I really needed a printer, so I bought it.

I use Linux instead of a more popular OS, and the printer company says they are compatible with all distro’s of Linux, but I could not get it to recognize the WiFi signal on the printer. Worse, after a few days, it refused to print via USB cable because the WiFi was not installed properly, and no amount of installing or diagnostics could get that to change. So, I decided to take it back to the store. Here’s where I got dumb.

The clerk who helped me pick a new printer was great! Unfortunately, no other store in the Metro Denver area had my selected [Brand #2] printer in stock, but I could order one and have it by the following Monday. Great! He took me to the order kiosk and we filled out my information. I was already in the system because I had signed up for toner refills and the warranty program on the [Brand #1] printer.

The clerk asked me to confirm my credentials and then put my address on the payment screen.

Clerk: “Is your address all correct?”

I glanced over it and said yes. He did some more things, then put my address back on the payment screen.

Clerk: “You’re sure this is correct?”

I laughed and confirmed. He explained that there was a woman who came in recently and screamed at him because, after he asked her to confirm, she had her package delivered to the wrong house.

Me: “It’s amazing how people don’t listen, isn’t it?”

Clerk: “Yeah. It gets pretty crazy.”

One more time, he splashed my address up to make sure I got it right. I glanced over it and agreed, so he closed the order and printed it. Then, something twitched in the back of my head. Still smiling as he handed me the order confirmation, I decided to check the address a fourth time, and… sure enough… I had missed that the apartment number was wrong!

When I gave it for the warranty on the [Brand #1] printer, I hesitated a moment as I gave it. The first half of the number is a multiple of ten, and the second is a little higher but in the same tens. Let’s say it’s 5057, for example. And when I said it, I put a bit of a pause, like “Fifty… fifty-seven.” So, when I bought the [Brand #1] printer, the clerk must have thought my number was just 57, and I was trying to remember the second digit.

Me: “Oh, shoot!”

The clerk cringed, knowing exactly what it was.

Me: “Totally not your fault. I missed the apartment number. I am such an idiot! After all that laughing at other customers, I did the same thing!”

The clerk apologized and explained that he couldn’t make the change from the kiosk in the back of the store and directed me up front. I again apologized for being that guy after all, assured him it was totally my fault, and headed up front.

There, the manager trained a cashier on how to change an address. It was a long and involved process, and I kept apologizing for my idiocy, and then I gave high praise for the clerk and his sales skills because he also got me to raise my intended price limit by about $100. The manager said she would be sure to reflect that to him and include it in his review.

The iPhone 5 has just come out. A confused-looking customer comes up to me.

Customer: “I bought an iPhone 4 from you guys last week.”

This wasn’t strange, since we sold them at a discount due to the imminent release of the iPhone 5.

Customer: “It wanted to download some software updates or whatever, but I wanted to wait until after the iPhone 5 came out so that it would be the iPhone 5.”

Me: “The iOS update already came out. You didn’t have to wait for the iPhone 5 to be released.”

Customer: “Yeah, so anyway, why is it still an iPhone 4?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Customer: “I didn’t install it until after the iPhone 5 came out. Shouldn’t my 4 become a 5?”

Me: “It doesn’t even remotely work that way.”

Customer: “It needs to work with a remote?”

Me: “…no. Let me get a manager for you.” *Unclips my store radio*

Customer: “When it becomes a 5, will it make a keyboard pop out?”

Me: “Manager to phones! Manager to phones!“

Related:
Not-So-Smart-Phone, Part 46
Not-So-Smart-Phone, Part 45
Not-So-Smart-Phone, Part 44
Not-So-Smart-Phone, Part 43
Not-So-Smart-Phone, Part 42

In the early 2000s, I am getting ready to close up at my big box electronics store when a gentleman comes in looking for a CD. I do a bit of searching and find out the release date for the CD is actually the next day.

Me: “Sir, the CD is not released yet, but if you come back tomorrow, we will have it in stock and you can pick it up.”

Customer: “Well, I saw a commercial for it on TV.”

Me: “Yes, sir, they will still promote the CD before it comes out; however, we cannot sell the CD until tomorrow.”

Customer: “Then why is it on TV?”

Me: “To raise awareness for the CD, sir.”

Customer: “You need to have someone remove that commercial.”

He then just stands there, waiting. I ask him if there is anything else I can do for him.

Customer: “I’m still waiting for you to make the call to get the commercial taken off the air.”

I am working at an electronics retailer back in the early 2000s. I am assisting a gentleman who looks to be in his fifties with a fax machine.

Me: “Perhaps if you let me know what you’ll be using it for, I can help recommend the best model for you.”

Customer: “Well, my rent checks seem to arrive late to my landlord, so I figure I’ll fax them.”

Me: “I doubt your landlord will accept a faxed check.”

Customer: “Why not?”

After a few further moments of discussion, I realize that he thinks it’s either a teleportation device or something akin to the vacuum tubes at the bank drive-thru. I explain how fax machines work and that it does not actually send the item, but more of a picture of it.

Customer: “You must not be showing me the right thing. My neighbor bought one; I’ll be back after talking to him to see which type of machine he bought.”