Why Tech Support Needs Hazard Pay

(We don’t have a tech support team of any kind at our store. However, since I have my certifications to do, I often perform simple repairs for customers if it’s not busy. On this particular day, a gentleman walks into the store with his laptop, looking panicky.)

Customer: “Hey, can you fix my computer?”

Me: “I suppose. What seems to be happening?”

Customer: “I can’t back up my iPhone. I keep getting an error message.”

Me: “I’ll have a look for you.”

(I turn on the laptop, plug in his phone, and get an error message saying that there isn’t enough drive space. He has 16.8MB of space left on a 500GB drive. I check to see what’s clogging up all his drive space and find that almost EVERY file on his drive is very strange, deviant p*rnography.)

Me: “Sir… your hard drive is full of p*rn.”

Customer: “So?”

Me: “That’s why you can’t back up your iPhone. You don’t have enough room.”

Customer: “I’m not sure I follow.”

Me: “Sir, you have too much p*rn on your hard drive. If you delete some of it, you’ll have enough room for the files on your iPhone.”

Customer: *beginning to panic even further* “But I can’t delete it! I need it! I NEED IT ALL!”

Me: “Um, okay…” *I grab a USB drive off the shelf* “This is a flash drive. You can move some of your files on to it and then you’ll have room to back up your iPhone.”

Customer: “Can you show me how? I’m not good with this tech stuff.”

(I ring the flash drive through the till. He pays for it and I move a bunch of his files over to the thumb drive.)

Me: “There you go, sir. Now you can back up your iPhone.”

Customer: “Thank you. Um, can I get a few more of those flash…thingies?”

Me: “Sure.”

(He grabs four more 16GB drives, pays for them, and hurriedly leaves the store.)