A Poor Memory For Memory

(A respected and “highly educated” member of our area walks into the shop I work for. I say, “highly educated,” because his profession requires multiple degrees. Day 1:)

Customer: “This stick of memory is bad; my system has been warning me of memory errors.”

(This is a no-nonsense kind of guy, so I look at the memory, grab a new module, and hand it to our secretary to ring it up for him.)

Me: “This is an identical replacement. Same model, even.”

(Day 2: The secretary leaves a note.)

Note: “Mr. [Customer] yelled and screamed at me on the phone last night that we sold him a bad part. I said tomorrow was my day off but that you’d be here. Sucks to be you!”

(The customer comes in. I apologize and exchange the stick for a new — unopened and same spec — higher-end stick. Day 3: I have just opened the shop. Suddenly, I hear a car door slam and someone cussing up a storm, followed shortly by another car door slamming. Our door opens to the same swearing voice and the worst stench of ozone.)

Customer: “You [string of expletives]! You will fix my computer right f***ing now and stop selling me broken s***, or you close tonight, permanently.”

(The secretary hides.)

Me: *calmly* “To help me figure out what the original problem is, what was the memory error it had?”

Customer: “It won’t even g**d*** turn on!”

Me: *still calm* “No, sir, the original error, from two days ago.”

Customer: “What the f*** does that have to do with the scam you’re running?”

Me: *calm silence*

Customer: “Some virtual memory bull****!”

Me: “What did you do after the error?”

Customer: “I pulled the broken memory out.”

Me: *pause* “Did you turn it off first?”

(The customer storms out, leaving his computer. The secretary peeks out from the restroom.)

Secretary: “What was wrong?”

Me: “Someone skipped fourth grade earth science. Touching electricity, bad.”

(We tested every component. The original stick of memory was the only undamaged part. Even the case LEDs blew out.)