If Only It Were That Simple

Back in my retail days, I once had a customer try to return a power bar — an extension cord with multiple outlets, often with surge protectors.

Customer: “This didn’t work! I’d like to return it.”

I tried it out. I plugged in a nearby lamp and it worked just fine. Despite this, she kept insisting it didn’t work.

This was getting weird.

Me: “Can you show me how it doesn’t work? It’s working just fine for me.”

She plugged the lamp into the power bar… and plugged the power bar into itself. The look of triumph on her face when the lamp did not light up was really something to see.

It took way too long to explain that the power bar does not, in fact, MAKE power. Once that sunk in, she demanded a full refund on the power bar and said she would be bringing back the television she’d bought with it; her plan had been to run the television on the power bar, to save on electricity. At no point did she seem to see any humour, irony, or sheer idiocy in any of this.

I never would have believed people like this existed if it weren’t for working retail.