Maybe The Guy Should Ask To Rent A Brain

I work as a student worker with my university’s IT department. We service and manage computers for students and faculty, typically with malware or hardware issues. Sometimes, we have customers that need something done with their phone, in which cases we usually can’t do much more than connect them to the university’s Wi-Fi.

This happens less than a month after I start working on the front desk directly with customers. The more experienced student worker that has been showing me the ropes has stepped away for a moment. The glass front door is thrown open and a very tall, lanky customer storms in.

Me: “Hello, sir, how can I—”

I’m interrupted as the customer thrusts his phone across the front desk and into my face. He has the flashlight function on and it glares right into my eyes.

Customer: “Why is there that light?”

Me: “Um, you may have left the flashlight on, sir?”

Customer: “You mean, you don’t know?”

Me: “We don’t typically service phones. I think—”

Customer: *Shouting* “God, why do you even work here?!”

The customer storms out, muttering something about me being useless. The other student worker returns to the front, having heard the shouting.

Student Worker: “Ah, was that the rent-a-room guy?”

Me: “What?”

Student Worker: “Did he want to rent a room?”

Me: “No. We don’t rent rooms, do we?”

Student Worker: “No, but he was in a bit ago and screamed at me about wanting to rent a room.”

Me: “He wanted me to turn the flashlight off on his phone.”

Student Worker: “Looks like he’s using one of the computer lab computers.”

Our office is adjacent to the university computer lab. From the front desk, we can see through the window as the customer angrily slumps into one of the seats and logs in. By now, our supervisor has come out from the back.

Supervisor: “That was horrible.”

Me: “Yeah, the guy screamed at me.”

Supervisor: “If he comes back in, try to get his username. We can report him to student conduct for being verbally abusive.”

Student Worker: “What if he’s not a student?”

Supervisor: “Then we can report him to his department manager.”

After an hour, the customer got up and left without coming back in. That’s when I hatched a plan. I went to the computer he had been using, logged in, and looked at the “user” folders in the computer’s hard drive. They were all recorded with usernames, and there weren’t more than ten. I quickly copied the usernames to an email and sent it to my supervisor.

He replied simply that he had it.

The other student worker identified the guy by his account photograph when the right username was looked up, and he was reported. I never saw that customer again.