My Darling Little Rhinoceros

I’m busy repairing a smartphone, and since the heads of the franchise thought that having the workbench visible to the customers is a great idea, I’m in a position where customers can talk to me and see what I’m doing.

A customer with her two kids enters, trying to sell her smartphone, and my business partner begins talking to her. Meanwhile, the kids begin looking at the refurbished smartphones. While the older (ten or eleven) shows restraint, the younger (four or five) begins screaming and touching the phones with all the care of a rhino.

Obviously, the mother doesn’t say anything. Thankfully, my partner does.

Partner: “Please stop touching the phones.”

And he continues talking to the mother. The store phone rings and I get up to answer. While I’m talking on the phone, the younger child starts screaming, so I move to the back so I can understand what the customer on the phone says.

I come back to the front and see my partner escorting the customer and the kids to the door.

Partner: *Politely but firmly* “Please get out.”

Me: “What happened?”

Partner: “Once you went to the back, the younger kid tried to throw himself on your workbench with the opened phone, screws, etc., and I caught him by pure luck. In all of this, the kids’ mother didn’t scold the kid even once!”