(I’m attempting to pull a heavy hand cart that happens to have a broken wheel. I also have a very rude impatient customer behind me.)

Customer: “Oh, come on! Is that as fast as you can pull that thing?”

(I pay little attention to the customer, and I continue to struggle with the truck.)

Customer: “When did this place start hiring wimpy, weak-a** boys to do this sort of work!?”

(I continue to ignore the customer as I turn into the aisle I’m assigned to work in. As my luck should have it, the customer is also headed there.)

Customer: “Figures, it’s a long-haired pretty-boy. Go work at a clothing store you f**! You obviously can’t handle this job.”

(I turn to face the woman, who almost immediately goes pale at my appearance.)

Me: “Ma’am, I apologize for moving so slow, but this cart has a broken wheel. I was going about as fast as I could. And as you can see from my name tag, I am not a ‘long-haired pretty-boy’; I’m a young woman.”

Customer: “Young women shouldn’t work here either!”

(She hurries off, without getting what she needs from my aisle. That was the first time in six and a half years that a woman told me I shouldn’t be doing my job.)

(I work in a Cyber Cafe, where the workers are allowed to use their laptops when they are on break. I am notorious around the store with both the customers and my coworkers, because I prefer to use a Mac rather than another type of computer. One customer comes in holding her Mac laptop and a USB.)

Customer: “Hey, you’re good with Macs, right?”

Me: “I like to think so, why?”

Customer: “I just recently got a Mac, and I’m transferring data over with a USB drive. This one doesn’t appear to be working.”

Me: “How so?”

Customer: “I plugged in this USB into the laptop, but it doesn’t recognize it.”

Me: “That seems odd; let me try another USB.”

(I try a spare USB lying around the workplace.)

Me: “This one works fine; let me see your USB for a moment.”

(The customer hands me her USB.)

Customer: “It’s probably the stupid laptop. Now I see why everyone hates Macs. It’s a stupid brand of computer, for stupid people.”

(The customer glares at me. I ignore it and flip over the USB, reading the bottom.)

Me: “Ma’am?”

Customer: “What?”

Me: “This isn’t a USB.”

Customer: “Uh…”

Me: “It’s a Bluetooth transceiver.”

(The customer freezes, snatches the transceiver, and runs out of the cafe with her laptop.)

This story is part of our Macintosh roundup!

Read the next Macintosh roundup story!

Read the Macintosh roundup!

(My uncle owns a chain of bike shops. We’re having a meal with my grandparents, and have gathered at the shop waiting for my cousin to finish his shift. An obnoxious customer is giving him trouble.)

Customer: “You are useless! Do you even know anything about bikes?”

Cousin: “When I’m not here, I race them.”

Customer: “Don’t take that tone with me!”

Cousin: “I wasn’t trying to take any tone—”

Customer: “Do you know who I am?! I’m the owner’s brother, and I will have you fired!”

(I am unable to contain myself, and turn to my brother.)

Me: “Did you hear that, bro? We’ve got another uncle!”

Customer: “…What?”

(The customer turns to see the crowd of us waiting.)

Dad: “I have another brother?”

Granddad: *to my grandmother* “Was this while I was away at sea? How could you?”

Grandmother: “All the jokes about a child in every port, and you were hiding THIS?”

Customer: “I… er…”

Uncle: “Well you don’t need to ring me; I’m here already! What has my son done this time?”

(The customer runs out. My dad starts shouting after him in a bad Italian accent.)

Dad: “You don’t a messa with the family!”

Grandmother: *to my granddad* “Well that one’s definitely yours.”

(I’m working as a graduate TA at a local high school. The teacher I’m assigned to conducts an independent study class two periods a day. During those classes, the students work on projects of their own choice individually or in small groups. Usually those classes are pretty quiet, but today, while the teacher is out…)

Student #1: *whistles the first line of the ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’ theme song*

Student #2: “Sponge Bob Square Pants!”

Student #1: “Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!”

Student #2: “Sponge Bob Square Pants!”

Students #1 and #2: “If nautical nonsense be something ya wish…”

Half The Class: “Sponge Bob Square Pants!”

Students #1 and #2: “Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish!”

Entire Class: “Sponge Bob Square Pants!”

(The teacher rips the door open and bursts in.)

Teacher: “What the h*** is going on here?!”

Student #1: “Ready?”

Entire Class: “Sponge Bob Square Pants! Sponge Bob Square Pants! Sponge Bob Square Pants!”

Entire Class and Teacher: “Sponge Bob… Square PAAAAAAANTS!”

Student #1: “Ah, har ha har har…”

(I’m head technician at the call center for the campus IT department and receive a call from one of the program directors at an off-campus location.)

Me: “IT, how may I assist you?”

Program Director: “This new computer they sent me is broken! It won’t take my document!”

Me: “I’ll see what I can do, but you’re going to have to tell me a little more. First, what do you mean by ‘it won’t take’ your document?”

Program Director: “I have all these correspondences from all these people, and I’m supposed to put them on the computer. It won’t take them.”

Me: “Are you trying to type them in to a word processing program? Or are you wanting to scan them in using some kind of scanner device?”

Program Director: “DON’T GET TECHNICAL WITH ME! I’m an educated person,; I have TWO DOCTORATES, SO DON’T YOU DARE TALK DOWN TO ME!”

Me: “I’m not talking down to you; I assure you. If you don’t understand the terms I just used, I can define them for you and we can try to get you back on track here. Do you know what a word processing program is? Or a flat-bed scanner?”

Program Director: “There you go again, belittling me! I demand to speak to your supervisor!”

Me “Ma’am, you can speak to my supervisor, right after we fix this issue. I have no problem at all transferring you to the supervisor, but right now, I’d really like to just fix whatever the problem you are having, and then you can speak to the boss. Would that be alright with you? Fix the issue first, and then speak to the supervisor?”

Program Director: “Well, okay, but this had better not take much longer!”

Me: “I’ll go as fast as I can. Please tell me exactly how you are attempting to get the documents into the computer, one step at a time, if you would?”

Program Director: “Step by step? This is stupid, but okay, here goes. First, I pick up one of the letters that need to be in the computer. Got that?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. Got it. Then what do you do with it?”

Program Director: “I hold it up in front of the big screen thing, but NOTHING HAPPENS. And so WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? I need to get going on this,; it is very important.”

Me: “Just one more question, I think, should do it. By ‘the big screen thing,’ do you by any chance mean the white box that kind of looks like a television, and has [brand name] on the front of it?”

Program Director: “Yes. That’s it exactly.”

(Turns out she was holding papers up to the monitor, and expecting the computer to be able to read them in, as if it was an eyeball or something. When she found out that she would have to type all these documents in to a word processing document, she about hit the ceiling.)