I work at a tech shop that offers repairs. A coworker of mine has a bad habit of cracking all sorts of sex jokes in response to… basically anything that happens in his vicinity, no matter how far he has to stretch to find an appropriate remark. One day, my boss gets fed up, and threatens to fire him if he makes one more remark.

Less than ten minutes later, a customer comes in demanding a refund, or else a free repair, on one of our products, claiming it was defective. When [Coworker] pulls said product out of the box, we are greeted with one of the most sickening sights in the technology world: plugs forced into ports they don’t belong in, badly damaged in the process. Some of them look like scissors or knives have been taken to the plug heads to make them fit.

Coworker: “Yeah, this is not a defective product. This is user error.”

Customer: “I didn’t come here to be insulted!”

Coworker: “Well, then don’t stick something in the wrong hole!”

Realizing what he just said, [Coworker] covers his mouth with one hand and looks over at [Boss] with fear in his eyes.

Boss: “…Nah, that was too easy. I’m gonna let that one slide.”

The customer was most upset to find that he had wandered into a place where the workers are allowed to identify user error as the incompetence and stupidity that it is, and ended up storming out with the destroyed device in hand. We later found pieces of it scattered across the parking lot.

CONTENT WARNING: Gross

One of the first jobs that I worked was in computer repair. The company has long since closed down, but reading a story here reminded me of my PC repair days. I thought of many happy memories and one customer story to share here later, but then… then I remembered the most horrible thing I have ever encountered.

When I was in high school, I worked at a small computer repair store in my hometown as a janitor, I have a few stories up on NAR from that time. When high school ended, I left the store in favor of college, but a couple of years later, I returned as a janitor under the promise that I would also learn computer repair. The store had shut down the old location it was at and moved to a built-out storage unit in an area we call the “Tech Park.”

The issue with this location was that it didn’t have a bathroom in it since it was a storage unit, and even though the storage facility had a bathroom open to us my boss was a rather large individual and he decided that the distance from the store to the main office was too far for him to walk.

So, he peed in cups, McDonald’s, Burger King, and any fast-food cup he could find lying around. When he couldn’t find a cup, he moved on to clear storage containers that we used normally for parts. The worst part is that he would then not remove them from the store when he did make the journey to the main office or left for the day. The p*** cups and p*** buckets were left to gather up under tables and on work surfaces outside of customer view. Occasionally, some of these buckets would be used for multiple p*** breaks. I didn’t touch them, even back then, I understood that I did not have the proper PPE to handle this task, but working around them was also difficult.

For some reason, I didn’t leave. Looking back, I don’t know why I stayed. Knowing what I know and being the person that I am now, if something like this were to happen again, I’d leave on the first day.

Then it came, the day I was expecting, I was told to help clean up all the p*** buckets.

I didn’t.

I didn’t say no, I didn’t argue, I just opted not to and silently continued my normal duties, cleaning the shop without knocking over a warm cup of week-old p*** and learning basic repair.

Finally, the owner’s daughter visited one day. She took one step into the back and blew up at her father, demanding to know if he had been forcing me to clean up the p*** buckets. She then put on… not enough PPE at all… and started pouring p*** containers into one large container. The smell was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced in my existence, and I was thankful that, when I offered to help, she not only refused because it was dangerous, but also kicked both of us out of the store.

I’m not sure what she did with what must have been eight gallons of p***, but when I got the text to come back, the store was clear. She and I worked together to clean the shop, and she added me on social media so I could keep her apprised of things before having a very serious talk with her father.

I left about two weeks later in pursuit of employment with another company and began work as a seasonal carnival employee. At the end of the carnival season, only a few months later, I drove back to the storage facility and found the store to be gone.

I loved working at the original store, and I will forever be thankful to the owner and his family for helping me enter the workforce while I was still a high school Junior, as well as for the mentorship and training I received under them… but… p*** buckets.

I own a small IT repair company. We are a very small company, so we all do most of the work required.

Every time a home user brings a PC or laptop in to be fixed, we add it to the system and issue a case number. Every piece of equipment has a small sticker on it with the case number; every part taken off the pc or laptop has one too to avoid confusion or parts mix-up.

About a week ago a lady came in with a laptop to be cleaned, so it was added to the system, and a case number was issued. We gave her a credit-card-sized card with the case number and our contact phone number to check the status if she needs it.

After about two days, I called her to tell her that it’s ready to pick up and she can come by.

Customer: “Hi, I came to pick up my laptop.”

Me: “Okay, what is the case number?”

Customer: “I don’t know, I lost my card with the number.”

Me: “Okay, what is your name? I can look it up in the system.”

Customer: “No need, I can see my laptop on the desk over there.”

She points to a gaming laptop on the service desk, where we store hardware that needs to be fixed.

Me: “I’m sorry, but that laptop isn’t ready yet.”

Customer: “You called me to pick it up, so I came.”

Me: “It must be some mistake. Can you tell me your last name, please?”

Customer: “It’s [Name].”

I look at the system, and I see her laptop is ready to pick up. I check the number, and her laptop is on the “ready to pick up” desk, so I bring it back to her.

Customer: “This is not my laptop; it’s that one.”

Me: “No, madam, it’s definitely this one.”

Customer: “But I don’t want this one, I want that one. If you are not gonna do your job, just call your manager. I am gonna have you fired.”

Me: “I am sorry, but that isn’t possible as I don’t have a manager or boss. I am the owner of the company. I can give you only your own laptop, or I can call the police due to you trying to steal someone else’s laptop.”

After a five-second stare-off, she grabs her laptop and disappears.

Did she really think we are so dumb that we would let her steal someone else’s laptop?

I work in a shop that sells and repairs computers and phones. Since we are an IT business, it’s pretty rare that we ever get tech support scam phone calls. But one quiet afternoon, an unfortunate scammer tries to call our shop. The business owner takes the phone call, and since it’s a slow afternoon, he decides to put it on speakerphone, pretend to be an old person who doesn’t use the Internet, and have some fun with it.

Scammer: “We are calling from [Large Internet Provider] to let you know that there is a problem with your IP address.”

Manager: “Oh, sorry, what address did I pee at?”

Scammer: “Your IP address is [long string of numbers], and this is a public address, not a private address.”

Manager: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean. I don’t think any street here has that address, and I definitely didn’t pee anywhere in public. I only ever do that in private.”

Scammer: “No, no, no, sir. I don’t mean that kind of pee. IP means your Internet Protocol address. Everybody can see your address.”

Manager: “Well, I’m sure they can. If you drive past my street, our address is easily visible.”

Scammer: “No, not that address! Your Internet Protocol. It has been compromised, and now everyone can see it! This is a risk to your online security!”

Manager: “Oh, okay. That doesn’t sound good. What should I do?”

Scammer: “Can you please open your web browser on your phone?”

Manager: “How do I do that?”

Scammer: “Okay, what brand is your phone? Is it an Apple or an Android?”

Manager: “Um, I don’t know. I think it’s a Nokia. There are lots of buttons on it, but none of them say ‘web browser’.”

Scammer: “Okay, I see. Do you have a computer or a tablet, then?”

Manager: “Yes, I have a tablet at dinner time.”

Scammer: “What kind of tablet is it? Is it an Apple iPad or an Android?”

Manager: “Um, it’s a Panadol tablet.”

Scammer: “Sorry, I’m not familiar with that brand. Is it some kind of Android tablet?”

Manager: “I don’t think so. I just take it as I get headaches a lot.”

Scammer: “Oh, okay. Then what device do you use to get on the Internet?”

Manager: “I don’t know. I don’t use the Internet.”

Scammer: “But how do you pay for your [Internet Provider] bill? Wouldn’t you do that on the Internet?”

Manager: “But didn’t you say you are from [Internet Provider]? Don’t you know how I pay my bill?”

Scammer: “Um… I’m not from their billing department, so I can’t see that.”

Manager: “Okay. I just mail them a cheque.”

Scammer: *Hangs up*

Between the I-Pee address and the Panadol tablet, I was in stitches after that. It was the most entertaining thing that happened on that quiet afternoon.

Back in the day, I worked for a computer repair store for a while. I get sent out to fix an old lady’s slow internet issue. Despite not knowing the correct terminology for a lot of things, she is quite adept at navigating the menus on Internet Explorer.

Me: “Hmm, the browser is taking up a lot of the available memory. When did you last delete your history?”

Customer: “I don’t want to do that.”

I check and she has her ‘Save History’ set to 999 days.

Me: “Did you set it that high?”

Customer: “Yes, it’s so the Internet always knows where I want to go and it finishes typing websites for me in the bar thing.”

She had never heard of ‘Favorites’. I explained them to her and then deleted three years of history, surprisingly, without Windows crashing.