(The repair clinic I work at is a non-profit organization involving many low-income residents, mostly Chinese. One day, a man with very broken English comes in, nearly running)
Man: “HELLO!”
Me (startled): “woah! Uh, hi, how can I help you?”
Man: “You! Help me, viseetah! Viseetah!”
Me: “um…. I don’t understand… you’re a visitor?”
(The man gives me this exaggerated frowning face)
Man: “Viseetah, you have! Viseetah!”
(The man abruptly runs away, leaving me confused. A minute later he comes running back in, showing me this old computer with a Pentium III and must have come from the late 90s.)
Man: “You help now! Viseetah!”
(I still don’t understand what he wants, so I pull out a piece of paper and gesture him to write it down.”
Paper: “VisTA”
Me: “Oooh! You want Windows Vista!”
Man: “Yes! Viseetah!”
Me: “Yeah… I’m sorry but I can’t help you with that…”
(The man looks mortified. I know there is no chance I can explain to him why he can’t and shouldn’t use Vista, so I go to the front desk assistant, who speaks fluent Chinese.)
Me: “Hi [assistant]. I don’t know how to explain to this man that his PC is too old to handle Vista and that we don’t support it. Could you please explain this to him, and ask him what he wants it for?”.
Assistant (after talking to the man): “He wants it so he can use a webcam to talk to his daughter in China”.
(I knew that he didn’t need Vista for this, so I set up the webcam for him. I help him set his computer back up in his apartment, and he insists that I stick around so I can meet his daughter.)
Man: “This fantastic!”
(The daughter sees me in the camera and clearly looks uncomfortable, probably because I do too. Her and the man are talking to each other in Chinese, and eventually the connection gives out.)
Man: “So… Viseetah?”
Me: “Nope, won’t help.”
Man: “Oh… here!”
(The man gives me a bag of oranges, and I return to my office).

A customer just came in asking me to for an adapter to connect her printer to her VGA port. When I convinced her that VGA ports and printers don’t connect, ever, and why…. she asked “What about 24 pin to HDMI? Do you have one of those?”
If I had one, I’d have happily sold her seferal, just in case one was defective.

I have been an IT tech for fifteen years. I absolutely love it when people ask for a man.

I have an older man calling from the Bronx — I am Canadian. He is being a total a**, calling me “little lady” and such. He asks if he can speak to a man, and I tell him none are available. I then ask him if he wants me to lower my voice and strap one on to help him. He laughs for about ten minutes and is happy to let me help him after that.

(It’s around the year 2000. My mother has brought one of our computers in to have some issues checked out, as they’re bad enough to interfere with the computer’s functionality.)

Tech: “Okay, I took a look, and it seems you’ve got a couple viruses that need to be taken care of.”

Mom: “Viruses?”

Tech: “Yeah. You need to be careful what sort of websites you visit; some may download things to your computer without you noticing.”

Mom: “Uh-huh… That’s an interesting problem for a computer that’s never been connected to the Internet.”

(We did get the computer fixed, somewhere else.)

(The battery to my computer has died. To save gas, I walk to my local computer repair to see if they can order one, so I don’t have to drive to a battery supply store miles away. This was a mistake.)

Me: “Hi, I’m hoping you can order a battery for me. I know I need a battery for a [Model].”

Clerk: “Are you sure you want that, sweetheart?”

Me: “Yes. I took a picture of the back of my laptop so I know that is the model I need, and I know the issue is with the battery because I tested it.”

Clerk: *disbelieving* “Ooookayyyy.” *types on computer* “It’ll be four hundred dollars to order it and install.”

Me: “I know how to install a battery, and I know for a fact that the highest the price should be is about a hundred fifty, and the lowest I saw was around seventy dollars. Even then, installation shouldn’t cost as much as the battery itself; you just take out two screws and click it in.”

Clerk: “Look, sweetie: that’s the price. Take it or leave it.”

Me: “I guess I’m leaving it, then.”

(I start leaving when a woman comes in. I ask what the issue is with the laptop she’s carrying because I don’t want her to have the same issues I did with the condescending clerk.)

Woman: “I was told I need to reinstall the operating system because I shut it down during an update.”

Me: “They just tried to rip me off here for a new battery. I know [Tech Team] at [Popular Electronics Store] will do that for about a hundred dollars. Go there if they try to overcharge you here.”

Woman: “Thank you!”

(After that I left. I hope that store got its act together, but I doubt it.)