Customer: “I need a new laptop, but my son told me what to get as we both know you like to oversell to people who don’t know much about computers.”

Me: “Ma’am, we will always try to sell you the computer that best suits your needs. Perhaps if you tell me what your son advised, I can help you find the right laptop.”

She hands me a badly-written piece of paper that is full of contradictory information. Her son wants her to get both an AMD and Intel processor, a ridiculous amount of RAM but nothing else that will take advantage of such an expensive part of the hardware, etc.

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t think this is the best configuration for a computer. Perhaps if you told me what you use it for, I can advise best.”

Customer: “Just give me what’s on the list! My son is an expert!”

Me: “I don’t think I can, ma’am. Some of this wouldn’t work together, and some of this wouldn’t work at all.”

Customer: “You’re just trying to sell me something I don’t need! My son is an expert! He knows how to forward and unsend emails and attach photos to them!” 

She eventually came back with her son, whose only requirement was, “Can I play ‘Call Of Duty’ on it?”

This is from the time when every software suite came in a box with lots of discs to install it on the client’s machine. You’d put in disc #1, the drive would whirr and hum, finally popping the disc out again, and the computer would prompt you to “Insert disc #2”. And so on.

A client purchased a huge, expensive desktop publishing suite for his Apple Mac FX (also expensive), and as I knew the installation was a bit of a hassle, I offered to come in and install the software — for free, as he had just paid a lot for it.

Client: *Crankily* “Do you think I’m too dense to do a simple install?”

Fine with me; it saved me a longish drive. He took the box and left.

Some hours later, he called me on the helpline.

Client: “Listen, what crap have you sold me there? I can’t install it on the Mac. It’s not working.”

Me: “Let me walk you through it. Normally, it is quite a long procedure with a lot of swaps, but it works just fine. Sooo… what did you do?”

Client: “Well, I did exactly as I was told. What do you think I am, stupid? I put in disc #1 as it said on the screen.”

Me: “Good. And then?”

Client: “For God’s sake, what do you think? It said, ‘Insert disc #2’, so I put it in the drive.”

Me: “And?”

Client: “And now both of them are stuck!”

Oops. The drive was toast, the discs were broken, and he had no warranty. And yes, I did think that he was… well…

I work at a computer store around 1995 or 1996. A lady comes in and grabs about six to nine very large mousepads.

Me: “Ma’am, why do you need so many mousepads?”

Customer: “I need all of them spread out on my desk because I can’t get from one end of the computer screen to the other with only the one mouse pad!”

I had to spend a long time helping her learn how to use her mouse.

Customer: “I need to replace my MacBook Pro.”

The customer has the extra paid-for warranty, and the purchase is only a few months old.

Me: “Why do you need a replacement?”

Customer: “My grandma used my brand-new MacBook Pro to dry her soaking wet towels because it has a ‘built-in warming pad’.”

He got the replacement.

While I’m giving a pretty in-depth demo of how to use a word processing program, a customer pooh-poohs using a mouse.

Customer: “No mouse. I only want to use the keyboard. I’m an author, you see.”

This isn’t immediately a problem until I explain how to use the arrow keys to move around. 

Customer: *With disdain* “I won’t buy a computer with arrow keys. I’m an author, you see.”

Without skipping a beat, I lead her over to an identical model computer and keyboard.

Me: “Then you should get this one with ‘directional pointers’ instead.

Customer: “Yes. I’ll take that one.”