A woman brings in a book.

Customer: “I want a picture from this book blown up.”

Coworker: “No. It’s illegal for us to do such a thing.”

Customer: “Huh?! Is this new?”

Coworker: “Copyright? It’s been around for a while.”

Customer: “I’ve never heard of this.”

Coworker: “Well, despite any ignorance of copyright law, it is still something we have to follow.”

Customer: “What if I cut it out of the book?”

Coworker: “That’s not a loophole. If you want to use it, you have to ask permission from the publisher.”

Customer: “Well, this is my uncle’s book.”

Coworker: “It’s his copy of the book, or he published it?”

Customer: “…yes.” 

Coworker: “I don’t think we can help you, ma’am.”

Related:
CopyWrong, Part 5
CopyWrong, Part 4
CopyWrong, Part 3
CopyWrong, Part 2
CopyWrong

Customer: “Can you put my husband back into the frame?”

She hands me a framed photo of her with some friends.

Me: “Can you let me know what you mean?”

Customer: “Oh, what’s the technical term? When you cut something out you ‘crop’ it, right? I need you to ‘uncrop’ my husband back into the photo.”

On the far right side of the photo, I can see somebody’s shoulder (her husband), but the rest of him is cut off.

Me: “Was he included in the original photo?”

Customer: “No, this is the whole photo.”

Me: “Then I’m afraid we can’t do that, ma’am.”

Customer: “Why not? He’s standing right there!”

Me: “Yes, but if he wasn’t captured in the photo, I can’t just… magic him in there.”

Customer: “But can’t you use Photoshop?”

Me: “Ma’am, Photoshop only allows me to work on the photo that’s already there. I can’t… adjust the image to show more.”

The customer is confused and keeps asking me if I can do something, always worded in a slightly different way. The customer behind them is aware of this and is getting more and more impatient. Finally, they snap.

Next Customer: “Seriously, lady! What you want is impossible! It’s not like you’re tilting a f****** mirror! Accept it and go!“ 

The customer made a “Well, I never!” gasp, and I simply nodded in agreement. Defeated, she finally left. The next customer did not ask me to assume all photos are portals to other dimensions, so we were good.

I am coming in for the afternoon/evening shift at our large copy shop and stationery store. I see my coworker handing a customer their copies.

Customer: “But… these are wrong! They’re all upside down!”

[Coworker] simply turns them around and the customer goes silent while I chuckle — just another silly customer story. I go to the staffroom at the back to finish my coffee before my shift. The room has a large whiteboard, and the staff has gotten into the habit of writing down memorable customer interactions on there, almost like our own mini Not Always Right!

[Coworker] comes into the staffroom and writes down the interaction I just witnessed on the whiteboard, followed by:

• “A customer asked if we could fax them cash to pay for a bill.”
• “When I asked a customer if their home computer was a Mac or PC, they answered, ‘It’s got a keyboard and monitor.’”
• “A customer asked to add color to a black-and-white photo.”

Me: “Wow, you had a bad run of customers this morning.”

Coworker: “Oh, no, these were all that same customer.” 

Me: “…”

I work in a copy shop. An older lady comes in once or twice a week, usually thirty minutes before close. She repeatedly insults my work and vocally expresses her feelings.

Customer: “I wish the girl who worked here before you was still around. She knew what she was doing!”

Me: “I will try to help as best as I can, ma’am.”

Customer: “I need you to bring out all of my past church flyer designs that the other girl — the one who knew what she was doing — backed up on your computers.”

Me: “Ma’am, backing up your designs is not our responsibility. We offer to back up all the work on a customer’s thumb drive or CD after we make each design. Did my previous coworker offer that to you?”

Customer: “Well, yes, but she always kept them anyway.”

Our computer has recently been reimaged, and we have literally nothing on it other than our software. I tell her this.

Customer: “No! I swear my church flyers are on there somewhere! They always are!”

I do some searches to appease her even though I know it’s gone. I seriously spend a good half-hour showing her it isn’t in ANY folder on the computer.

Customer: *Flipping out* “That other girl must have taken them so that you couldn’t mess them up or steal them!”

It’s past closing, so my manager comes over to see why I am still with a customer. The customer complains to the manager and the manager then turns to me.

Manager: “This is unacceptable, [My Name]. If the customer received a level of service with us before, then she should expect to receive the same level when she comes back.”

Me: “But we’re not responsible for—”

Manager: “Recreate the flyer for the customer so that we can hopefully retain her business.”

Me: “It’s past closing, and that would take an hour if not more. You do it.”

Manager: “Excuse me?”

Me: “I’m going home. Think about how you treat me so that you can hopefully retain my willingness to be employed by you.” 

I went home. I got written up. I quit.

I used to work in a copy shop. We offered typesetting services through the use of our extraordinarily expensive Macintosh II and LaserWriter IIntx laser printer (quite the rarity in those days). Resumés were very common; I would type at least a dozen resumés every week.

A woman came in to have her resumé set. At first, I thought she was just a little off, but by the time she left, I was convinced she was off her meds.

Her source material (normally a sheet or two of handwritten or typewritten paper) was in a brown paper lunch bag and was written in several different pen colors across about a dozen scraps of paper, including a tissue and what looked like a wax paper wrapping from a sandwich.

I asked her to put it in order for me and she got very irritated with me, as if I didn’t understand something so obvious. It took her more than half an hour to select a typeface, and ultimately, she selected a very sci-fi headline font.

I tried to convince her to go with something more traditional but stopped after she threatened to call the police for “violating her rights”. I decided to just give her what she wanted and let the chips fall where they may.

I took her information and payment and she left. I called the owner and told him what happened, and he agreed that I should just do the resumé as she wanted it. It took me about a half-hour to figure out her handwriting and turn it into the two-page epic monologue that was her resumé.

Setting the font made the thing virtually illegible. When she came back the next day, she spent over an hour at the counter proofreading it; she would giggle like a school girl every few minutes, hold the proof paper up at different angles and under different lights, and I swear at one point she even smelled the paper. She paid the balance and left.

About four months later she returned to the shop (wearing, I swear, bedroom slippers) screeching like a banshee that we had ripped her off and that she was going to call the police and sue us because it was our fault her resumé wasn’t getting her a job. I told her to have her attorney contact the owner at the store’s address, gave her a business card, and apologized if she felt ripped off. She left the store in a huff, and we never heard from her again.