I witness this exchange in the key-cutting section of a department store. 

Customer: “I need you to recut these. They don’t work!”

Associate: “Sir, you very clearly didn’t buy these here. I can cut you new ones, but I will have to charge you for them.”

Customer: “H*** no! You guys cut them wrong! I’m not paying.”

Associate: “Sir, with all due respect, these are clearly not even machine cut. These marks here—” *points at something* “—indicate that they were probably hand-filed.”

Customer: “I—”

Associate: “In addition to that, we don’t even carry this key blank in brass coloring, only silver.” 

Customer: “But—”

Associate: “I haven’t even heard of this key manufacturer before.”

The associate puts the keys on the counter. 

Customer: *Slapping the counter* “Sir! Are you calling me a liar?!”

The associate looks at the keys and then back at the man a couple of times.

Associate: “Uhh… yes.”

Customer: “Oh… okay.” 

The customer slides the keys off the counter and slowly leaves the area dejectedly, without another word. 

[Associate #2] emerges from the sports section.

Associate #2: “What the h*** was that?”

Associate: “I’m not sure.”

One of our employees managed to lock his car keys in his car and his keycard in his office. He came up to the window and was checking out a temporary badge. I had been in the building cafeteria and came back just in time to hear this exchange.

Employee: “Thank you so much. Once I get my keycard, I can get out of here.”

Coworker: *Looking confused* “Sir?”

Employee: “Yes?”

Coworker: “Forgive me for asking this, but… how is getting your building keycard from your office going to get your car keys out of your car?”

There was a very long pause.

Employee: “F***!”

Both my coworker and I jumped.

Employee: “F****** MOTHERF*****! F***! F****** F***!”

He proceeded to leave the lobby.

Coworker: “Was that my fault?”

Me: “No.”

It took four hours for roadside assistance to send a man to pop the door locks on [Employee]’s car. When he arrived, he found out that the back passenger door was unlocked.

I’m a site supervisor of an industrial property that rents partly to a truck rental company. We are literally the last truck rental location going west across the island so the activity is always high.

The property is not a twenty-four-hour return site, which is not only stipulated in the contract but also on a separate sheet of paper. The people who rent the trucks literally sign a box saying, “I acknowledge that my truck must be returned by 6:30 pm as the property is not a twenty-four-hour return site.”

This restriction is in place for safety reasons as the property features a steep hill with no guard rails or lighting, meaning we don’t want the liability that comes with people driving into the lower valley at night.

It is 7:45 pm and it’s raining. A twenty-foot box truck pulls up to the main gate of the property, which is closed. The woman in the truck leans on the horn. Due to our proximity to a housing area, I am forced to come out. She has a car behind her, being driven by a man that I recognize as her husband from earlier in the day.

Me: “Good evening! Please don’t do that! We have housing in the area.”

I allow the gate to roll shut behind me so she can’t drive past.

Driver: “Oh, well, I need to return this rental.”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, this isn’t a twenty-four-hour return site, and due to the weather, I can’t allow you onsite. It’s too dangerous at night.”

Driver: “Well, the girl at the desk told me that I could return until 8:00.”

Me: “No, ma’am.”

Driver: “Excuse me?”

Me: “[Storage Facility] does not own this property; they are a tenant and they are not allowed to authorize after-hours access for guests. I was also in the office when you rented your truck and [Agent] told you about our hours.”

Driver: “Do you have proof?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

I pull the copy of the addendum out of my clipboard.

Me: “This paper that you signed when you rented states that we are not a twenty-four-hour return site and stipu—”

Driver: “I wasn’t given that.”

I sigh. We are doing the WHOLE song and dance tonight, apparently.

Me: “Okay, maybe we can make an exception. Do you have your signed rental contract?”

Driver: “Yes!”

She hands me the rental contract with a large smile. She apparently doesn’t realize that it is a modified, site-specific document authorized by the rental company’s corporate side. She clearly assumes that because she claims not to have seen the addendum I will allow her to return under the terms of a normal contract.

I flip the pages, fold it back, and read it off.

Me: “Renter acknowledges that the property at [address] is not a twenty-four-hour return site and vehicles may not be returned past 1800 hours.”

Her smile blows out like a light bulb as I hand her the contract with her signature on the line.

Driver: “What do you expect me to do?!”

Me: “You can leave the truck here on [Public Road] and come back tomorrow morning to complete the return.”

Driver: “No, I want to make sure it gets back!”

Me: “I understand that, but unfortunately, it’s too dangerous with the weather right now.”

She gets all huffy and looks around, waving to the CRV. Her husband unfolds himself from the vehicle and comes over.

Driver’s Husband: “Is there a problem?”

Me: “Yes, sir, you are outside of our return time.”

Driver’s Husband: “Oh, okay, that’s fine. We can bring it back in the morning.”

The woman at the wheel looks crestfallen. Once they leave, I think that’s the end of the story, but I am wrong.

The next day, the property operations manager calls me over to ask why I turned away a rental return at 5:30.

I tell him that I turned away a return at 7:45, not 5:30. Apparently, the couple has complained to property management but conveniently moved the time to sound as if they were returning in the correct window.

Operations Manager: “I thought that didn’t sound like you. She said you were yelling at her and called her a b****.”

Me: “You’ve known me for six years; when have I ever?”

Operations Manager: “I still have to look into it. I believe you but [Storage Facility] will want something solid.”

Me: “I was literally in the valley. The keypad logs will show that I entered at 4:00 and didn’t come out until 6:50.”

Operations Manager: “As will the cameras.”

Me: “Yup.”

Operations Manager: “And your shift log.”

Me: “Yup.”

Operations Manager: “And the truck’s GPS.”

Me: “Yup.”

Operations Manager: “And the dash camera.”

Me: “Yup.”

Operations Manager: “And that concludes my investigation. Let’s go get lunch.”

A mom drops off a gaming PC. Allegedly, her son has been complaining about it overheating and she’s decided to see what can be done about it as a surprise for his birthday, meaning she removed the PC from the house without his knowledge. Remember that.

This is in the summer, so overheating cases are common, and most PCs only require some quick treatment with our air gun. However, when the tech examines this one, she has concerns about the power supply, so she accepts the computer for repair with apologies, explaining that, due to our current traffic, it will be a number of days before it even makes it to the bench.

The customer seems displeased by this but accepts the tech’s explanation and quote, clearing us to do the work.

We assume that she told her son about this as he began to call the shop every… single… day. He calls every day, multiple times a day, asking if we have started work on his PC.

Eventually, the technician, who happens to be the owner’s daughter, gets fed up with it and gets permission from her father to deal with the computer and get it out of our shop.

As soon as she pops the side panel off, we find out why this kid has been calling us so incessantly.

Apparently, when his PC is off while he is at school or work or whatever he does (I don’t know his age) he uses the PC case to hide his weed as neither parent is the type to open up a computer.

Now, this isn’t the cause of the overheating problem, but it is the cause of a new legal dilemma, as this is 2009 and marijuana legalization hasn’t begun anywhere yet.

In the end, the owner of the shop decides to call the mother and bring her down to the store where he explains to her exactly why we have to reject the repair, giving her the chance to handle the issue without police involvement. 

I’m not sure what the conversation came down to, but in the end, that PC ended up in our “scrap for parts” pile and never saw the light of day again.

I work in a small family-owned computer repair store in my hometown. A man walks into the shop with a PC.

Customer: “It doesn’t turn on.”

Our tech offers to do a diagnostic on the machine for a small fee, but the owner turns her down.

Customer: “I need it working so I can retrieve some pictures. Please do whatever you need to do to make that happen.”

After we clarify with the customer that we have his permission to start work with no parameters and have him sign the necessary documentation, he leaves and the PC goes to the back.

We are in a bit of a dead season for repairs, so the tech happily starts work on the computer immediately while I continue my duties of cleaning up the shop.

Tech #1: “Can you bring the air gun down? I think we’ll need it.”

Tech #2: “Mmmhmmm.”

Tech #1: “All right, he stated that it doesn’t turn on at all, so I’m going to start with the power supply.”

Tech #2: “All right.”

As soon as they removed the side panel of the computer, all I could hear was screaming, and that isn’t a normal thing from either of the technicians on duty. These are computer repair techs; they have seen some very strange and concerning things on people’s computers.

I immediately moved to the shop to find spiders, spiders everywhere, hundreds of spiders crawling out of this PC sitting on the work bench.

The lead tech grabbed a trash bag, enveloped the entire PC in it, spiders and all, tied it shut, and literally pitched the machine out the front door where it hit the ground with a loud DUNK! and slid into the bushes of the mall.

The technician then called the customer on the phone and explained what had happened and where he could find his PC if he wanted it back. She also offered a free hard drive recovery and backup should he bring the PC back minus its eight-legged tenants so he could have his photos.

Apparently, the pictures weren’t all that important because, after we retrieved the machine and set it nicely outside the shop for pickup, it sat there for several days before disappearing.