Old Man: “Can you help me find something?”
Me: “Sure.”
Old Man: “There’s two of them, and they come in a box.”
Me: “Uh… what do you do with them?”
Old Man: “You clean things.”
I take him to where the cleaning products are, thinking he wants brillo pads.
Old Man: “I didn’t mean cleaning stoves; I mean for cleaning open wounds.”
I work in the wellness department of a natural foods store. We often work with customers to sift through our products and help them pick the right ones.
Customer: “Hi. I’m looking for a calcium supplement for my kids. I don’t need anything fancy — no flavors or anything because they can swallow pills.”
Me: “Wow, aren’t you lucky!”
Most parents have a horrendous time trying to find something their kid will willingly take because most kids can’t swallow pills.
Customer: “Oh, they’re seven and twelve; of course they’re fine.”
Me: “Huh. I couldn’t swallow pills when I was seven.”
Customer: “Well, we’re all a little spoiled. If your parents had made you, you would’ve gotten them down.”
Maybe so, but my parents didn’t abuse me.
A customer enters the store and asks me for the pricing on an auto part.
Me: “All right, what year, make, and model is the vehicle you are working on?”
Customer: “Oh, I won’t be doing the work; I’ll have a friend of mine who knows cars do that.”
Me: “All right, so what year, make, and model car do you need the part for?”
Customer: *Blank stare* “It’s red.”
I work for a company that has two stores within four miles of each other. I get a phone call from a customer requesting the part number for an item; after determining the part number, I tell the customer the number and the price. Then, this happens.
Me: “Would you like me to put that part on hold for you?”
Customer: “No, that’s all right. I’m looking at it on the shelf right now.”
Me: “Um…”
Customer: “I’m in your other store. I just hate the people here and didn’t want to talk to them.”
When I was in middle school, my math classes required a graphing calculator. My older brother and I were both math geeks, so he showed me how to use the “programs” feature of the calculator to do some cool stuff — not related to class.
Eventually, we learned the quadratic formula in class. After finishing the unit and passing the quiz, I had the bright idea to create a calculator program to do the formula for me. I then showed the program to my teacher, expecting the teacher to be impressed by my ingenuity, but instead, the teacher told me I wasn’t allowed to do that. I tried to point out that the mere fact that I had created the program was evidence that I had mastered the formula, but my teacher wouldn’t hear it. So, no time-saving shortcuts for me.
Looking back on it now, I wonder if the teacher didn’t believe I had created the program myself, but I’m still annoyed; as I said before, I had already passed the test on the formula itself, and using my calculator for the formula should have been no different than using it for basic arithmetic.
