Back in the 1990s, my IT college tutor was regaling the class with a story about his time working on a helpdesk for his old company.

One client, in particular, kept phoning to complain that he couldn’t get the floppy disks to work. At the time, the huge 5.25-inch actually-floppy floppies were the height of sophistication.

After taking several calls about the same issue, sending and resending batches of the disks to the client, and being unable to make any sense of it, my tutor got permission to visit the client and try to work out what was going on.

When he got there, he asked the client to show him what he was doing when the issue occurred.

To his utter amazement, the client took a brand-new disk from the packet, proceeded to peel the thick protective cover off the disk, and then try to insert the round, thin, magnetic storage part into the drive.

Apparently, the client had wondered why there was so much “packaging” around the disk, and on pulling one apart the first time, decided that the magnetic storage looked so fragile that the additional “packaging” made sense.

Related:
Their Knowledge Is A Bit Floppy

My wife and I both work full time and we were finding that we didn’t have enough time to do more than a cursory clean of the house unless we wanted to spend all our weekends deep-cleaning. So, we decided it was in our finances to hire a cleaner to come around every two weeks to do a deep clean of the house. We set out looking for a cleaning service and found one that one of our friends had.

They came for a consultation and everything seemed to be in order. They looked at the house and gave us a cost estimate. We signed the contract, gave them the code to our front door, and scheduled the first cleaning appointment.

On the day of the cleaning appointment, the service called twenty minutes after the cleaner was supposed to be there to tell us that the cleaner was sick and they had to reschedule.

The day of the rescheduled appointment rolled around and nobody showed up. We called the service and they told us that the cleaner (a different one this time) was sick.

On the third attempt, nobody showed up and nobody would answer the phone at the service. Over the next couple of days, I tried to contact them but they never answered the phone.

At this point, I was very worried that this was all just a scam to get our door code and times when we would be out of the house, so I changed the door code and left a bad review stating that they just never showed up and people should be wary of giving them personal information.

They wrote back on the review, “How can you be upset with our service if you never even had us clean your house?”

We spoke to our friends who had recommended the service and found out that while we were going through this, they had fired the service because the cleaner had stolen an iPod from them.

I’m looking to buy a digital camera as a gift for a friend who I know needs one. The camera I have is very good and I know it would suit my friend’s needs, so I’m looking for another one online. I find a seller on [Auction Website] selling a new one for a good price with cheap shipping, so I order it right away.

I live in a relatively small town in North Dakota, and the winters can be pretty harsh, so I think nothing of it when I get an email from the seller about the camera, telling me that the shipment may be delayed due to a bad winter storm in their area. I reply, saying that it’s fine and I understand, as my area is also currently experiencing a bad winter storm.

Out of curiosity, I navigate to the seller’s page to see where they are shipping from. To my surprise, they are shown as being in the same small North Dakota town I’m in! And somehow, neither of us noticed this before.

I have a laugh and email the seller again, pointing out the funny coincidence, and offering to just meet them somewhere local and pick up the camera if they would prefer. They reply with equal astonishment and amusement and agree to meet at a coffee shop for the hand-off.

We meet and share another laugh about the situation, and they even refund me the shipping charge in cash.

A couple of times, we’ve had customers try to spread their religions in our store. One was very understanding about not wanting to discuss such things while working; the other got booted out the door and told not to come back — a perk of owning your own business.

The worst, though, was the customer who needed a call when orders were ready and refused to answer their phone, letting it go to voicemail… the greeting of which was a Bible verse and prayer before they ever told you to leave a message. On their BUSINESS phone. Nope, nope, nope.

I was a lifeguard with cleaning duties. Two kids pooped in the boys’ locker room sink.

But they were short, so one of them must have been on the shoulders of the other to actually get the poop into the sink. Either that or they pooped in their hands and put it in the sink.

We used a whole jug of bleach cleaning that mess!