(I work at a photo center as a technician. We develop pictures in all standard sizes, ranging from wallet-sized to giant posters, and we can usually do almost anything with pictures. Note that a 4×8 is a small, long rectangle and an 8×10 is more of a square, two completely different shapes.)

Me: “Good morning! How may I help you today?”

Customer: “Hello! I need this picture to be an 8×10, please.” *hands me an invitation that measures 4×8*

Me: “Okay, just so you know, due to the shape of this picture, there will be a little white around the edges to make up for the missing space.”

Customer: “Oh, no! That won’t do! I need it to cover the whole 8×10 area!”

Me: “Well, in that case, the only thing I can do is stretch the image to make it reach the top, but the image will be squashed.”

Customer: “No! That won’t do. either! I just want this to be in an 8×10! How hard could it be?!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, due to the law of mass, it is physically impossible to put something with these measurements into an 8×10 without either squashing the image or having a small amount of space left over. If you like, I can cut the space off once it is printed.”

Customer: “NO! THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! YOU WILL DO THIS FOR ME!”

Me: “Ma’am, what you are asking would require me to break a law of physics. That is not possible!”

Customer: “Fine! If you will not print this for me, I will go find someone who will!”

Me: *under my breath* “Good luck, ma’am! I hear Stephen Hawking is hard to get a hold of, though.”

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(I work at a printing shop at a university with a really big business program. We get a lot of students printing out important projects for their business classes. They are usually really picky about how the projects look and will print two or three copies before they are finally satisfied with the result. A student comes in to print a booklet for her project.)

Student: “So, all of these pages look good, but this page needs to be red.”

(I am confused, because she doesn’t have any red pages anywhere else on her document, and if she wants it red she just has to go change it before printing.)

Me: “Well, if you want it red you can go change it in the document and we can print just that page again.”

Student: “No! I need it red! It’s all blurry and it needs to be red!”

Me: “Again, all I can do is print; if you want to change the color, you have to do that yourself.”

Student: “No! I don’t want it red; it needs to be read, like readable!”

(She was pointing to the words on her page that were too blurry to read and she needed them clear enough to read.)

(My daughter is used for ads in another country, and the photographer gives me digital copies to use as I want. I take my daughter everywhere with me, because I’m a single mom. I go to get copies of the unused shots for the grandparents.)

Worker: “We can’t print these.”

Me: “Why?”

Worker: “They are obviously not yours!”

Me: “I’ve been given the right to use them.”

Worker: “Well, that’s not your kid!”

Me: *looking down at my kid* “She’s not?!”

My Kid: *looking up* “Hi! I’m [Name].” *then spells it* “I’m four!”

Worker: “That doesn’t prove she’s yours!”

Me: “I’ll go elsewhere.”

(An older client comes in.)

Client: “Do you do lemonade?”

Me: “Do we do… lemonade?”

Client: “Yes, I was told you do that here.”

Me: “I’m sorry; this is a graphics and print shop.”

Client: “I know that. I’m not an idiot.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Client: “Look. If you can’t lemonade these papers for me then I’ll go somewhere else!”

Me: “Do you mean… laminate?”

(Eventually he got his files “lemonaded”!)

(A middle-aged lady walks into our print shop one afternoon and comes to the counter looking a bit hesitant.)

Me: “Hello, can I help?”

Customer: “My friend told me I can do photocopies here. Is that right?”

Me: “Yes, certainly.”

Customer: “Oh… well, where are the photocopiers?”

Me: “Well, there’s one just behind you. And one over there by the door. And one up there, and one just beyond it.”

Customer: “Oh! I thought they were fridges!”