Me: “Thank you for calling The UPS Store, this is [My Name] speaking, how may I help you?”

Caller: “Yeah, hi. I need to find out how much it will be to send something to Iowa.”

Me: “I’d be happy to get you an estimate on shipping. Could I get the dimensions and weight of the box as well as the ZIP code of the destination?”

Caller: “Yeah, it’s probably about ten pounds, and about this big.”

Me: “Well, I need a ZIP code for the destination, but you didn’t really give me the dimensions of the box.”

Caller: “The ZIP code is 51365, and it’s about this big.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t see your hands, so you’ll have to give me some sort of numeric dimension to work with.”

Caller: “Oh, let me get a ruler–” *click*

Me: *sigh*

Customer: *in the store, who overheard the phone conversation* “Are you serious?!”

(I am a waiter at a ’50s style dinner in a mall restaurant. A customer asks me to turn the heat up.)

Customer: “It’s a little cold in here. Could you turn the heat up?”

Me: “I would love to, but the restaurant is open to the mall and we have no control over the mall temperature.”

Customer: “Could you please just try?”

Me: “I would love to, but there is no way–”

Customer: “I would really appreciate it if you would just try.”

Me: “I’ll be right back and see what I can do.”

(I then proceed to walk into the back house and munch on some onion rings. After a few minutes pass, I walk out.)

Me: “How’s that?”

Customer: “Much better!”

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(A middle-aged woman comes up to the counter.)

Woman: “Your machine is broken! It will only copy the first page of my packet and now I have fifty copies of the first page and I’m not paying for them!”

Me: “No problem, ma’am, I can credit your card for the copies. Let’s see if I can fix it.”

(When I get to the copier I see that she has laid the entire stack of papers on the glass.)

Me: *trying not to laugh* “If you would like the machine to copy the whole stack automatically you need to place it in the feeder tray, not just set it on the glass.”

(I had just started a new IT job for a large school district and was not expecting the level of stupidity I would be dealing with on a regular basis. Within my first three weeks, I receive a phone call from a school.)

Clerk: “Hi, I am trying to use this new system on these computers and I’m attempting to make my account. My Principal got me started but now I am stuck.”

Me: “What seems to be the problem?”

Clerk: “Well, it is asking me for First Name and I have no idea what I am supposed to type.”

Me: “You’re at the registration screen? Um… well I think you are supposed to enter your name.”

Clerk: “Oh… okay… wait. No, it’s asking me for something else.”

Me: “What now?”

Clerk: “It says… last… name… what do I put here?”

Me: “Probably your last name.”

Clerk: “Oh, thanks… oh Jesus, now it’s asking for my phone number! What the h*** am I suppose to put here! Why can’t I just do it the old fashioned way?”

Me: “You mean pen and paper?”

Clerk: “Yes! It was so much easier. These fancy computers are just so complicated. I never understand what I am supposed to do!”

(I bit my tongue and just let her ramble on about how ‘First Name’ was such an incredibly hard concept to grasp.)

(I am a naturalist on a semi-submersible vessel for a summer in Alaska. The passengers get to sit in the bottom section of the boat, six feet below the waterline, looking out of large windows. Over the course of the summer I get a couple of fun questions.)

Tourist #1: “Hey, where are all the tropical fish?”

Me: *blink* “Um, in the tropics, sir. This is Alaska.”

Tourist #2: “Are we going to see any bears?”

Me: *looking out the windows at fields of kelp and bored-looking rockfish* “Sorry, no. We haven’t been able to get them to use the scuba equipment without chewing through it yet.”